Error-free Creationist Literature?

[VoxRat]

I never understand these threads. Creationism is false; it does more than simply rest on a list of falsehoods, it IS a list of falsehoods. Strip away everything that's false, and there's nothing left of creationism at all.

Maybe these threads are just a vehicle for selecting and exposing specific errors piecemeal?

Basically, yes.

I don't know if you followed the history of this particular thread; I think I summarized in the OP. But, very briefly, Dave Hawkins has repeated claimed that creationist science is every bit as rigorous and scholarly as real science, as practised by grown-ups. And that "science articles" at AnswersInGenesis are at least as accurate, informative, up-to-date, etc. etc. as Nature, Science, or any other peer-reviewed academic science journals. Article after article from AiG has been demolished on these threads. His response: you can find errors in any paper.

He has steadfastly refused to nominate an AiG article that he thinks will bear scrutiny. He has, however, claimed that this Bergman article is revolutionary, groundbreaking, way ahead of its time, real-world science is just now scrambling to catch up to what this creationist saw so clearly 7 years ago, and - most jaw-droppingly of all - that his reading this one creationist article has allowed him to leap-frog ahead of PhD virologists, with all their tedious book-learning and laboratory research, in understanding viruses!

So this thread is all about rubbing his nose in all these claims. The more he persists in his fantasies, the more he refuses to concede the most lost of lost causes, the more fun it is to continue to rub his nose in it.

Surely you don't begrudge me that pleasure, do you?

Also, exposing Bergman's errors, ignorance, and incompetence has been something of a vehicle for communicating actual information about microbiology that some readers have found interesting.

[VoxRat]

Hi CK-- I've known that most bacteria are beneficial since about the 6th grade. We're not talking about bacteria primarily. We're talking about how VIRUSES supply genetic information to bacteria so that they can adapt and survive.

Especially among people who can't be bothered to pick up a book on the subject. Really, any general book on microbiology/molecular biology pitched to a general reader would have taught you these things. If you bothered to read it. But it turns out you didn't even bother to read the Encyclopedia article you've been complaining about for months for "not breathing a word" of all this.

I'm sorry, Dave. You're just a buffoon. And your failure to concede that every point you've raised in connection with this issue has been thoroughly demolished just convinces us that we're justified in slogging ahead with this "show the world what buffoonery creationism is" project. And you continue to play an essential role in that project, by offering a willing nose to be rubbed in the mess you continue to insist on making. So, hats off to ya, Dave!

This information is not well known.

Actually it is.
By people who read books.

But it's still not well known to you - because Bergman did such a half-assed job of explaining how any of these processes work. In those areas where he even attempted any details, he got them very, very wrong. So what you think you know turns out to be wrong. But you're too fundemented to recognize that even when it's spelled out for you in gory detail and in living color.

[VoxRat]

There's another point that this thread brings out about creationists.

It's the nexus between creationists' failure to grasp the whole consilience thing, their reluctance to read any real-world science, and their failure to recognize when they're being fooled by clowns like Bergman.

For the rest of us, when we read something new, we attempt to see where it fits into the giant jigsaw puzzle of our understanding of everything else we've come to understand about the universe. When we read something like this Bergman article, we run across several "pieces" that don't seem to "fit". (I.e. the errors that I've been detailing). We think "that doesn't seem right; that doesn't seem consistent with how I've heard the term 'transfection' used elsewhere" (for instance). Partly because we have heard these terms used elsewhere, whereas for Dave, Bergman is his sole source for all this stuff. So we either find out that the new "piece" is defective, as in this case, or - rarely - we recognize the new piece is trying to tell us something genuinely new, that our understanding of the universe needs tweaking.

Much like when we get a new seemingly anomalous result in science (e.g. ¹⁴C in coal) we first ask "how does this fit in with everything else we've come to understand about science? This jigsaw puzzle piece doesn't fit; let's be really sure there's not some explanation that doesn't require we disassemble the 9,900 pieces that seem to fit so perfectly in order to accommodate this one for which the space it's supposed to fit isn't immediately obvious."

