Thursday 21 June 2018



https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Ancient_of_Days. William Blake, 1794


The pages of my blog. The blog is not monetized. I make nothing from it. It mostly concerns evidence for evolution and comments on creationist material, with other pages that I hope you will find interesting.

It is material that I have developed over a number of years. I had considered converting it into book form, but this format seems the best one for presenting it, so I am endeavouring to organise it in a form that you can read like a book, with the pages in a sequence. Any link you click on will be opened in a new tab. As is the case with all linked-to items, close the tab and you will be returned to the linking page.

My material is not copyrighted. Feel free to link to it, copy it, or copy 'n' paste from it.

This is an ongoing project, and the pages will be edited and added to in the course of time. Bookmark this so you can easily come back to see if there is anything new.

Comments and questions are very welcome, both in this blog and in the many Facebook groups I frequent, which is practically all the groups that discuss evolutionary science, creationism and intelligent design, except for the for-profit creationist groups, from all of which I am excluded.

=====Barry's Blog=====
About the Author, Barry Desborough, who has misspent his retirement fighting science-denying creationism.
But Why is Evolutionary Science Vitally Important? - A Personal View
Endogenous Retroviruses: A Conversation with Tavian Opaldo. - YouTube
Text for Tavian Oladapo interview
=====Endogenous Retroviruses=====
The top page for answers concerning the slam-dunk proof of common ancestry, commonly located endogenous retroviruses. (ERVs).
ERVs: Of Eloi and Morlocks. A simple explanation of ERVs and why they are important evidence for common ancestry - H.G. Wells' The Time Machine'
ERVs: Proof of Evolution (An Executive Summary)
ERVs: What is the case for common descent from ERVs? A summary in a nutshell.
ERVs: Long terminal repeats (LTRs). How these retroviral markers provide yet more information on evolutionary history.
ERVs: Why do virologists and geneticists conclude that ERVs descend from retroviruses and why do creationists ignore all this?
ERVs: The Koala's Tale. How an exogenous and endogenous virus (KoRV) confirms the viral origin of ERVs.
ERVs: But isn't this all just circular reasoning, assuming evolution to 'prove' evolution?
A retrovirus is invading the Koala genome | Virology Blog
ERVs: Just how many ERVs are shared, in common locations, in the genomes of humans and chimps?
ERVs: Don't retroviruses target particular locations in the DNA? Doesn't this explain corresponding ERVs?
ERVs: ERVs do stuff. Doesn't that prove that they didn't originate from retroviruses, but were designed?
ERVs: Aren't ERVs designed to protect against viral infection? Superinfection exclusion
ERVs: ERVs promote the transcription of host DNA. Doesn't this prove they are designed?
ERVs: ERVs are essential in reproduction. How can this be?
ERVs: Aren't the same ERV genetics in corresponding DNA loci in different species because they have to do the same job?
ERVs: But how can you rule out design as an explanation for ERVs? A challenge for creationists and ID spotters.
ERVs: "Standing for Truth" attempts to reply to my questions raised by the idea that ERVs were designed
ERVs: Another attempt at answering my design questions by "Flambeau Flambeaux".
ERVs: Yet qnother attempt to answer the questions an ERV design hypothesis raises
ERVs: Creationism's version of Beavis and Butthead attempting to discredit the ERV evidence.
A Review of "The Endogenous Retrovirus Handbook" from "Beavis and Butthead".
ERVs: But how could a species survive such a massive invasion of retroviruses into its genome?
ERVs: So how could ERVs survive programmed cell death (apoptosis)?
ERVs: Haven't the same ERVs been found in species that are said to be distantly related?
ERVs: What if we find an ERV in a common locus in chimps and gorillas, but not in humans?
ERVs: David DeWitt at Anwers in Genesis says ERVs do not line up with the expected evolutionary progression.
ERVs: What's all this about the "Phoenix Virus"? Sounds like a Michael Crichton science fiction story!
ERVs: The "Phoenix Virus": An explanation of the experiment.
ERVs: Could you have this backwards? Maybe retroviruses come from designed-in variation inducing genetic elements (VIGEs)? (1)
ERVs: On incredulity that so many ERVs have become fixed (ubiquitous) in our genomes
=====Critiques of creationist articles trying to firefight the ERV evidence=====
ERVs: The "Not Junk" Anti-ERV Defence. The dishonesty of fabricating a strawman argument and attacking it.
