Fred Williams, creationist electrical engineer, is up to his old tricks. I had hoped that our paths would not cross again, after having exposed his utter ignorance on so many occasions and having been subjected to his arrogant, overconfident bombast and the target of his insults for so long. I heard through the grapevine that Williams has been making false claims about me in his ridiculous website's guestbook.
I tried to take a look at it, and Williams has banned me from even reading it!
Luckily, I have an anonymizer, and was able to read the ignorant piffle that Williams spews and will dispose of it post haste.
Williams' guestbook reply to one Dr.Edwards (http://www.evolutionfairytale.com/guestbook_data/guestbook.htm):
Dear Dr Edwards,
Thanks for your comments. I have several points to make:
1) You should re-read the debate with Page. It represents as clear-cut an example as one could get for circular reasoning.
It is comical – yet no surprise – that Williams continues to make this claim, despite the fact that I clearly showed the error of Williams' repeated assertion. This is either an example of willful and purposeful deception or some sort of mental illness, and I say that with the utmost sincerity. There is really no other way to interpret it.
You wrote “You are making the common creationist error of assuming that all population genetics or evolutionary biology papers have one goal: to prove evolution, or something similar.” I made no such assumption. Even if evolution were true, his claim would still be circular reasoning (as I stated in the debate). The bottom line is, you cannot use a study that assumes chimp/man ancestry to arrive at a mutation rate to counter a mathematical calculation from another evolutionist (Haldane) used to arrive at a substitution rate for a clade.
Well, it is a good thing that the paper in question (Wu et al. ) did not do this. I explained this – clearly and repeatedly – to Williams the engineer in our “debate” and elsewhere. Wu et al. plainly use data gleaned from a study on Old World monkeys to address the chimp human question.
What Williams, not being anything remotely similar to a practicing scientist, does not seem to be able to understand is that one has to use some assumptions, lest nothing would ever get done. I presume that Williams assumes in his work that, I suppose, writing a certain line of code will produce a given result, given that this has occurred in the past. According to Williams' “logic”, such an assumption invalidates the output of the line of code because it is premised on an assumption!
Nonetheless, Williams is unable to understand that Haldane's mathematical model was premised on a number of unrealistic constraints, for example, it required the maintenance of a constant population size. Not to mention the fact that, of course, Haldane assumed evolution to have occurred. Williams has acknowledged this, yet still does not see how this affect his calculations. Williams neglects the fact that even Haldane acknowledged that his numbers would probably need “drastic revision.” Williams ignores the fact that observations have shown that Haldane's “speed limit” is frequently violated in nature. And so on.
As Dr.Edwards writes, Williams harps on mathematical models that seem to cause “problems” (at least when one has as shallow an understanding as Williams does) for evolution while ignoring or denying the realities of nature.
One side note - it is entertaining to see Williams attempt to use field-appropriate terminology. Notice he uses the word "clade". He does, however, use it incorrectly. One of those pesky shortcomings of commenting in areas that you have no relevant knowledge in.
I'm convinced even Page realized his logical error, since he completely abandoned this argument after the debate (he later capitulated to the position that “1667 beneficial substitutions may be enough”, an argument you won't find in any science journals or in any past attempts by serious scientists to deal with the problem, for obvious reasons).
Williams frequently convinces himself of things that have no basis in reality, and this is no exception. I had, from day 1, fully accepted that “1667 beneficial mutations may be enough”. Indeed, here is a post I had written to a discussion board in 2001, over a year before our “debate”:
“It is claimed - without a shred of supporting documentation - that the maximum (maximum under unrealistic
hypothetical scenarios, anyway) of 1667 fixed beneficial mutations that could have accumulated in 10 millions years in
the lineage leading to humanity is not enough to explain our evolution from an ape-like ancestor.
When I asked ReMine via his publisher how it was determined that 1667 was not enough, she prattled on about
Haldane's dilemma, then in true creationist fashion, accused me of changing the subject when I re-asked the same
question.
Translation: No clue.
