RSF with a University of Cal Prof. of Ophthalmology
This is the show from Friday, October 19th, 2012.
SUMMARY:
* RSF Interviews a University of California Professor of Ophthalmology: Real Science Friday co-host Bob Enyart interviews UC San Francisco's clinical professor of opthamolgy Dr. Gary Aguilar. Before the interview, Gary recommended that Bob read a 2012 book by Dr. Schwab, a colleage of Aguilar's at UC Irvine, about which Russell Fernald says that Evolution's Witness is "likely to be consulted by everyone interested in evolution and eyes."
* Ivan Schwab's Evolution's Witness -- How Eyes Evolved: Within minutes of the mailman delivering this book, on March 31, 2012, Bob wrote on the title page, with a number of friends around him signing as witnesses: "Prediction: Very little of this book will be about how eyes evolve." Dr. Aguilar described this textbook as a "tour de force" showing clearly how eyes evolved. During today's interview, Bob asserts that his prediction was valid, and that 99% of this book has nothing to do with how eyes evolve. It's a great anatomy book though!
* The Opsin Missing Chapter: Opsin is the protein in photoreceptor cells that can detect a single photon and then signal that a photon has struck it. One might expect from a book on the eye's evolution, that after a book's introduction, the author might include a chapter on an explanation, conceptually, of how opsin might evolve. In vertebrates and invertebrates, opsin requires a chain of 150 to 250 amino acids, which then must be folded correctly into a very specialized nano-machine which can pass along an output signal whenever the protein gets hit with a single photon. But, as creationists would expect, no such chapter exists in the book. And actually, all the difficult problems that one would have to address if he were actually writing a book on "How eyes evolved," do not appear in the book.
* The PZ Myers Trochlea Challenge Missing Chapter: Six months before today's debate, I sent to Gary Aguilar our PZ Myers Trochlea Challenge, which evolutionary biologist PZ Myers admitted he could not answer. Gary offered no answer then, and if he ever does provide a reply, we'll be sure to present it here!
* Carbon 14 in Diamonds: Early in the program Gary Aguilar could not understand how short-lived Carbon 14 might even theoretically be able to be used to falsify a claim that a particular specimen might be a million years old. Then at about 36 minutes in challenged Bob: I want you to find me a credible scientist who says that because of Carbon 14 in diamonds, that they have to be less than 7,000 years old. Because of the work of physicist Russell Humphreys, Bob was able to answer, "How about a scientist at Sandia National Labs, who has published on this?"
* Gary's "Good Christians": Dr. Aguilar recognizes that there are many Christians who believe like he does on many topics, including legalizing cocaine, belief in Darwinism, and holding an anti-Israel foreign policy. So, when he says, "good Christian," as he does often, one might think that he was referring to these Christians whom he agrees with. However, Gary never does that. He only uses the phrase "good Christian" when he refers to someone called a Christian who murdered, plundered, raped, etc.
Then at about 50 minutes in, Gary, upset at Bob for opposing the decriminalization of heroin, crack, etc., said of Bob and of people like him, "You need to be set aside." About 50:30 into the show, Bob asks Gary if it is possible that his anger toward Christians causes him to be biased to automatically agree with Darwinists about evolution. He emphatically denied this: "I give no thought whatsoever to evolution or Darwinism." So, if Gary doesn't think about evolution, yet believes in it unequivocally, even to defending it's strongly refuted arguments (like the backwardly-wired eye), there must be something that is biasing him in that direction. It just seems that his passionate anger toward Christians might be the source of his bias.
For today's show Real Science Friday recommends
Dr. Carl Werner's DVDs, Living Fossils and
its prequel Evolution, the Grand Experiment!
* Bob Too Slowly Replied to Gary's Moon Crater Question: Gary Aguilar was correct that Bob took too long to get around to answering his claim that all the craters on the moon are themselves proof of the passage of millions of years. Bob answered that because the near side of the moon has far more maria, or ""seas," which are the result of massive impactors, than does the far side, that this should help people realize that there is something wrong with the old-earth explanation of how those craters got there. Further, Bob never got around to explaining how NASA has learned, from inspection of a moon of Jupiter, that second-hand craters, that is, craters formed by debris thrown up by the impact of other craters, accounts for 95% of small craters and a significant percent of medium-sized craters. So, if the leading Big Bang cosmologists were commited to the data, or even to their theories, they would agree that therefore, the crater evidence on the moon suggests that it is significantly younger than they had previously claimed. For more, see our favorite astronomy DVD: What You Aren't Being Told About Astronomy! However, the ultimate commitment of the prevailing Darwinist and old-earth science communities is NOT the Big Bang, or descent with modification, etc., but atheistic materialism.
Today’s Resource: Get the fabulous Carl Werner DVD Living Fossils and his great prequel, Evolution: The Grand Experiment! And have you browsed through our Science Department in the KGOV Store? Check out especially Walt Brown’s In the Beginning! Also, you can consider our BEL Science Pack; Bob Enyart’s Age of the Earth Debate; Bob's debate about Junk DNA with famous evolutionist Dr. Eugenie Scott; and to give as a Christmas or birthday gift, the superb kids' radio programming, Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins!