ERVs: Were They Created Good? - Yingguang Liu @ Answers in Genesis
ERVs: Evolutionary “Junk” or God’s Tools? - Georga Purdom @ Answers in Genesis
ERVs: The Natural History of Retroviruses. Liu and Soper of AiG debunked by fellow creationist, Todd Wood.
ERVs: Questioning Evolutionary Presuppositions about Endogenous Retroviruses - Dr. Anjeanette Roberts @ Reasons to Believe
ERVs: Toppling Another Evolutionary Icon, ENCODE Data Suggests Endogenous Retroviruses Are Functional. Casey Luskin @ "Evolution News".
ERVs: Viral Genome Junk Is Bunk. Jeffrey Tomkins' @ "The Institute of Creation Research"
ERVs: Gorilla Genome is Bad News for Evolution. Tompkins @ the ICR again
ERVs: Viral Genome Junk Hits the Trash - Yet more trash from our Jeff @ the ICR
ERVs: Endogenous Retroviruses - Pitman @ DetectingDesign
ERVs: Large Scale Function for Endogenous Retroviruses - Luskin @ EvolutionNews
ERVs: Large Scale Function for ‘endogenous retroviruses’. - Shaun Doyle @ Creation Ministries International
ERVs: Do koalas prove that humans got part of their DNA from viruses? - Matthew Cserhati @ Creation Ministries International
ERVs: Questioning Evolutionary Presuppositions about Endogenous Retroviruses. Dr. Anjeanette Roberts @ "Reasons to Believe
ERVs: Anjeanette Roberts On "A Common Design View of ERVs Encourages Scientific Investigation" @ Reasons to Believe
ERVs: “Evolution's Best Argument Has Become Its Worst Nightmare” by Brian Thomas of the “Institute for Creation Research”
ERVs: Dismantling the Best Evidence for Common Descent. A book by the Beavis and Butthead of creationism.
ERVs: Do Endogenous Retroviral Sequences (ERVs) Prove Evolution? Yes, they do!
ERVs: Large scale function for ‘endogenous retroviruses’ - Doyle @ CMI
ERVs; Junk No Longer - Casey Luskin @EvolutionNews
ERVs: From Jonathan McLatchie, "The Search for Adam and Eve"
ERVs: Do Shared ERVs Support Common Ancestry? from Evolution "News"
ERVs: The Search for Adam and Eve" Mclatchie backpedals on his previous article for "Evolution News", but not quite far enough, and how creationists never correct their mistakes, because - God.
=====Science: More general topics. Natural selection=====
How 14C dating of dino remains never return a YEC-compatible date
Veritas: A Probability Demo
Calculating Protein Probability. Big Scary Number Theory.
Conway's Game of Life: an example of the phenomenon of emergence.
How Information Arises Naturally.
Age Correlations and an Old Earth. How multiple independent lines of evidence falsify YEC.
Amazon's review of Franz de Waal's book, The Bonobo and the Atheist, on evolution and morality
Darwin's Sacred Cause, to prove that all men are created as equals.
Darwin and Eugenics. How and why Darwin opposed eugenics.
Creationist nonsense about genetic "Information"
Gravity: How sometimes, a false notion can get stuck in your head, and no amount of evidence and reasoning can winkle it out. Sound familiar?
Please Take Note. Science and atheism are not the same things.
Veritas: Detecting Design
Veritas: Giordano Bruno
=====Creationism: "Dr." Kent Hovind. The fake "doctor" who "qualified" at a fake university and for some unfathomable reason became a hero of the creationist mob. =====
Veritas: "Standing for Truth," + Kent and Eric Hovind (1)
Veritas: "Standing for Truth" and Creationist Custard.
Standing for Truth. The Beavis and Butthead of Creationism.
"Kinds". How creationists retrofit their crazy ideas to abuse the KJV version of the Bible.
"Research" at the "Institute for Creation Research". They don't do research, they are not an institute. They just want your money.
A New Study Confirming Creationism!
Abysmal scholarship from Creation.com. Evolution, Lysenkoism and Stalinism mashup unravelled.
How creationists disqualify themselves from science discussion by their "statements of faith"
Genesis - how literalists say they believe it, but actually do not.
