This isn’t very different from the noise the Discoveroids are making about this year’s Nobel Prize for ‘Directed Evolution’, but this time it’s from Answers in Genesis (AIG), the creationist ministry of Ken Ham (ol’ Hambo) — the ayatollah of Appalachia, the world’s holiest man who knows more about religion and science than everyone else.
Hambo’s grumbling is titled Nobel Prize Evolution. Here are some excerpts, with bold font added by us for emphasis, and occasional Curmudgeonly interjections that look [like this]:
The New York Times ran an article about the three winners of this year’s Nobel Prize in chemistry, which were announced on October 3, 2018. All three winners, Frances H. Arnold, George P. Smith, and Gregory P. Winter, were awarded “for their work in evolutionary science”.
We know all about it, and we’ve seen the Discoveroids’ rants, so we’ll be skipping a lot of Hambo’s post because the noise he’s making is similar to theirs. He says:
Now what I find fascinating is the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences’ Nobel Prize’s press release announcing the winners of the shared prize in chemistry. Look at how often intelligent human design and input is equated with “randomness” in an attempt to emphasize molecules-to-man evolutionary processes. Let me list a few quotes used throughout the press release to describe two of the winner’s research.
He then goes merrily quote-mining his way through that press release. For example:
Frances Arnold utilised the fact that subtilisin breaks down milk protein, casein. She then selected the variant of subtilisin that was most effective in breaking down casein in a solution with 35 per cent DMF. She subsequently introduced a new round of random mutations in this subtilisin, which yielded a variant that worked even better in DMF.
That’s what nature does, but it can take nature a long time to produce a useful mutation, which is then naturally selected because it makes the organism better fit. The scientists took a short cut and selected their own mutations. It’s a faster version of what nature does. After a few other quotes, Hambo tells us:
Now all of these scientists were described as having “taken control of evolution and used it for the greatest benefit to humankind” and “they have revolutionised both chemistry and the development of new pharmaceuticals through directed evolution.” But is there really any evolution (in the Darwinian sense) at work here?
It looks like mutation and selection to us, albeit faster because the scientists couldn’t wait a few million years for the process to work by itself. But Hambo sees it differently. He tells us:
Frankly if I were given an award for some great scientific achievement and then told that it would be equated to chance random processes which were unguided by intelligence, I’d be a little offended.
BWAHAHAHAHAHA! Hambo continues:
As our own geneticist, Dr. Georgia Purdom, stated in a recent interview regarding Dr. Arnold’s Nobel-winning research.
[He quotes Sweet Georgia Purdom:] “For evolution — if you’re going to go from one kind of organism to another [which they weren’t doing], you have to not just make a protein work a little bit better or a little bit differently. You’ve got to make entirely new proteins. Her work doesn’t show that at all. [This] has nothing to do with random chance. She’s the one shifting around the parts of the DNA and making these proteins better.
We’ve heard that before from the Discoveroids. Hambo finishes with this:
Rather than showing the “power of evolution,” these Nobel winners show that intelligent design and directed effort was needed to accomplish anything beneficial to humanity. There is no power of naturalistic evolution to create anything demonstrated here.
They’ll make the same complaint when someone finally succeeds in creating life in the lab, and like the complaints they’re making now, no one will pay attention — except for their drooling fans.
Copyright © 2018. The Sensuous Curmudgeon. All rights reserved.
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The Sensuous Curmudgeon 
“As our own geneticist, Dr. Georgia Purdom, stated….”
Which Genetics journal is she going to choose to publish her groundbreaking insights?
If he’s going to rely on the characterization of his complaint as being against molecules to man, then there is going to much pointing out that there is abundance for molecules to people. Metabolism, genetics, and so on.
And that going negative does not constitute an alternative science.
“No question now what has happened to the faces of the YEC’s. The creatures outside looked from YEC to Discoveroid and from Discoveroid to YEC, and from YEC to Discoveroid again: but already it was impossible to say which was which.”
–apologies to George Orwell
What does this even mean? “But is there really any evolution (in the Darwinian sense) at work here?”
Lying big bad ogre Hamster still on about “chance random processes”. He knows very well that evolution is the opposite of random chance. The entire creationist cult community has been told that for decades.
Sped-up evolution by humans selecting desirable traits is what breeding of domesticated animals is all about – artificial selection. Darwin talked about it at length. If humans can cause change, I wonder if nature can? Yep, but much more slowly – natural selection. It’s the same idea Hamster. Stop being dishonest.
“Which Genetics journal is she going to choose to publish her groundbreaking insights?” Georgia Purdom, hasn’t been on a research paper since 2002.