Ah, but not so for our creationist friend!

For him, if a creationist says it it must be true! No need to double-check. And for him, any anomalous finding means that science can't explain it, so the whole structure of science needs to be torn down and we need to start from scratch.

It's really not very intelligent.

[Dave Hawkins]

Well ... I think I'm about done with this thread having proven my point. CK1, my virologist friend, I've never seen you dodge quite like this before. I asked you why the Wiki 'virus' article doesn't mention the HUGE fact that viruses are essential for bacterial adaptation and survival and you float 2 different Wiki articles at me. I call you on it and you dodge again with yet another different Wiki article. Wow. And you never have answered my direct question. Do you understand that without viruses, life on earth would cease? Yes or no?

I'll be watching the Wiki Virus article closely. If it's not updated with this info in about 2 weeks, I'll do it myself.

Kudos to Joz for having the honesty to admit you didn't know of this information. I would suggest to you that saying it's not very important info is a little like saying "Water is essential to life? Big deal. Not important." Can you imagine if the Wiki article on "Water" didn't mention the fact that it is essential to life on the planet? And a little info on HOW and WHY it is essential to life on the planet?

Come people. Get your brains off Darwinism and think!

[Wolfhound]

Dave, you are a lowlife, dishonest, smarmy, arrogant, creotard fuckwit. And I mean that with all of my heart. It was pointed out to you that this "creationist breakthrough" was NOT cutting edge, having been mentioned many years before your hero wrote about it. Yet here you are, declaring victory and shaking your finger like an indulgent parent at the REAL SCIENTISTS on this board.

Most pathetically of all, you have whined about how "creation 'science'" is cutting edge advanced and this ONE half-arsed not-breakthrough is the best you can manage? No wonder you're blowing it out of proportion and handwaving when this is all your side can manage.

So, howzabout you get YOUR head out of your Bronze Age mythology and YOU think? :mad:

[Febble]

Well ... I think I'm about done with this thread having proven my point. CK1, my virologist friend, I've never seen you dodge quite like this before. I asked you why the Wiki 'virus' article doesn't mention the HUGE fact that viruses are essential for bacterial adaptation and survival and you float 2 different Wiki articles at me. I call you on it and you dodge again with yet another different Wiki article. Wow. And you never have answered my direct question. Do you understand that without viruses, life on earth would cease? Yes or no?

I'll be watching the Wiki Virus article closely. If it's not updated with this info in about 2 weeks, I'll do it myself.

Kudos to Joz for having the honesty to admit you didn't know of this information. I would suggest to you that saying it's not very important info is a little like saying "Water is essential to life? Big deal. Not important." Can you imagine if the Wiki article on "Water" didn't mention the fact that it is essential to life on the planet? And a little info on HOW and WHY it is essential to life on the planet?

Come people. Get your brains off Darwinism and think!

Dave, no-one has to dodge WIKI!!! You just edit it, for goodness sake. It's a great resource, but you can conclude absolutely nothing from what is and isn't there, other than someone didn't put it there or that someone else took it out.

It's really simple. You cited a badly referenced REVIEW article (i.e. a review of work by scientists) as evidence that the person who wrote the REVIEW was ahead of scientists!!!!

Can you not see how idiotic this is? Then you cite the absence of a reference to this stuff in EB (which turns out to be a mistake on your part) and then the apparent absence of stuff in WIKI to try to claim - what? That scientists don't know the stuff that that they wrote that your reviewer REVIEWED in the first place?

Come on!!!! This is lame, even for you!!

[Virginia-American]

... As always: Creationists count on the possibility that no one will look up their references and discover their incompetence and/or lies.

Thanks. I love it when someone calls their bluffs.

I've seen this claim about the EB so many times, I believe you're the first to check.

