Intelligent Design creationists keep babbling about how the eye is “irreducibly complex”. As this clip shows, it isn’t. This shows how the eye could have evolved. It isn’t proof that this is how it did evolve. However, it does disprove the irreducible complexity claim.

The IDiots keep putting out one unsupported claim after another. Their so-called “theory” is bankrupt. There is no evidence behind any of it, and it predicts nothing. It’s worthless. It isn’t science.

(YouTube page is here)

PZ Myers has a good analysis of the new fossil (Ventastega curonica) announced a couple of days ago:

On one earlier side we have a bunch of tetrapod-like fish — Tiktaalik and Panderichthys, for instance — and on the later side we have fish-like tetrapods, such as Acanthostega and Ichthyostega. Now they’re talking about shades of fishiness or tetrapodiness within those groups! You’d almost think they were documenting a pattern of gradual evolutionary change.

The creationists keep claiming there are no transitional fossils. That’s a lie that’s getting harder and harder to maintain.

The latest Cectic is out. Be sure to visit the Cectic website for the finest in science comics.

Creatards frequently like to drop by this site for a friendly chat. If you are inclined to extend the classic BoF hospitality to them, you might find yourself in a light discussion of trivial matters.

To assist in your enjoyment, the Watcher recently posted an article about debating tactics. It’s an excellent introduction that is worth reading. He also links to a good discussion of logical fallacies.

Phil Plait has a good writeup on some recent space news. He writes that the Murchison meteorite:

…which fell on Australia in 1969, has been found to contain purines and pyrimidines, which are crucial to a large number of biological molecules like DNA, RNA, and ATP….
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Now the good part: scientists studying the Murchison meteorite have determined that the purines and pyrimidines — specifically, uracil and xanthine — have a non-terrestrial origin. In other words, the molecules in this meteorite, so crucial for life, were actually formed in outer space and fell to Earth.

Fundies like to yelp a lot that evolution doesn’t explain the origin of life. That’s right. We never claimed it did. The next time I hear that from a fundie, I’m going to reply “And Jesus didn’t invent popcorn!” That’s just as nonsensical of a statement.

The origin of life on Earth is an awfully good question, but we haven’t exactly figured out how it happened. Somehow, we had to go from the simple molecules that existed on the early Earth—such as carbon dioxide, methane, ammonia, etc.—and get to the more complex molecules that are part of living systems.

Some scientists think that environmental conditions on Earth were sufficient to turn the simple inorganic molecules into complex organic molecules. The most famous experiment to test this hypothesis was the Miller-Urey experiment. That experiment did change the inorganic starting material into organic compounds, including amino acids. You can read about the arguments for and against those results elsewhere, but similar experiments with different conditions have been run in the decades since. In many of these experiments, organic compounds were produced. These results indicate that the formation of organic molecules in the early days of Earth is a realistic and plausible hypothesis.

Another hypothesis is that the complex organic molecules formed elsewhere in the universe and rained down upon the Earth in a hail of meteors, asteroids, and comets. This idea is known as panspermia. The discovery of organic molecules in the Murchison meteorite shows that the panspermia hypothesis is also plausible.

It’s important to realize that this discovery does not prove panspermia. All it shows is that organic molecules can form elsewhere. So now we have two good hypotheses about the origin of life.

(YouTube page is here)

The latest edition of the Skeptics’ Circle is up at Mike’s Weekly Skeptic Rant. This time it is guest-hosted by cdesign proponentist Ben Stein.

The article I like best is “Evolution Not Responsible for Hitler” at Skeptico. This whole “evolution isn’t real because it led to Hitler’s atrocities” argument put forth by the creationists is amazingly flimsy. I can’t believe that it is the argument du jour from these people. Skeptico rightly knocks it down, writing (in part):

Even if it were true that wouldn’t mean evolution was wrong. The argument is just a fallacious appeal to consequences: the truth of something does not depend on the consequences of it being true; the truth of something depends on whether it is actually true or not. Nuclear weapons are terrible things, but that doesn’t mean that E does not equal M C squared. Even if Hitler was inspired by evolution, that wouldn’t mean evolution was wrong.

After you’ve read that, go on over to the Skeptics’ Circle and read some other great articles.

I guess at some point I’m going to have to read Neil Shubin’s book, Your Inner Fish. People in the blogosphere keep pulling out interesting tidbits.

Life started in the oceans, so there is much within us that harkens back to our youth in the high seas. The Panda’s Thumb points us to an article that you can find in the University of Chicago Magazine or over at RichardDawkins.net. The article is excerpted from Shubin’s book. Here is one choice excerpt:

In many ways, we humans are the fish equivalent of a hot-rod [VW] Beetle. Take the body plan of a fish, dress it up to be a mammal, then tweak and twist that mammal until it walks on two legs, talks, thinks, and has superfine control of its fingers—and you have a recipe for problems. We can dress up a fish only so much without paying a price. In a perfectly designed world—one with no history—we would not have to suffer everything from hemorrhoids to cancer.

Nowhere is this history more visible than in the detours, twists, and turns of our arteries, nerves, and veins. Follow some nerves and you’ll find that they make strange loops around other organs, apparently going in one direction only to twist and end up in an unexpected place. The detours are fascinating products of our past that, as we’ll see, often create problems—hiccups and hernias, for example. And this is only one way our past comes back to plague us.
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Virtually every illness we suffer has some historical component. The examples that follow reflect how different branches of the tree of life inside us—from ancient humans, to amphibians and fish, and finally to microbes—come back to pester us today. Each of these examples show that we were not designed rationally but are products of a convoluted history.

He then gives several fascinating examples of how problems such as heart disease, obesity, sleep apnea, hernias, and hiccups are the direct result of our prior evolutionary incarnations as fish, amphibians, and early mammals. He also repeatedly shows how none of this exhibits intelligent design.

Yet more overwhelming evidence for evolution. Yet more overwhelming evidence against creationism. You’d have to be extremely ignorant or extremely stupid to be a creationist these days.