1. Open Letter to a victim of Ben Stein's lying propaganda

Comment #165047 by Hyrax on April 21, 2008 at 1:40 am

[quote]I have heard many different aguments from homology...similar body stuctures...DNA based, etc...and they all seem to provide different "family trees". If the science is truely as sound as it appears to be, shouldn't there be more convergence in the research?[/quote]

Comparative anatomy and molecular phylogeny often do converge on the same tree, when they don't it is usually the failings of comparative anatomy that are to blame.
It was Darwin who first recognised that adaptive characters would be almost worthless to a taxonomist and may hide important ancestral relationships.
For example; on first inspection a naive taxonomist might assume the marsupial mole and placental mole are closely related sharing as they do so many morphological characteristics as they fill the same ecological niche in their respective environments. But a study of their reproductive systems and, crucially, their DNA would reveal the truth:- the marsupial is far more closely related to the kangaroo than it's placental counterpart.
Molecular evidence contains far more remnants of the past and can be trusted, if not completely, to a much higher degree than morphological traits.

2. AAI 2007 Photos

Comment #76695 by Hyrax on October 6, 2007 at 6:29 pm

I've put 9 of mine up in the flickr group, there's plenty more but they're not really important unless you know the RDF staff.

3. The Future Forum Presents: Christopher Hitchens and Marvin Olasky

Comment #49990 by Hyrax on June 14, 2007 at 12:38 pm

I found it particularly disdainful that he made such a special case for Christianity, every religion has its own evils but many have far less than Christianity, infact I wonder if it isn't the worst.

4. The Conversion of the Casual Evolutionist - You can't spell love without evolve

Comment #44013 by Hyrax on May 23, 2007 at 7:22 am

Maybe I'm just taking it all too seriously but this shows a very crude and often misguided interperatation of Dawkin's works. Perhaps I need to lighten up ;)

5. The Fastest-Growing Religion

Comment #42789 by Hyrax on May 19, 2007 at 3:36 pm

"particularly the more idiotic ones, like Scientology, Mormonism, Wicca, Pentecostalism, and Islam—with being the "fastest-growing religion" somewhere or other"

Why is christianity exempt from this list of idiotic religions?

6. The Case Against Intelligent Design: The Faith That Dare Not Speak Its Name

Comment #40128 by Hyrax on May 13, 2007 at 8:31 am

"But the empirical claims of scientific creationism ó that the Earth is young (6,000 to 10,000 years old), that all species were created suddenly and simultaneously, that mass extinctions were caused by a great worldwide flood ó bore a suspicious resemblance to creation stories in the Bible."

Suspicious resemblence? That's like an elephant squeeking in an attempt to pass itself of as a mouse

7. Doctors Opposing Circumcision: An Appeal for Misha

Comment #32384 by Hyrax on April 17, 2007 at 1:36 am

Like the letter to Tony Blair Graham.

This is outrageous, 12 years old? America - the land of the free - 2007 - a boy of 12 who can read, write, and talk about his feelings perfectly articulately and at that age is undoubtedly very aware of his body is being forced into a non medical operation which will change him irreversibly against his will.

Child abuse indeed

8. Does Richard Dawkins exist?

Comment #21516 by Hyrax on February 9, 2007 at 4:55 pm

Hmmmmmm, the video has pictures of Richard quite happily existing. The God Delusion includes none of the many authentic photos of God. Weird huh?

Not a patch on the masses of satire on religion, it stumbles on it's major point. Sigh.

9. Intelligent Design: The Clincher. A butterfly explodes the theory

Comment #11658 by Hyrax on December 6, 2006 at 11:13 am

A rock hyrax my friend, fell in love with them on the slopes of Mt. Kenya last summer, very romantic!

10. Intelligent Design: The Clincher. A butterfly explodes the theory

Comment #11627 by Hyrax on December 6, 2006 at 4:45 am

Hi Billy,
Basolo, A.L. (1990) Female preference predates evolution of the sword in sword tail fish. Science 250, 808-810.

Don't have the references to hand for the other 2 but they should be easy to find on google scholar, heres another useful one on the topic as a whole:

Ryan & Rand (1993) Sexual selection and signal evolution: The ghost of biases past - sorry I didn't write down what it was published in, school boy error!

Thanks for the fossil DNA link had not heard of it, I did hear about the 4 finned dolphin and I think you're right - the DNA for the second pair of fins is simply suppressed rather than eradicated and a mutation in this individual prevented that suppression and hey presto! a 4 finned dolphin!