This is the show from Friday, October 19th, 2012.
SUMMARY:
* RSF Interviews a University of California Professor of Ophthalmology: Real Science Friday co-host Bob Enyart interviews UC San Francisco's clinical professor of opthamolgy Dr. Gary Aguilar. Before the interview, Gary recommended that Bob read a 2012 book by Dr. Schwab, a colleage of Aguilar's at UC Irvine, about which Russell Fernald says that Evolution's Witness is "likely to be consulted by everyone interested in evolution and eyes."
* Ivan Schwab's Evolution's Witness -- How Eyes Evolved: Within minutes of the mailman delivering this book, on March 31, 2012, Bob wrote on the title page, with a number of friends around him signing as witnesses: "Prediction: Very little of this book will be about how eyes evolve." Dr. Aguilar described this textbook as a "tour de force" showing clearly how eyes evolved. During today's interview, Bob asserts that his prediction was valid, and that 99% of this book has nothing to do with how eyes evolve. It's a great anatomy book though!
* The Opsin Missing Chapter: Opsin is the protein in photoreceptor cells that can detect a single photon and then signal that a photon has struck it. One might expect from a book on the eye's evolution, that after a book's introduction, the author might include a chapter on an explanation, conceptually, of how opsin might evolve. In vertebrates and invertebrates, opsin requires a chain of 150 to 250 amino acids, which then must be folded correctly into a very specialized nano-machine which can pass along an output signal whenever the protein gets hit with a single photon. But, as creationists would expect, no such chapter exists in the book. And actually, all the difficult problems that one would have to address if he were actually writing a book on "How eyes evolved," do not appear in the book.
* The PZ Myers Trochlea Challenge Missing Chapter: Six months before today's debate, I sent to Gary Aguilar our PZ Myers Trochlea Challenge, which evolutionary biologist PZ Myers admitted he could not answer. Gary offered no answer then, and if he ever does provide a reply, we'll be sure to present it here!
* Carbon 14 in Diamonds: Early in the program Gary Aguilar could not understand how short-lived Carbon 14 might even theoretically be able to be used to falsify a claim that a particular specimen might be a million years old. Then at about 36 minutes in challenged Bob: I want you to find me a credible scientist who says that because of Carbon 14 in diamonds, that they have to be less than 7,000 years old. Because of the work of physicist Russell Humphreys, Bob was able to answer, "How about a scientist at Sandia National Labs, who has published on this?"
* Gary's "Good Christians": Dr. Aguilar recognizes that there are many Christians who believe like he does on many topics, including legalizing cocaine, belief in Darwinism, and holding an anti-Israel foreign policy. So, when he says, "good Christian," as he does often, one might think that he was referring to these Christians whom he agrees with. However, Gary never does that. He only uses the phrase "good Christian" when he refers to someone called a Christian who murdered, plundered, raped, etc.
Then at about 50 minutes in, Gary, upset at Bob for opposing the decriminalization of heroin, crack, etc., said of Bob and of people like him, "You need to be set aside." About 50:30 into the show, Bob asks Gary if it is possible that his anger toward Christians causes him to be biased to automatically agree with Darwinists about evolution. He emphatically denied this: "I give no thought whatsoever to evolution or Darwinism." So, if Gary doesn't think about evolution, yet believes in it unequivocally, even to defending it's strongly refuted arguments (like the backwardly-wired eye), there must be something that is biasing him in that direction. It just seems that his passionate anger toward Christians might be the source of his bias.For today's show Real Science Friday recommends
Dr. Carl Werner's DVDs, Living Fossils and
its prequel Evolution, the Grand Experiment!
* Bob Too Slowly Replied to Gary's Moon Crater Question: Gary Aguilar was correct that Bob took too long to get around to answering his claim that all the craters on the moon are themselves proof of the passage of millions of years. Bob answered that because the near side of the moon has far more maria, or ""seas," which are the result of massive impactors, than does the far side, that this should help people realize that there is something wrong with the old-earth explanation of how those craters got there. Further, Bob never got around to explaining how NASA has learned, from inspection of a moon of Jupiter, that second-hand craters, that is, craters formed by debris thrown up by the impact of other craters, accounts for 95% of small craters and a significant percent of medium-sized craters. So, if the leading Big Bang cosmologists were commited to the data, or even to their theories, they would agree that therefore, the crater evidence on the moon suggests that it is significantly younger than they had previously claimed. For more, see our favorite astronomy DVD: What You Aren't Being Told About Astronomy! However, the ultimate commitment of the prevailing Darwinist and old-earth science communities is NOT the Big Bang, or descent with modification, etc., but atheistic materialism.
Today’s Resource: Get the fabulous Carl Werner DVD Living Fossils and his great prequel, Evolution: The Grand Experiment! And have you browsed through our Science Department in the KGOV Store? Check out especially Walt Brown’s In the Beginning! Also, you can consider our BEL Science Pack; Bob Enyart’s Age of the Earth Debate; Bob's debate about Junk DNA with famous evolutionist Dr. Eugenie Scott; and to give as a Christmas or birthday gift, the superb kids' radio programming, Jonathan Park: The Adventure Begins!
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K: I need to go listen to this thing!
