The tree of life

DaveScot at uncommondescent (22nd Feb, 2007) is a bit perplexed because the tree of life (i.e. a representation of the relatedness of species) changes over time. This is, as anyone who knows even the tiniest bit of science, how things go as new observations are acquired and taken into account. DaveScot, however, thinks that this is something worthy of ... actually, I'm not really sure what he is trying to do. As lots of ID proponents keep pointing out, common descent is in fact compatible with ID. The two trees of life he shows pictures of are both compatible with ID. ANY tree of life is compatible with ID. In fact, your average boreal forest and even a random smackering of dots on a piece of A4 paper is compatible with ID. Heck, ANYTHING is compatible with ID (apart from the obvious exception where intelligence has never played any part in anything). And this is, of course, why ID is useless.

Did we descend from apes?

DaveScot at uncommondescent blogs (Feb 10, 2007):

You know for many years I’ve been taking care
to avoid saying men evolved from apes because the pedant dominated science
establishment is quick to point out that we and apes descend from a common
ancestor and anyone who thinks we evolved from apes clearly doesn’t understand evolution. So now we
have arguably the most recognized living name in paleontology, Richard Leakey, blurting
out the proverbial “I’m so stupid I don’t know what common ancestry means”. What
are we to make of that?
I’m sure our good pedant friends in the science establishment, through Panda’s
Thumb or some member blog, will let us know upon reading this.

What are we to make of this. Is it true that when someone claims that we descended from apes, then that someone doesn't understand evolution? Can we therefore claim that Richard Leaky does not understand it? The answer to both question would be no. The common ancestor of humans and chimps/bonobos would have been an ape-like creature, just as the common ancestor of humans/chimps/boobos and gorillas would have been. Saying that we descended from apes would, therefore, not really be wrong. (HOWEVER, if you were to claim that we descended from a chimp, you would be saying that we descended from a modern(ish) animal and THEN you would be wrong and your understanding of evolution would be sub-par - The only example I think I have seen of ID creationists claiming that we descended from a modern organism is when the odd fellow claims that we descended from amoeba.) I think that the problem here is that, when an ID creationist says these things, "evolutionists" automatically assume that the ID-folk refer to modern apes as being our ancestors.

I don't think that I have ever seen anyone actually protest when it is claimed that our ancestor was an ape. What I HAVE seen is some "evolutionists" complain when the ID creationist claims that we descended from monkeys. Personally, I don't see anything wrong with this either. The common ancestor with humans and monkeys would most likely have been "something like a monkey". You could also claim that we descended from fish, since the last common ancestor we had with a fish would probably have been "something like a fish". The same thing applies here as in the ape example above - as long as the claim is NOT that we descended from a modern animal (say a spider monkey or a flounder respectively), there is nothing terribly wrong in these claims.

Global warming

The folks at uncommondescent seem to quite unanimously think that global warming is not due to human causes. I'm not going to advocate neither for or against the extent to which humans are contributing to rising temperatures but merely point out what I find interesting with the ID-crowds conclusion. Intelligent design proponents tend to make a "design inference" (conclude that something has an intelligently designed cause) whenever they feel that mere known natural processes are not enough to account for a certain outcome. And yet, in the global warming debate, there seems to be evidence that causes such as changing levels in solar output are not enough to account for the increase in global temperatures. Because of this (and given that CO2 which we pump out quickly is a green-house gas), climate scientists have made a "design inference" and are claiming that humans are responsible for at least some of the warming. Usually, the ID crowd loves when scientists think that they can detect intelligent design of any kind (think archaeology and SETI), but in this instance, they seem to flat out refuse to even consider the possibility that intelligence might be at work. Why would this be? Comments such as:

"Global Warming: why it is the Left’s last best chance to gain a
stranglehold on our political system and economy… and how we can fight
back"

and

"Given the way Darwin defenders go about defending evolution, why should we
expect the science of global warming to be any different. "

seem to imply that the exisence of evidence of design is secondary to other agendas.