No Free Lunch? How William Dembski stole and misrepresented some respectable mathematics to write a book to con money out of the gullible followers of "intelligent design".
On Abiogenesis
Veritas: "The Atheist" and "The Grammar Nazi"
Veritas: A reply to "A Biblical Response to the James Webb Space Telescope (JWST) Launch."
Veritas: Abysmal scholarship from Creation.com
Veritas: Accelerated Christian Education (ACE), and the Attempted Hijacking of Secular Education.
Veritas: Baraminology - Creationist Science at its most Rigorous
Veritas: Baraminology. What a load of crap!
Veritas: The Peculiar Case of Homer Jacobson and Apologetics Press (1)
=====Theology: Judgement Day=====
Atheists have no morals: A counter to this accusation
Maybe everything is fake?
Bringing Forth. How Genesis describes abiogenesis - the emergence of life from non-living matter.
Science and Atheism: How they are not the same
Theism, Atheism, Agnosticism: Let's get ths straight.
Veritas: A-prefix. Why and and how theists misrepresent people who don't believe in gods.
Veritas: Agnosticism - atheism
Veritas: Atheists have no morals
Rational manifesto
________________Veritas: Archiving Glen Morton's Pages.__________________
Veritas: About the Author - Glenn Morton
Veritas: Early Church Fathers on Genesis
Veritas: Burrows cause problems for the Flood
Veritas: Creationist Misuse of the Green River Formation
Veritas: Carbon Dioxide and the Flood
Veritas: Carbonate hardgrounds disprove the global flood
Veritas: Canadian Coal Not Formed Catastrophically
Veritas: AI (Artificial Imbeciles)
Veritas: Answering "ftacky" at Christian Forums
Veritas: Ant Super-Colonies
Veritas: As I so often have to, I need to point out that science and theology are different topics
Veritas: Astonished
Veritas: Barry's Recommended Reading List
Veritas: Belief
Veritas: Cameras v Eyes
Veritas: Can race be erased?
Veritas: Christianity and Science
Veritas: Conversation with Dominic Stratham
Veritas: Darwin and Eugenics
Veritas: Debating John Heintz
Veritas: Derwood on "Baraminology"
Veritas: Did "Team SFT" Really Debunk "Stated Clearly" on the DNA Evidence That Humans & Chimps Share A Common Ancestor: Endogenous Retroviruses?
Veritas: DNA is not a code
Veritas: Does Retroviral DNA Insert Randomly into Genomes? More creationist lies
Veritas: Dumb Design
Veritas: Endianness
Veritas: Ending religion is a bad idea, says Richard Dawkins?
Veritas: Endogenisation as an explanation.
Veritas: ERV FAQ: Other articles on ERVs
Veritas: ERV Intro
Veritas: ERV’s [sic] Utterly Debunked
Veritas: Evo-phobia
Veritas: Evolution is Dead
Veritas: Evolution: Its Acceptance Amongst Prominent Christians
Veritas: Evolutionary Algorithms and "Intelligent Design"
Veritas: Evolutionists and Antis
Veritas: Falsifiability
Veritas: Fish Cause Problems for the Global Flood
Veritas: Fisked: Waste Not: Research Finds that “Far from Junk DNA,” ERVs Perform “Critical Cellular Functions”
Veritas: For Chris
Veritas: For those who will not click
Veritas: Fred Hoyle, Georges Lemaître, the Big Bang, Evolution and Boeing Aircraft
Veritas: Further to my contention that science is not a topic for a theist/atheist discussion group
Veritas: Genomic Information
Veritas: Ghosts.
Veritas: Glenn Morton: Why I took my Web Pages Down
Veritas: Glenn Morton's Pages Archive - Contents
Veritas: Glenn Morton's Theology Articles and Other Topics
Veritas: Gods all the way up.
Veritas: Heaven and Hell
Veritas: Human Evolution, by Graeme Finlay
Veritas: Human Evolution: Genes, Genealogies and Phylogenies, By Graeme Finlay
Veritas: Human Nature
Veritas: ICR
Veritas: ID
Veritas: If ERVs are designed, what are the design purposes of these features? Another attempt.
Veritas: Igneous History of British Isles Won't Fit Into Global Flood
Veritas: Imagine
Veritas: Infallible
Veritas: Information Arises Naturally.
