Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance

I am pleased you don't believe in lying. Thus I can rely on you to persuade
Art Chadwick to remove his false accusations about the Peppered Moth.
Otherwise you are condoning lying.

Michael
----- Original Message -----
From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
To: "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
Cc: "AmericanScientificAffiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 2:22 PM
Subject: RE: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance

> My post answered your question. No, I do not believe in lying for any
> reason whatsoever. There is no path to God except through Jesus the
> Christ. Any other claim is contrary to Scripture, and in my opinion,
> false.
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Michael Roberts [mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk]
> Sent: Mon 9/3/2007 2:08 AM
> To: Alexanian, Moorad
> Cc: AmericanScientificAffiliation
> Subject: Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
> You have not considered Wells' false accusations and side-stepped the
> question. Does this mean you think it is permissible to lie for the
> Kingdom
> of God or for Mr Moon?
>
> Michael
>
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "Alexanian, Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>
> To: "Michael Roberts" <michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk>
> Cc: "AmericanScientificAffiliation" <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Monday, September 03, 2007 12:44 AM
> Subject: RE: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance
>
>
> I have not read Icons of Evolution but my understanding is that Wells
> documented some goofs the advocated of evolutionary theory had made.
> However, I do agree that one cannot use, say, the Piltdown fiasco as proof
> that evolutionary theory is wrong.
>
>
>
> Moorad
>
> ________________________________
>
> From: Michael Roberts [mailto:michael.andrea.r@ukonline.co.uk]
> Sent: Sun 9/2/2007 4:39 PM
> To: PvM; Peter Loose
> Cc: George Murphy; Alexanian, Moorad; AmericanScientificAffiliation
> Subject: Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance
>
>
>
> Presumably everyone on this list claims to be a Christian and thus has
> high
> ethical standards, including those of not lying and not falsely accuses
> others.
>
> This makes it crystal clear that Wells is making false accusations and has
> been doing so for at least 8 years. If DI ARN or any other ID set-up had
> any
> moral integrity they would have forced Wells to retract this charge. As
> they
> have not surely we can conclude that this is morally acceptable to them.
>
> Will Moorad, James (M) and Peter now condemn Wells for this type of thing
> or
> do they also think it morally acceptable?
>
> I am still waiting patiently for some honesty to emanate from the leaders
> of
> YEC and ID. (Yes, I know Wells is not YEC)
>
> Michael
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "PvM" <pvm.pandas@gmail.com>
> To: "Peter Loose" <peterwloose@compuserve.com>
> Cc: "Gregory Arago" <gregoryarago@yahoo.ca>; "Janice Matchett"
> <janmatch@earthlink.net>; "George Murphy" <gmurphy@raex.com>; "Alexanian,
> Moorad" <alexanian@uncw.edu>; "AmericanScientificAffiliation"
> <asa@calvin.edu>
> Sent: Saturday, September 01, 2007 11:55 PM
> Subject: Re: [asa] Behe's Math... was Arrogance
>
>
>>I am very familiar as to Wells' so called 'responses' to his critics,
>> which most often fail to address, as is the case with so many of the
>> ID proponents, the arguments raised.
>>
>> I suggest that people read the reviews, read the relevant papers, read
>> the attempts by Wells to explain his flawed arguments and everyone can
>> come to their own conclusion.
>>
>> However, Icons of Evolution, PIGDID are examples of poorly written
>> descriptions of science. Of course, from a perspective which seeks to
>> destroy Darwinism, I'd say that the books can be understood best.
>>
>> Until people stop taking the Discovery Institute seriously as a
>> reliable source of scientific information, we will continue to see how
>> people will inevitably be confused, and disappointed when confronted
>> with the facts.
>>
>> If you are interested in discussing a particular claim or example
>> cited by Wells, please present it and we can explore how well his
>> claim holds up in light of the evidence?
>>
>> Peppered Moth, Cambrian, Haeckel, Archaeopteryx... I'll let you chose.
>> It may be a very educational exercise to explore the depth of the
>> scientific vacuity of Intelligent Design arguments. As Christians, we
>> should then determine if we are willing to support a movement which
>> seems to be by all credible accounts, lacking in scientific relevance
>> and which seems to be theologically risky.
>>
>> Wells would make for an excellent example as I am quite familiar with
>> many of musings as well as with the actual status of scientific
>> knowledge and research in these area. Especially, the peppered moth...
>>
>> Does anyone remember that Wells used to claim that the peppered moth
>> does not rest on tree trunks? Later, Wells corrected his flaw by
>> adding do not normally rest on tree trunks, even though again, the
>> data did not support his thesis.
