Darwinists have reacted with outrage and denial to a theory by geneticist and evolutionary biologist Eugene McCarthy that human evolution is the result of the union of a male pig and a female ape.
P.Z. Myers has christened it the "MFAP (Monkey F***** a Pig) hypothesis". Myers points to the chromosomal incompatibilities, the child-rearing disparities and the unlikelihood of successful hybridization between pigs and apes.
Darwinian BioBlogger Alison Campbell finds it unlikely, for similar issues of chromosomal incompatibility and lack of phenotypic evidence.
Dr. Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, scoffs at the theory-- "highly original, completely implausible... I laughed out loud."
So how to explain human origins?
The MFAP hypothesis, Darwinists insist, is crazy.
Darwinists all accept the MFAM (Monkey F***** a Monkey) hypothesis, which, unlike the MFAP hypothesis, is perfectly sane.
P.Z. Myers has christened it the "MFAP (Monkey F***** a Pig) hypothesis". Myers points to the chromosomal incompatibilities, the child-rearing disparities and the unlikelihood of successful hybridization between pigs and apes.
Darwinian BioBlogger Alison Campbell finds it unlikely, for similar issues of chromosomal incompatibility and lack of phenotypic evidence.
Dr. Rosemary Joyce, a professor of anthropology at UC Berkeley, scoffs at the theory-- "highly original, completely implausible... I laughed out loud."
So how to explain human origins?
The MFAP hypothesis, Darwinists insist, is crazy.
Darwinists all accept the MFAM (Monkey F***** a Monkey) hypothesis, which, unlike the MFAP hypothesis, is perfectly sane.
McCarthy isn't an evolutionary biologist. His hypothesis that humans are the result of hybridisation between pigs and chimps is just completely implausible.
ReplyDeleteStarting a second thread on this topic just because the Daily Mail (which appears to be one of Egnor's favourite science references) decided to publish it again months after PZ Myers took it to pieces is just silly.
You know, blinkfast, if you had your own blog you wouldn't need to try and manage this one from a remote location. I'm surprised you bothered to comment, given your disdain. Slow day at the Collective?
DeleteAnd your point, Grandpa? Is it a slow day in the Old Folks' Home?
DeleteMy point... "if you had your own blog you wouldn't need to try and manage this one"
DeleteGet it now?
And by the way, I wish the "Old Folk's Home" (aka the Government) would pay my heat bill. The Global Warming ice storm that has gripped the US caused me to crank up the carbon emissions.
"McCarthy isn't an evolutionary biologist."
DeleteAnd Darwin was a clerk. What's the big deal?
Grandpa,
DeleteWell, it's your Winter after all. What do you expect to happen in Winter?
Actually, our Winter in Perth was abnormally warm, and most days I was able to sit outside in shorts and a t-shirt. I never lost my tan this year.
C-Rex: "What's the big deal? "
DeleteOnly the Anointed may opine on the Four Corners of the Earth. Heretics need not apply.
By the way, you can have the Canadian Express back. We're freezing down here.
barkmad: "What do you expect to happen in Winter?"
DeleteI've been told by the Met and the UN to expect warmer weather. I'm not going to be satisfied until there are palm trees in my front yard.
Adm.
Delete"By the way, you can have the Canadian Express back. We're freezing down here."
Hey now! It takes a village to properly freeze one's ass off. It's all about the redistribution of weather! We're just sharing. -10C here and 20cm due over the next 24 hours.
C-Rex: "-10C here and 20cm due over the next 24 hours."
DeleteShades of Sgt. Preston.
Adm.
Delete"I'm not going to be satisfied until there are palm trees in my front yard. "
Tell me about it. My master plan for Ontario Oranges is looking less and less likely. Going to have to stick to apples and strawberries.... man.
"Shades of Sgt. Preston."
LMAO!
Not quite. Not yet. Love the crimsons serge, though. Mine's not all that different in style. Never get to wear it but once or twice a year these days.
Having been stationed in the NW Territories, I can assert with confidence that our winters here in SW Ontario are tropical by comparison. Even in the southern most reached of Northern Ontario it's a totally different winter climate. You can spit and hear it crack in the cold. It is also inadvisable to pee outside on some nights.
PS Love the sled. Not sure my goldens would cooperate though. We do, however, have dog sled tours up the Bruce Peninsula ( very near here) in the winter, and one of the teams walks the same trails as me. We often run into 'the pack' while doing our thing in the woods. Hyper, friendly, and a TOTAL handful for their trainer. My dogs absolutely love playing with them.
crus: What's the big deal?