11. Intelligent Design: The Clincher. A butterfly explodes the theory

Comment #11621 by Hyrax on December 6, 2006 at 2:56 am

It's true this is not the 'clincher' but it is part of it - a massive body of evidence. I'd like to offer up some more examples:

1.In laboratory conditions 2 species of frog, Physalemus pustulosus and P.coloradorum both show a female preference for a mating call that includes a 'chuck' sound, produced artificially. However in the wild male P. coloradorum do not issue make this sound as it is suppressed by other selection pressures but the females still show an innate preference for the 'chuck' sound in the lab which suggests that P. coloradorum evolved from a species that, like P.pustulosus, did make the 'chuck' sound

2. Females of 2 species of Xiphophorus fish, the Platyfish and the swordtails both show preference for elongated 'sword like' tails in laboratory conditions. However only swordtail males have 'sword tails' in the wild again suggesting that Platyfish evolved from fish that did have sword tails which is now suppressed by other selection pressures but the innate preference is still there, an evolutionary relic if you will.

3. Biologists discovered a species of amphibian that spends it's entire life cycle as a tadpole, it reaches sexual maturity as a tadpole, breeds as a tadpole and dies as a tadpole. The tadpoles were given developemental hormones which gave a startling result - they developed into salamanders, salamanders that presumably had not been seen for perhaps millions of years. The latter end of the lifecycle had been cut of as it no longer served a purpose but they still reatain the genes for the adult salamander from.

12. The godless guru

Comment #11186 by Hyrax on December 3, 2006 at 3:29 pm

"I wish Richard Dawkins had never played the "Bible is at least well written" card."

I for one am glad he did, it may be fantasy but it's still good fantasy. If people were worshiping Aragorn and calling for the elimination of Sauron and his followers it would not reduce the literary merit of the lord of the rings (sorry if this is a bad example, the lord of the rings has a much better morals!)

13. The faithful have departed

Comment #10889 by Hyrax on December 1, 2006 at 5:23 am

"They don't wear special clothes" - speak for yourself, I'll take any excuse to strut around in my shiny new lab coat

14. Our Teapot, which art in heaven

Comment #10134 by Hyrax on November 27, 2006 at 6:38 am

"Why should God be subject to any version of a biological theorem? Why not the laws of physics, or of chemistry?"

I hate to use the strawman metaphor again but this is the very epitomy of such an object. O'Brian would have his readers surmise that in TGD Dawkin's makes the claim that theists believe in God as a biological entity! Will critics please read the fucking book! How many times? God is subject to the laws of physics and chemistry and they have absolutely nothing to say about him/her/it.

I've heard many retorts to the ad infinitum argument, My personal favourite; "God is outside of space and time", ok, ignoring the fact that you have just invented an entirely new manner of existence that utterly lacks any evidence, how exactly does this allow God to escape the question of "why?"? It's just another far fetched version of "how?".

15. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and E.O. Wilson on the gospel of science

Comment #8829 by Hyrax on November 22, 2006 at 11:39 am

I'd just like to add to the above - "Dawkins, to put it bluntly, does not negotiate with terrorists; a very noble position" - one I completely agree with in every aspect except when it concerns biodiversity

16. Richard Dawkins, Sam Harris and E.O. Wilson on the gospel of science

Comment #8826 by Hyrax on November 22, 2006 at 11:34 am

Utter rubbish i agree but I'm not sure the visitors to this site should be so scathing of Edward Wilson's "squishy" position.

It may sound like a spineless compromise to many but the cause is just. The evangelicals of America may pose a massive threat to rationality but this is at least equaled by that posed to biodiversity.

The sad fact is that unless there is a major redirection in human behaviour 50% of the worlds species will be lost by the close of this century. Wilson believes that this redirection cannot be achieved without the co-operation of the evangelical christians because of the political power they wield.

Ideally this change would be brought about by people like Dawkins and Harris bringing science and rationality to the humanity which would lead to a greater understanding and care for the natural world. unfortunately biodiversity doesn't have anywhere near enough time to wait for such a wholescale change in human society.

Wilson's solution is to try and appeal, at least in the short term, to those who pose the greatest threat to biodiversity.

It is a compromise of principles. Dawkins, to put it bluntly, does not negotiate with terrorists; a very noble position. I however cannot bring myself to sacrafice the natural world I love so much for the sake of intellectual honesty, as much as it might pain me.

Having said all this I should qualify that it's not a case of "either or" and I certainly do not think myself qualified to make any sweeping statements of fact on the subject.