“For evolution — if you’re going to go from one kind of organism to another [which they weren’t doing], you have to not just make a protein work a little bit better or a little bit differently.”
In the above quote Georgia Purdom clearly demonstrates that she does not even know that evolution means a change in population genetics! Instead she uses the straw man of “[going] from one kind of organism to another”, where “kind” still isn’t even defined or agreed upon by all creationists. She may as well have 6 box tops to prove her fitness for a biology degree.
The main problem for YEC is the straightjacket of 6,000 years. From that point of view it is understandable that they reject evolution (if we forget for a moment the blazing-speed evolution required after the Flood).
However, ID has no time constraint problems. For them it is even more inexcusable to dismiss the process of random mutation followed by natural selection.
“which they weren’t doing”
Well, yes, show me a creacrapper who’s not in love with a strawman and I’ll show you a buddhist pope.
@TomS complains: “And that going negative does not constitute an alternative science.”
Of course it is! in the creationist mind. They love their false dilemma as well.
@JSJ: gives some good advise: “Stop being dishonest.”
You could as well advise them to give up creacrap, because that’s dishonest by definition.
“Sped-up evolution …..”
Of course – thanks for reminding me or I would have overlooked it. Ol’Hambo and Sweet Georgia Purdom are totally OK with hyper accelerated evolution set up by YHWH, beginning with the pairs of animals leaving the Ark.
@Zetopan also complains: “where “kind” still isn’t even defined or agreed upon by all creationists.”
Yeah, but you yourself already pointed out that there are 300 or 400 at the max – a major breakthrough that deserves a major compliment. I mean, Sweet Georgia Purdom has achieved less last 16 years.
The problem with Hambo and the Discoveroids is that they’ve become victims of their own propaganda. A lot of them actually think evolution is a chaotic, random process that somehow produces useful organs out of nothing, transforms one species into another overnight, and that magically produces wondrous creatures like ourselves. With that kind of nonsense in their minds, the act of deliberately making selections in the lab to achieve a desired result is utterly unlike Darwinian evolution. But as some have already mentioned, Darwin was inspired by the human practice of breeding domestic plants and animals to select desirable characteristics, and he didn’t see any reason why nature couldn’t accomplish the same thing, naturally selecting for successful survival and reproduction.
In olden days, the only alternative to theism was Epicureanism. (To the extent that Epricureanism was the term used for atheism.) Epicureanism was based on atomism, and it explained everything by the random motions of atoms.
The standard expositon of Epicureanism in western Europe was the “De Rerum Natura” (“On the Nature of Things”) by Lucretius.
It is quite possible that standard apologetics against Lucretius’ idea of randomness has been passed down without understanding to the present. They’re fighting a battle against an ancient enemy.
“Dr.’ Georgia Purdom, if she actually has a doctorate in any relevant discipline, is missing the point, either deliberately or through shocking ignorance.
The scientific work she cites doesn’t prove creationism; rather, it’s done the way it’s done because researchers aren’t immortal. They can’t afford to wait around for nature to do its thing and hope to be present when it does. She offers no proof whatever that natural processes can’t produce change, even the creation of new species. She just says it can’t, and that’s that, something I call ‘argument by decree” (I’m sure there’s a better term out there).
“There is an appeal to creationism for certain people: it lies in the ability to submit to a myth without reflection, debate or real understanding. But the ultimate goal in promoting it as a point of legitimate pedagogical inquiry appears to be to coerce the obedience of a superstitious civic collective under a socially and politically regressive leadership.” G. Devi. Ditto for intelligent design.
Georgia’s dissertation
The role of the microphthalmia transcription factor (MITF) in the regulation of gene expression during osteoclast differentiation
Purdom, Georgia Ellen. The Ohio State University, 2000.
The last line of the acknowledgements – I never know what this trope is supposed to mean.
Most of all I wish to thank my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ without whom I would not be here today.
@Douglas E
Creationism appeals to many people because it offers a ‘proof’ for the existence of God. Of course, it is an illusionary proof. Then the evolutionist comes along and destroys that proof. Secondly, and that’s specific for the Young Earth type, creationism allows them to take the Bible literally.
Nobody takes the Bible literally. That is a sham to cover up what they want to believe by pretending that that have a. Infallible, objective source for their belief. To disagree with them is dismissed as being contrary to the Bible, and no more can be said. The Bible itself does not make such an absurd claim. At the most, it says that Scripture is useful, not an infallible source for knowledge of the world, and certainly not if subjected to a literal misreading.
There is no reason to doubt the general outline of evolutionary biology, including the physical relationship of the human body to that of chimps and other apes. The only recourse is to manufacture a literalistic misreading of the Bible.