DeleteThe deal, crus, is that a lie is a lie. Egnor tries to shoot down evolutionary biology by associating it with a crackpot. He still has to acknowledge that McCarthy isn't a "mainstream evolutionary biologist" and that he isn't affiliated with the University of Georgia.
If he wants to deny that man descended from monkeys, he is free to do that. But he shouldn't lie about the claims of evolutionary biology.
Honesty is what's the big deal.
Hoo
Here's how "mainstream" McCarthy is, in the words of Dr. Joyce, the Berkeley professor quote in the opening post:
DeleteI want to officially disclaim any intent to advance the arguments of the author of this highly original, completely implausible, proposal. Described as a recipient of a PhD in genetics, he clearly is operating outside of the mainstream, although he has published about hybridization-- among birds.
Hoo
Hoo,
DeleteFrom what I can glean about the guy, it seems his is a geneticist and has taught biology. His theory seems to be based on genetic hybridization to explain the emergence of 'new life forms' (his expression), and his beef (not pork) is with the Darwinian explanation which he thinks is flawed at an 'axiomatic level'.
I am no professional in any of these fields, but is what you and Bach saying he does not hold a degree in evolutionary biology - and thus is not an evolutionary biologist? Is that correct?
If so, was Darwin when he wrote 'Origins'?
I am not being facetious, just trying to get to the bottom of the argument; the definitions.
No, that's not what we're saying. In his previous post, Egnor describes McCarthy as "a mainstream University of Georgia geneticist and evolutionary biologist" and proceeds to ridicule the MFAP "theory."
DeleteIn reality, McCarthy is neither a mainstream biologist, nor is he affiliated with the University of Georgia. He got his degrees and was likely a postdoc there until 2007. He is not employed as a scientist at the moment.
Hoo
On the achievements of "mainstream science":
DeleteThe scientific revolution was the emergence of modern science during the early modern period, when developments in mathematics, physics, astronomy, biology, medicine, and chemistry transformed views of society and nature...
--- Wiki: Scientific Revolution
I guess all the Revolutions that matter have already happened. It's imperative we preserve the status quo.
Who let Grandpa out of the attic? He's wandering around and mumbling to himself.
DeleteHoo
Looks like Hoots is off his meds today. He's hearing things.
DeleteYou mumble pretty loud, Grandpa. And completely apropos of nothing.
DeleteHoo
I'm just an admirer of Mainstream Science where everything important is Settled.
DeleteIs that the Consensus?
DeleteHoo,
DeleteI think this is a war of definitions.
You and Bach take issue with the current employment of this fellow, and see Mike's description and consequently misleading.
Mike sees him as mainstream due to his education and past employment at mainstream posts at a mainstream university.
All of you take issue with the theory itself.
That is the underlying point here. The theory is a load of pig-s#!t.
But why did he resort to this theory? That is an interesting question to me. He seems to, in his own words, describe a deep dissatisfaction with the accepted version of evolution.
Being a typical scientist (employed or not) of the materialist sort, he need to find something that explains the gaps. In doing so, he reaches for his own speciality, hybridization. The real gas (not methane, please!) is that the most viable candidate for this magic loving moment is a porcine ancestor.
This is very telling. Extremely rare hominid bones and certainty (constantly revised) on one side, strange counter rational hybrids on the other. Oh, and I forgot Aliens. Aliens are another popular donor of the lovin' coming from the masters of the gene-pool science.
You must, Hoo, feel quite happy that you're in physics when you read this stuff.
crus, this isn't a matter of definition, unless you wish to redefine who a mainstream scientist is. The fella is off his rocker, out of academia, and has distanced himself from mainstream evolutionary biology. Can't be any farther from mainstream than that.
DeleteHoo
C-Rex: "That is the underlying point here. The theory is a load of pig-s#!t."
DeleteI think you've hit the nail on the head. It seems to me that Egnor views both the MFAP and MFAM theories with the same gimlet eye. naturally, as is their wont, the materialist Left chooses to attack the person. And it doesn't make Egnor a "liar". Apparently one is to believe that geneticists are less qualified to comment on evolution than, say, railroad engineers are qualified to comment on climate. It's very confusing until you discern the underlying principle.
Hoo,
Delete"crus, this isn't a matter of definition, unless you wish to redefine who a mainstream scientist is."
Well, that seems to be precisely the point of contention. One one hand we have an argument against the mainstream based on current (non consensus) theory, credentials, and current employment. In the last comment you also add his apparent sanity, Hoo.
On the other hand we have an argument from credentials, past employment record, and adherence to consensus (materialism, unguided evolution) which is seen as generally 'crazy' by Mike.
Cross purposes.
Under the ad hominem and invective polemics, you folks are arguing about what the mainstream is.