>>
>> <quote> Wells:
>>
>> BUT EVERYONE, INCLUDING MAJERUS, HAS KNOWN SINCE THE 1980'S THAT
>> PEPPERED MOTHS DO NOT REST ON TREE TRUNKS IN THE WILD. This means that
>> every time those staged photographs have been re-published since the
>> 1980's constitutes a case of deliberate scientific fraud. Michael
>> Majerus is being dishonest, and textbook-writers are lying to biology
>> students. The behavior of these people is downright scandalous.
>>
>> I know what I'm talking about. I spent much of last summer reading the
>> primary literature (email me if you want the references). Frankly, I
>> was shocked by what I found -- not only that the evidence for the
>> moths' true resting-places has been known since the 1980's, but also
>> that people like Majerus and Miller continue to deceive the public.
>>
>> Fraud is fraud. It's time to tell it like it is.
>> </quote>
>>
>> Indeed... Ironically, these were the messages Wells posted to ASA a while
>> ago...
>>
>> http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/wells/iconob.html
>>
>> Has Wells retracted his claims of 'fraud'? Does Wells indeed know what
>> he is talking about? The primary literature does not seem to agree
>> with him much, certainly most of the experts on the peppered moth have
>> argued that Wells does not know what he is talking about (Majerus,
>> Bruce Grant)
>>
>> Bruce Grant
>>
>> <quote>
>> To put them in context, the material quoted below is a copy of the
>> correspondence between Grant and a professional colleague who had
>> requested Grant's views on Wells' chapter, originally written February
>> 7, 2001.
>>
>> Subject: Wells's Chapter on Peppered Moths
>>
>> Wells's Chapter 7 is pretty similar to his earlier ms. "Second
>> thoughts about peppered moths" that he posted on the web, and
>> published in abridged form in The Scientist. I sent you my comments
>> about that version about two weeks ago. My general reaction to this
>> latest version is about the same. He distorts the picture, but
>> unfortunately he is probably pretty convincing to people who really
>> don't know the primary literature in this field. He uses two tactics.
>> One is the selective omission of relevant work. The other is to
>> scramble together separate points so doubts about one carry over to
>> the other. Basically, he is dishonest.
>>
>> He immediately launches the claim "that peppered moths in the wild
>> don't even rest on tree trunks" (p. 138). This is just plain wrong! Of
>> course they rest on tree trunks, but it's not their exclusive resting
>> site. He quotes Cyril Clarke's lack of success in finding the moths in
>> natural settings, but he omits mentioning Majerus' data which reports
>> just where on trees (exposed trunks, unexposed trunks, trunk/branch
>> joints, branches) Majerus has found moths over his 34 years of looking
>> for them. Of the 47 moths he located away from moth traps, 12 were on
>> trunks (that's &gt;25%). Of the 203 he found in the vicinities of
>> traps, 70 were on trunks (that's 34%). Based on his observations,
>> Majerus argued that the most common resting site appears to be at the
>> trunk/branch juncture. What is clear from his data is that they sit
>> all over the trees, INCLUDING the trunks. So what? Kettlewell's
>> complementary experiments in polluted and unpolluted woods compared
>> the relative success of different colored moths on the same parts of
>> trees in different areas, not different parts of trees in the same
>> area. It is true that the photos showing the moths on trunks are posed
>> (just like practically all wildlife pictures of insects are) but they
>> are not fakes. No one who reads Kettlewell's paper in which the
>> original photos appeared would get the impression from the text that
>> these were anything but posed pictures. He was attempting to compare
>> the differences in conspicuousness of the pale and dark moths on
>> different backgrounds. Nobody thought he encountered those moths like
>> that in the wild. At their normal densities, you'd be hard pressed
>> ever to find two together unless they were copulating. I have always
>> made a point of stating in photo captions that the moths are posed,
>> and I think textbook writers have been careless about this. But they
>> are not frauds.
>>
>> On the subject of lichens, no one has questioned their importance
>> more than I have. But what does Wells do with this? He quotes me, but
>> he doesn't include what else I said has happened on the Wirral (p.
>> 147) with respect to the tremendous expansion of birch stands since
>> the enactment of the smokeless zones. Kettlewell, too, argued that
>> peppered moths are well concealed on birch bark (even without
>> lichens). Wells continues (p. 148) to quote my reservations about
>> lichens in Michigan, but, again, he omits any reference to the data I
>> presented in that paper showing the decline, not only in SO2, but in
>> atmospheric particles (soot) which has been established as a factor
>> altering reflectance from the surface of tree bark. So, while I have
>> questioned the importance of lichens, I have not taken this as
>> evidence that crypsis is unimportant. Wells omits this entirely.