I asked one of ReMine's most vocal supporters on this board the same question. The answer?
Common sense. Oh and trichromomatic vision.
No documentation at all.
And too bad that chimps also have trichromatic vision.
Does ANYONE have a source - and I don't simply mean some creationist engineer's say-so - I mean actual experimental
or observational evidence that 1667 - even if it is the correct number - fixed beneficial mutations cannot account for
human evolution form an ape-like ancestor?
Or can this just be chalked up as another example of creationist wishful thinking cum urban legend?”
The implication is fairly clear – I do not doubt that 1667 fixed beneficial substitutions could be enough. Of course, I, unlike the arrogant creationists, fully admit that I do not actually know. It should come as little surprise that it was Williams that had offered trichromatic vision as “evidence” that 1667 is too few, and this post was in response to one of his. Clearly, Williams should know that nothing he has written changed my mind about anything.
It takes more than repeated unsupported assertions to get me to reject supportable science.
In the end, it was the creationist electrical engineer ReMine, from whom Williams steals most of his illinformed pap, that insisted that 1667 benefiical mutations is definitely NOT enough. For this claim, neither ReMine nor Williams have ever produced a shred of evidence – indeed, Williams has admitted that there is no such evidence. This, however, does not stop him from repeating this claim ad nauseum.
You will not find the idea that 1667 beneficial mutations is enough in any journal because unlike non-scientist creationists, like Williams and ReMine, no scientist has had the uninformed arrogance to proclaim that they even have a way of knowing what the “required” number of substitutions to account for human evolutioin form an ape-like ancestor might be.
Page's circular reasoning was hashed out on two separate discussion forums, and not a single evolutionist that I can recall, until now, has defended his circular reasoning.
No evolutionist had the problems interpreting the papers I cited as you did, and so were able to follow the argument. I again urge you to re-read the debate. It doesn't even threaten your belief in evolution. It's an undeniable textbook example of circular reasoning, and if you still cannot see this after re-reading the debate, I'm not sure why one should take anything further you say with any grain of sodium chloride.
As is so often the case with pompous undereducated pontificators, the projection is palpable. And, of course, this form the guy who boasts of having rtaken "advanced" math in college, yet claimed that if there is a "1 in 32 chance" of something occurring, you have to wait through 31 trials before you get the result...*snip silly section wherein Williams misidentifies the lead character in the movie Contact - he refers to Jodie Foster's character as "Dr.Ellie." "Ellie" was her first name. It was Dr. Arroway.*
4) You claim there is “UTTERLY OVERWHELMING evidence for evolution”, I claim that there is NOT A SINGLE PIECE OF TANGIBLE evidence for evolution.
Of course you claim this. And since you are self-professed “expert” in information theory, all should bow down to your pontifications well outside you area of knowledge!*snip self-serving and largely fabricated gibberish*
Another piece of “evidence” often cited for evolution that turns out to be built on sand is the 'shared pseudogene mistakes' argument. This argument was always built on the assumption that pseudogenes are useless evolutionary leftovers. Too bad a useful function has been identified with several pseudogenes. I'm sure there are many more to come. But finding even one example pretty much null & voided the 'shared mistakes' argument. Yet evolutionists continue to push this despite the obvious cracks that have appeared within their core assumption that pseudogenes represent useless junk.
A profound example of Williams' ignorance. Regardless of whether or not all pseudogenes have some function (the usual unwarranted extrapolation frrm the creationist), the fact remains that in these loci, higher amounts of mutation can and do accumulate, and what is worse for creationist apologists, the patterns of mutation support hypotheses of descent.
Which is of course ignored/hand waved by the creationist.
It is sad for me to say that I am not in the least bit surprised by these examples of Williams' seeming desire to distort history as well as to pontificate in ignorance. That is his way.
It never ends...
Will wonders never cease?
Friday, June 6, I received an email from Williams telling me that he has responded. However, I am still 'banned' from even reading, much less responding in, his guestbook!
The dishonesty from and disingenuous nature of this supposed "Christian" creationist knows no bounds...