But as I stated above, all seem to agree the pig thing is bonkers.
Adm.
"Apparently one is to believe that geneticists are less qualified to comment on evolution than, say, railroad engineers are qualified to comment on climate."
This is the curious part to me. I would think a geneticist with a materialist bent would be given a fair hearing in the current academic environment - no matter how nuts the resultant theories of his philosophy may be.
crus, are you seriously arguing that Gene McCarthy is a mainstream evolutionary biologist? It's not entirely clear whether you do, so please tell me one way or the other.
DeleteHoo
Hoo,
DeleteIn short, no. But my reasoning is a little different than yours, Hoo. I don't see him as mainstream, because I see the mainstream as a dogmatic orthodoxy. He is a heretic and has been self-exiled from that peer group. That does not have any effect on whether or not I agree with his ideas, however.
Don't take me the wrong way, I do not think his theory anything other than crudely comical. Reminds me of barrack humour. But, then I don't buy the whole premise of what we call 'evolution' being unguided, rudderless chance.
I can see why man descending from a common ancestor to apes seems more plausible to a materialist. But, then I am not a materialist. I do not restrict my thinking on the subject of human development and adaptation in terms of matter or even a linear timeline. In short, I see this as more or less irrelevant to the factors about this questions that truly interest me about man, consciousness, transcendence, and time.
Could one or the other theory prove beneficial at some point? I can't see the pig thing doing that. I may be wrong, I guess.
But the ape thing? Sure, maybe.
Will it? I cannot even begin guess.
All that depends on the mindset of the people researching the data and applying the science as it comes in. And that, Hoo, is how I would judge the theory: It's application and use for the benefit of the man and/or beasts involved.
Hope that clears it up for you.
Crus, you don't need to agree with mainstream evolutionary biologists to acknowledge that Gene McCarthy is not one. I think that's crystal clear.
DeleteHoo
Actually, I wish Bachfiend would get his own blog.
DeleteRemember that time he threw a childish temper tantrum and told Egnor that he was taking his ball and going home? Then he kept sneaking back here, pretending not to be Bachfiend. That was funny.
I was kind of wishing he'd stay lost. His analysis is superficial and nearly always relies on fallacy, particularly the fallacy of appeal to authority.
Joey
Joey,
DeleteI like you too. Egnor's blog is very good for a laugh. Its stupidity is refreshing.
Personally I see both theories as an example of NFUARS (Nihilism F**** Up Anything Remotely Scientific).
ReplyDeleteThey're both based on the need to attain a certain result. Both heaps of pretentious nonsense.
Adaptation was obvious for centuries before Darwin. But to infer from that process that magic leaps occur between species is just as absurd as pig-ape love triangles that result in human-like offspring.
This stuff all reads like something from a Soviet genetic experiment. In other words 'mad science'.
The pig thing is, at bare minimum, a worthy butt of jokes. A smoked butt at that.
Just imagine what a different beginning Kubrick's film version of AC Clarke's 2001 would have had, if this had been accepted theory!
DeleteBada-boom!
Mmmmm. Smoked butt. Memphis-style sauce. Hush puppies and slaw. Cold beer. It's the taste of summertime.
DeleteAdm.
DeleteAdd some peaches and cream on the cob, and you have me at the table. But, I'll bring the beer ;)
PS ever had 'pink coleslaw'? It's a really sweet mix, and quite popular out East (Maritimes and Newfoundland). If not, see if you can nab some in the summer. Never met a fan of slaw that is not impressed. Really good with fish.
Crusader, Perhaps your incredulity is due to your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of evolution. Evolution doesn’t predict magic leaps between species. Magic leaps are a feature of creationism.
Delete-KW
Hoo KW and other mavens of the Consensus:
DeleteYou miss the point of the post, perhaps intentionally.
McCarthy is mainstream, not because of his education (which is in fact mainstream), but because he is a Darwinist who attributes the existence of humanity to copulation between two animals.
Is the MFAP hypothesis really crazier than the MFAM hypothesis?
Sounds like a quibble about species, well within the Consensus.
You Consensus Guys are as crazy as McCarthy is.
Yeah, I guess it's better for everyone involved if you bring the beer. :-)
DeleteI love Newfieland (I took a B&C-grade black bear there in '92), but I didn't get to pink slaw. I'll look it up and try my hand.
I was staying in Main Brook with Barb Genge who I will give a little free ad as one of the best outfitters in all Canada. And she treated us to the biggest damn lobster I have ever seen in my life. I also had several drinks with "iceberg ice" chips. Newfoundlanders are great people.
Oh yeah, I also had my obligatory "screech-in" and my first - and last! - sip of Newfie Screech.
