Creationism Vs. Cornets

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-07-25 03:29pm

The latest issue of New Scientist has an interesting new view on the war between evolutionary biologists and Creationists with their new weapon; Intelligent Design.

The argument comes from, of all places, a collector of the brass musical instruments called cornets. Niles Eldredge of NYC's American Museum of Natural History has an entire wall devoted to biodiversity of the 10M+ species on this planet, but he also has another wall devoted to his collection of hundreds of cornets that he doesn't so much play, but views and categorises in a taxonomic order as would most scientists.

The point is, his experience in biodiversity and the collection he has amassed of designed "organisms" helps produce an example of the Intelligent Design tactic now used by Creationists as a sugar-coated and more believable rehash of the old Creationist theory in this day of popular science. I apologise for the vague description and lack of proper sourcing.

Although I can't post the article in full (it's bloody big) and I can't access the NS archives online (I haven't a subscription), if you do get the issue dated 26/7/03, you'll see what I mean.

There is a very clear visual explanation of his argument which involves the evolutionary trees of trilobites (Metacrypaeus) and alongside it, the tree of the cornet family as it "evolved". It stands out as a contrasting image of what should otherwise be an identical set given the argument being debated, but the trilobites and cornets take very different paths. The trilobites, being the product of evolutionary pressure, have multiple generations branching off from the original mother organism. The cornets, whose existence is due to human design, follow a much more ordered path with differing patterns

Well, if I can find a better article online or able to type it up, I'll post it and see if Mike wants to put it on his Creationist website which is being revised so I hear.

Einhander Sn0m4n · Post by **Einhander Sn0m4n** » 2003-07-25 05:07pm

Very interesting. Maybe we can make more comparisons between the 'family trees' of intelligently designed machines and randomly-picked animal species in order to learn what the major differences are in the family trees' topology. Sound like a good idea?

Admiral Valdemar · Post by **Admiral Valdemar** » 2003-07-25 05:14pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Very interesting. Maybe we can make more comparisons between the 'family trees' of intelligently designed machines and randomly-picked animal species in order to learn what the major differences are in the family trees' topology. Sound like a good idea?

Indeed, though the item would need to have an extensive family and one that didn't jump too much from the original in order to show some correlation to the cornet idea.

Xenophobe3691 · Post by **Xenophobe3691** » 2003-07-25 05:32pm

Einhander Sn0m4n wrote:Very interesting. Maybe we can make more comparisons between the 'family trees' of intelligently designed machines and randomly-picked animal species in order to learn what the major differences are in the family trees' topology. Sound like a good idea?

Well, here's some differences for ya.

In the Trilobites, check for qualities that are strengthened in each line, and check if those lines pick the best manner to do so; then compare this to the evolution of the cornets...

Dark Hellion · Post by **Dark Hellion** » 2003-07-26 12:37am

Well, god couldn't take down iron chariots, maybe has trouble with brass as well.

Post by **Darth Wong** » 2003-07-26 01:08am

It would be an interesting study. I've said basically the same thing (that, as an engineer, I know what intelligent design looks like, and 35000 species of beetle ain't it), but a more thorough investigation would be interesting.