>>
>> Wells continues to bring up the same old arguments about
>> mysterious other factors (yet to be identified) that account for the
>> persistence of typicals in polluted regions, and the presence of
>> melanics in unpolluted locales. He cites papers written back in the
>> 70s about these puzzles. He omits discussing in any sophisticated way
>> the role of migration other than to say "Theoretical models could
>> account for the discrepancies only by invoking migration...." (p.146),
>> as if in desperation we are forced to grasp at straws. Of course
>> migration is important. Majerus actually reviews this point fairly
>> well by comparing the smoothness of clines in melanism between species
>> that are highly mobile (as is Biston), and species that are relatively
>> sedentary. Instead of showing his meaningless map of the UK (Fig. 7-2)
>> to illustrate what he regards as anomalies in the distribution of
>> melanism and lichens, why doesn't he show the before and after
>> comparison from the national surveys by Kettlewell in 1956, and the
>> survey by Grant et al. in 1996. (If you'd like, I can send you a jpg
>> file of the maps I mean.)
>>
>> Wells also inappropriately uses thermal melanism in ladybirds to
>> suggest, that while no one has shown this in peppered moths (p. 152),
>> industrial melanism can have other causes besides predation. It's not
>> just that there is no evidence for thermal melanism in peppered moths,
>> there is evidence AGAINST thermal melanism based on the geographic
>> incidence of melanism in the UK, the USA, and Europe. There are no
>> latitudinal clines, and no altitudinal clines as one might expect with
>> thermal melanism. Wells knows this, if he actually read my papers. (He
>> cites them, so I should assume he read them.) He also raises the
>> question of larval tolerance to pollutants. There is no evidence for
>> this, either. I have a paper out on this point, but in fairness to
>> Wells, it came out just this past year.
>>
>> Wells clouds discussions with irrelevancies. For examples he
>> brings up Heslop Harrison (p. 141 and again on p. 151) and the
>> question of phenotypic induction. Wells makes it sound as if most
>> biologists discount induction based on their belief in natural
>> selection (as if it were a popular religious question). The evidence
>> for the Mendelian inheritance of melanism in peppered moths has
>> nothing to do with evolutionary theory; it is based on old fashioned
>> crosses involving over 12 thousand progeny from 83 broods. The
>> Mendelian basis for this character in this species is as well
>> established as is any character in any species. Wells doesn't mention
>> this, yet he cites my review paper where I do bring this up in my
>> criticism of Sargent et al. Induction has nothing to do with
>> industrial melanism, and Wells knows it. Again, selective omissions on
>> the part of Wells.
>>
>> On page 151 Wells claims Kettlewell's evidence has been impeached.
>> This is nonsense. It has not. But I have argued, that even if it were
>> entirely thrown out, the evidence for natural selection comes from the
>> changes in the percentages of pale and melanic moths. It is this
>> record of change in allele frequency over time that is unimpeachable.
>> It is a massive record by any standard. (I can send a jpg file with
>> graphs, if you'd like.) I have pointed out, and he quotes me, that no
>> force known to science can account for these changes except for
>> natural selection. Yet, he scrambles the ingredients here. He claims
>> (top of p. 153) "...it is clear that the compelling evidence for
>> natural selection that biologists once thought they had in peppered
>> moths no longer exists." Of course the evidence for natural selection
>> exists! That evidence is overwhelming. Wells, by attempting to
>> discredit Ketttlewell's experiments about predation (and clearly there
>> are things wrong with Kettlewell's experiments) doesn't stop at saying
>> we can't be altogether sure about bird predation because of problems
>> with Kettlewell's experiments. No. He says, instead, that the evidence
>> for natural selection no longer exists. This is just plain wrong. He
>> cannot support this sweeping statement, but he spins it into his
>> conclusion by building a case against Kettlewell. This is what I mean
>> about his tactic of scrambling arguments. He wields non sequiturs
>> relentlessly.
>>
>> I hope this is helpful to you in your review.
>>
>> Bruce Grant, Professor of Biology, College of William & Mary. February
>> 2001
>> </quote>
>>
>> Hope this helps.
>>
>> Note to Alexanian, I am very careful with my posts, thank you for caring.
>>
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Received on Tue Sep 4 02:39:16 2007