Veritas: Insect borings in dinosaur bones – evidence against rapid burial in a global flood
Veritas: Institute for Creation Research
Veritas: Intelligent Designs?
Veritas: Is Atheism a Belief?
Veritas: Is Evolution Random?
Veritas: Is the Evidence from ERVs Falsifiable?
Veritas: It Sure Was Hot During the Global Flood
Veritas: KKK (Kreationist Kargo-Kult "Science".)
Veritas: Lake Varves and Radiocarbon Dating
Veritas: Limestone Presents Problems for the Global Flood
Veritas: Long Terminal Repeats (LTRs)
Veritas: Me
Veritas: Meme Dump
Veritas: Meteor Craters and the Flood Year
Veritas: Mike Pence Criticizes Theory of Evolution
Veritas: Morality
Veritas: Mt-Eve, Y-Adam
cargo
Veritas: NANOG pseudogenes and human evolution
Veritas: Natural Selection
Veritas: Nicotine
Veritas: Oil Well Cores and the Global Flood
Veritas: Ok, I'll admit it. ERVs ARE junk DNA - well, sort of.
Veritas: Olam: The Bible's Way of Telling Us That the Earth is Old
Veritas: On "The Gene's-Eye View of Evolution" by J. Arvid Ã…gren
Veritas: On an "Evolution" (fake) "News" article from Casey Luskin
Veritas: On James Tour: The Origin of Life Has Not Been Explained. Part I
Veritas: On Proof
Veritas: On some common objections and complaints about my ERV FAQ.
Veritas: One Million Years of Not Sweeping the Floors: The Soils of Beijing
Veritas: Palaeosols
Veritas: Phillip Johnson trying to defend intelligent design
Veritas: Plain Reading of Genesis 1
Veritas: Politics and Sociopathy
Veritas: Probability Demo Source
Veritas: Pseudogenes FAQs
Veritas: Quote mining
Veritas: Quote Mining - or How to Lie About Your Opponents by Quoting Them
Veritas: Re. "CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang's latest work delivers mRNA, gene therapy with a human protein"
Veritas: Re. "CRISPR pioneer Feng Zhang's latest work delivers mRNA, gene therapy with a human protein"
Veritas: Re. Endogenous Retroviruses and Evolution (Modern Synthesis)
Veritas: Re. the "Design Hypothesis" re. ERVs. Microbiological Rape.
Veritas: Recovering YECs
Veritas: Refuting "Refuting the Endogenous Retrovirus Claim of Evolutionists"
Veritas: Retroviruses for Dummies
Veritas: Richard Sternberg by Expelled Exposed
Veritas: Russell's Celestial Teapot and the Burden of Proof
Veritas: Sadly, an Honest Creationist
Veritas: Sadly, an Honest Creationist
Veritas: Sadly, an Honest Creationist
Veritas: Salt, Meteors and the Global Flood
Veritas: Science
Veritas: Science and nonscience
Veritas: Selon leur espèce
Veritas: Sir Fred Hoyle
Veritas: Some comments on "Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes"
Veritas: Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes
Veritas: Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes
Veritas: Someone was Ranting
Veritas: Survival of the fittest
Veritas: Talk Beliefs Interview II
Veritas: Talk Beliefs Interview. Mark Torrender talks with yours truly.
Veritas: The Demise and Fall of the Water Vapor Canopy: A Fallen Creationist Idea
Veritas: The Early Church Fathers Were Not YECs - by John Tobin
Veritas: The Encyclopedia of American Loons
Veritas: The ERV Design Hypothesis. More Answers Offered.
Veritas: The Fish is Being Served with a Delicate Creamy Mercury Sauce
Veritas: The Global Flood Produces Acidic Flood Waters
Veritas: The Irrational
Veritas: The Koala's Tale
Veritas: The Letter the CRSQ didn't want you to read
Veritas: The Misguided Erosion Argument
Veritas: The Multiple Droughts During the Global Flood
Veritas: The Natural History of Retroviruses - a Critique
Veritas: The Nature of Scientific Knowledge
Veritas: The Peculiar Case of Homer Jacobson and Apologetics Press
Veritas: The Physics of a Mesopotamian Flood
Veritas: The Real Poop on the Global Flood
Veritas: The Varves! The Varves! (And Skinny Dipping :) )
Veritas: Theological Issues Concerning Creation, Evolution and the Flood
Veritas: They Lie Because They Have To
Veritas: Thoughts on race and evolution
Veritas: Time Sequence in Pebbles
Veritas: To Jack
Veritas: To Peter Berean
Veritas: Too Many Fossils for a Global Flood
Veritas: Tracks and Raindrop, Hail and Ice Impressions Demonstrates Slow Deposition
Veritas: Vaccine Shit
Veritas: Varves and the Global Flood
Veritas: Varves, Confirmation Bias, or Lying for Jesus?