Adm.
DeleteI love 'the rock'. Been out there several times over the years. The Western 'Sunset' or 'Viking' coast is truly mind blowing. Gros Morne to St Anthony's is just something else. The people are indeed some of the friendliest I have experience. Shirt off the back types, for the most part.
Glad you got screeched in. Hope they did not subject you to the cod tongue ordeal. I barely survived that :P
KW,
Delete"Crusader, Perhaps your incredulity is due to your misunderstanding and misrepresentation of evolution."
No. My incredible nature is just what I was born with. At least, that what the ladies tell me. But thanks, anyway.
"Evolution doesn’t predict magic leaps between species. Magic leaps are a feature of creationism."
Miracle are not magic. They are input from the creator into a natural system.
Magic is the art of illusion. You know, like the theory of mind you adhere to. Everything is magic for you, KW. One big illusion.
Now, why not go pull another rabbit out of your.... er... hat?
Oh, we get you loud and clear, Egnor. You are so desperate in your losing fight against theory of evolution that you stoop to finding a crackpot and presenting him as a mainstream evolutionary biologist.
DeleteMcCarthy is not "a mainstream University of Georgia geneticist and evolutionary biologist." He is not even at the University of Georgia, a plain fact that you have not acknowledged for four days (and counting). He is described as "clearly operating outside of the mainstream" by the Berkeley professor. McCarthy himself has denounced mainstream evolutionary biology.
So yes, you are telling a big fat lie and we can see through them.
Hoo
Hoo:
DeleteIs the MFAM hypothesis mainstream?
Monkeys do fuck monkeys, producing viable offspring. I have yet to see a monkey-pig hybrid.
DeleteBut that, again, is a sideshow. You have misrepresented Gene McCarthy as "a mainstream University of Georgia geneticist and evolutionary biologist." He is none of that. Acknowledge this fact and we can discuss evolutionary theory.
Hoo
Leave it to you Crusader to quibble over the meaning of “magic” while ignoring the point that evolution doesn’t predict or require “leaps” between species.
DeleteYour argument is about as sophisticated as “where’s the crocoduck?” What a joke. I guess some monkeys are just smarter than others.
-KW
It's hard to come up with anything in creationism. They keep recycling their stuff. Dembski poached his UPB from Henry Morris.
DeleteBut Egnor is worse. He can't even recycle the old creationist canards because he isn't even familiar with them. He just resorts to lying.
Hoo
The burden is on those who think it's possible.
DeleteBut we digress. You have yet to acknowledge that calling Gene McCarthy "a mainstream University of Georgia geneticist and evolutionary biologist" was a mischaracterization. At that point it probably was not a deliberate mischaracterization because you had no idea who he was (having read about it in Daily Mail). By now, it has become a deliberate mischaracterization, i.e., a lie. It's your obligation to come clean.
Hoo
KW,
Delete"Crusader to quibble over the meaning of “magic” while ignoring the point that evolution doesn’t predict or require “leaps” between species."
Hey now! Today's back and forth is all about definitions. I am just going 'mainstream'. Anyway, when you call something 'magic', you should know what it means. As for the leaps, that's what I call it when you have to jump over huge gaps. What do you call them? Hops? Skipping? Jumping? What do those 'arrows' mean when you go to the museum? I always took them for 'one day, we'll find a transition to stick in here, promise! - Dr Pitcairn Quackodile, 1899'.
"Your argument is about as sophisticated as “where’s the crocoduck?”"
No, KW. That's not my argument. My argument is more like 'Where are the promised species transitional fossils? You folks are a century late, and everybody's waiting!'
Your argument is for a magical, illusion-based reality, that is direction-less and produces various complex life forms for no purpose what so ever that will someday be proven by a science of some sort, and any scientists or academics that disagree with even HOW that happens are completely insane heretics....SO THERE!'
Oh, and we cannot forget the 'neh-nah-neh-nah-nah!' part. That's the cruncher.
"I guess some monkeys are just smarter than others. "
That was almost funny! I actually smirked at that. You're getting better at this. I'll send you a bill next week. Maybe after your winterfest celebration, so you can afford some extra festive themed lubricants?
But, just a word of advice: Don't call people monkeys when you're not sure of their ethnicity. There's a little baggage on those terms. Don't worry, I wont charge extra for that tidbit, and you don't have to worry about me going all ape-s#!t over it.
I like monkeys just fine.
Michael,
DeleteMFAM hypothesis? Humans evolved from great apes. They're still great apes. Egnor, you're the result of two great apes f***ing, exactly like about 7 billion people currently living in this world (excepting the ones conceived by IVF).