Veritas: VIGEs
Veritas: Viral Genome Is Bunk - Or Is Tomkins' Article Bunk?
Veritas: Warning. Disturbing video.
Veritas: Was the Genetic Code Intelligently Designed?
Veritas: Wasting Our Time With: Waste Not: Research Finds that “Far from Junk DNA,” ERVs Perform “Critical Cellular Functions”
Veritas: Were Retroviruses Created Good? A Critique.
Veritas: What Evolution Isn't
Veritas: What has Evolution Ever Done for Us?
Veritas: What is True?
Veritas: While the Flood Rages, Termites Dig, Dinosaurs Dance and Cicadas Sing
Veritas: WHO ARE THE CREATION "SCIENTISTS"?
Day Million: A short story by Frederick Pohl.
Veritas: Who is Your Creator? - ERVs!
Veritas: Why are there still monkeys?
Veritas: Why Clastic Dykes Don't Indicate a Global Flood
Veritas: Why Evolutionary Science is Vitally Important - a personal view
Veritas: Why Evolutionary Science is Vitally Important - a personal view (1)
Veritas: Why I Believe Genesis is Historically Accurate
Veritas: Why I Left Young-Earth Creationism
Veritas: Why the Black Sea is not the Site of Noah's Flood
Veritas: Why?
Veritas: Wikidia
Was Darwin a racist, and does evolution promote racism? - #DarwinDay (Hint ... No) • Skeptical Science
Was Hitler a Darwinian.pdf
We'll Let You Know - YouTube
Why creation "science" isn't.
Why I Left Young-Earth Creationism
Veritas: More on the Design Hypothesis
Veritas
Veritas: Did "Team SFT" Really Debunk "Stated Clearly" on the DNA Evidence That Humans & Chimps Share A Common Ancestor: Endogenous Retroviruses?
Page: Edit
Page: Edit
Veritas: ERVs? Do koalas prove that humans got part of their DNA from viruses?
Veritas: Is the Placenta a 'Problem'? No, Ann, No.
Veritas: Notes from a Misspent Retirement
Veritas: The Beavis and Butthead of Creationism Ride Again
Amazon.co.uk:Customer reviews: THE FIRST COUPLE: ADAM AND EVE - INDEPENDENT ORIGINS: REFUTING THE CRITICS OF BIBLICAL CREATION PART ONE
Veritas
Veritas: A quick introduction to microbiology and retrovirology
Veritas: More from the creationist Beavis and Butthead duo.
A Problem for Darwin? The problem of "blending inheritance".
The Varves! Proof of an old earth and verification of 14C dating accuracy.
Veritas: Dear Dr. Tour (public)
Veritas: On "The Placenta Problem: How Common Descent Fails", by Ann Gauger of the "Discovery Institute"
Veritas: The Cambrian Explosion: The Reconstruction of Animal Biodiversity.— By Douglas H. Erwin and James W. Valentine.
Veritas: Generating or Finding Information - a Thought Experiment
"Atheist Logic. A very silly 'meme' that comes up with tiresome regularity.
Veritas: "Objective morality". Is it laziness, cowardice or bluster?
Veritas: "Standing for Truth," + Kent and Eric Hovind
Veritas: Age
Veritas: Werner Gitt
Veritas: Phobias
Veritas: A2AIG
Veritas: Preface
Veritas: Exo Life?
Veritas: Abiogenesis
Veritas: Religious Education
Veritas: Quips
Veritas: Evolutionary Model
Veritas: Expelled Exposed Exposed
Veritas: Revelation
Veritas: Human Evolution: Genes, Genealogies and Phylogenies - Graeme Finlay
Veritas: Mackerelevolution
Veritas: An Open Letter to Mark Zuckerberg and Company
Veritas: Antiscientism
Veritas: Antiscientism
Veritas: Intelligent Designer Spotting
Veritas: "Fearfully and Wonderfully Designed".