McCarthy is mainstream, not because of his education (which is in fact mainstream), but because he is a Darwinist who attributes the existence of humanity to copulation between two animals.
DeleteNo, idiot, nobody believes that. It's bad enough that you believe the fairy tale of Adam and Eve. Don't lie about what evolutionary biologists have inferred about human history. Remember, you will roast in hell and not get to suck Jesus' holy dick when you lie. Oh wait, unless you repent. Then everything is fine between you and Jeebus again.
"P.Z. Myers has christened it the "MFAP (Monkey F***** a Pig) hypothesis". Myers points to the chromosomal incompatibilities, ..."
ReplyDeleteWhat's funny about Myers' objection is that I -- a mere computer programmer, not a Holy Exhalted Biologist -- noticed that very problem in relation to how to get humans from apes naturalistically, and PZ's allies (and, for all I know, PZ himself) denounce me as an ignoramus and a liar. Some of them even have a whole series of pages at Panda's Thumb trying to explain-away -- or to hide when necessary -- the scientific/medical facts I put together, which blow Darwinism out of the water on its own (claimed) terms.
Hahaha! Priceless. An uneducated creationist moron who thinks he blew "Darwinism out of the water". Thanks for the laughs.
Deletecouldn't think his way out of the mental analog of wet tissue paper: "Hahaha! Priceless. An uneducated creationist moron who thinks he blew "Darwinism out of the water". Thanks for the laughs."
DeleteI wonder, does this woefully underpowered God-hating, Darwin-sniffing douche-bag have even the vaguest idea of what that notorious "uneducated creationist moron", P Z Meyers, was referring to as "the chromosomal incompatibilities", and the scientific-and-medical *reasoning* that ol' PZ gave for those "chromosomal incompatibilities" having the result that even were it possible for a pig sperm to fertilize an ape egg, the resulting organism would be sterile? I wonder, does the douche-bag even *care* about the scientific-and-medical *reasoning* that ol' PZ , notorious "uneducated creationist moron" that he is, presented against the MFAP (ahem) hypothesis?
Silly me! Of course the douche doesn't care about all that hard thinking stuff.
Oooooh, very creative:
Deletewoefully underpowered God-hating, Darwin-sniffing douche-bag
I think you forgot to wipe some of your boyfriend's semen from your mustachio.
Ilion,
DeleteThere's an even more fundamental reason why pig-chimp hybrids won't exist, besides chromosomal incompatibilities.
Mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell, contain genetic material independent of the nucleus. However, there are only 13 genes producing mitochondrial proteins. Most of the mitochondrial genes have been transferred to the nucleus over evolutionary time (mitochondria were originally independent bacteria).
To have a functioning mitochondrion the protein products coded by the mitochondrial genes contained in the nucleus have to fit the protein products coded by the mitochondrial genes contained in the mitochondria.
The mitochondria are passed from mother to offspring, with no paternal inheritance. Half the nuclear genes come from the father. If the paternal nuclear genes are incompatible with the maternal mitochondrial genes then the mitochondria don't function. And the hybrid isn't born at all, let alone be sterile.
Pigs and primates separated about 80 million years ago. Both nuclear and mitochondrial genes have been progressively accumulating minor changes, adding up to significant changes.
Natural selection has resulted in the unfit offspring, ones in which the nuclear and mitochondrial genes not matching, being eliminated. And then, if a hybrid pops up 70 million years later, the nuclear and mitochondrial genes don't match and it's not viable at all.
Hybrids are possible the more recently the parents shared a common ancestor. Darwin's finches, polar bears/brown bears, humans (homo sapiens/homo neaderthalis). Hundreds of thousands or millions of years. Not tens of millions of years.
Joey: "... particularly the fallacy of appeal to authority."
ReplyDeleteI would say, "appeal to *false* authority"
Paleontologists, collaborating with the TSA, have discovered the monkey responsible for all this: Rooster Monkburn. And he is one badass monk.
ReplyDeleteDr Khansensis Mainstream, Emeritus Professor of Popularity Studies at Herd University, eat your heart out!
Ilion,
ReplyDeleteI like you too. It's intellectually dishonest just labelling someone else as being intellectually dishonest as the sole argument.
This comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteEgnor: a mainstream University of Georgia geneticist and evolutionary biologist-- Dr. Eugene McCarthy, Director of Macroevolution.net-- claims....
ReplyDeleteWhy does this deliberate mischaracterization remain uncorrected for 5 days? McCarthy is not affiliated with the University of Georgia. He is not a mainstream evolutionary biologist. This is a lie.
Hoo
Liar, liar, pants on fire!
ReplyDeleteHoo