I'd rep++ you if I could.

[Black5]

Hawkins how about responding to the thread title and provide an error free AIG article. You continue to spit on Baby Jesus with your dishonesty.

[VoxRat]

OK. Before we detoured to cover Bergman’s extremely imprecise way with words, we had just gotten into Bergman’s misunderstanding of HIV. Let’s pick up where we left off.
Bergman writes:

Evidently, inappropriate sexual acts by humans caused the transfer of a lentivirus from a monkey to humans.

“Evidently”???
Evidently… to whom???

See, here again is one of those places where a citation would come in handy, because I’ve been studying virology all my life, have followed the HIV story from its beginning, have taught graduate classes on the subject, and I’ve never run across that “evident” “fact”.

The other thing that would be useful about a citation – from Bergman’s perspective, anyway – is that it might help allay suspicions that his mind is haunted by some very spooky demons.

Now, it is generally thought by the people who study these things that HIV-1 likely arose from a similar ancestor virus that exists in some nonhuman primate population in Africa (probably chimpanzees, I believe). It is generally thought that the virus made the species leap, much as described earlier, to humans, and has evolved (by good old random mutation and natural selection) to be more and more infectious in humans. But most speculations I’ve seen along these lines focus on the “bushmeat” trade in Africa – which involves a lot of exposure of a lot of humans to a lot of nonhuman primate blood.

To my delicate Western sensibilities, I’m not sure which I find more repugnant: “inappropriate sexual acts by humans” and chimps, or inappropriate slaughter of chimps by humans. It’s the latter, though, that has been the focus of real-world science’s hypotheses on the origin of HIV. I don’t know why Bergman doesn’t know that; I suspect it has to do with the fact that he’s clearly read next to nothing on this, or any other area of virology. And I don’t know where he got this other theory; I suspect it has something to do with those very spooky demons I wondered about above. Spooky demons that are all about sexual perversion, that seem to haunt a lot of fundamentalists.

[ck1]

Well ... I think I'm about done with this thread having proven my point. CK1, my virologist friend, I've never seen you dodge quite like this before. I asked you why the Wiki 'virus' article doesn't mention the HUGE fact that viruses are essential for bacterial adaptation and survival and you float 2 different Wiki articles at me. I call you on it and you dodge again with yet another different Wiki article. Wow. And you never have answered my direct question. Do you understand that without viruses, life on earth would cease? Yes or no?

I'll be watching the Wiki Virus article closely. If it's not updated with this info in about 2 weeks, I'll do it myself.

Kudos to Joz for having the honesty to admit you didn't know of this information. I would suggest to you that saying it's not very important info is a little like saying "Water is essential to life? Big deal. Not important." Can you imagine if the Wiki article on "Water" didn't mention the fact that it is essential to life on the planet? And a little info on HOW and WHY it is essential to life on the planet?

Come people. Get your brains off Darwinism and think!

Dave, You have proven nothing. Your entire argument now boils down to a few descriptive paragraphs in one of the many articles in wikipedia dealing with microbes. Don't you realize how trivial that is? I have no problem with that virology article and see no reason to attempt to change it, and I am sure voxrat will not either, so don't bother waiting for 2 weeks. Go ahead and attempt to change it yourself right now.

I took your question seriously and addressed it. In several different ways. But you keep coming back to this question not because you really want a thoughtful answer but because you want me to say that you are right. Unless I agree that Bergman's article has ground-breaking info, nothing else I say matters. Well, the article is crap.

You are a stubborn and proud man, and find it impossible to admit that you were wrong about anything you regard as a major issue. And I also note that you avoided responding to voxrat who is clearly a lot more direct than I am. I know better than to expect to change your mind on this or any other E/C issue, but (especially at this time of year), I can't help but hope that you learned something from this discussion, though I must admit, after a year of this, I fear that that is unlikely.

[uncool]

Dave, you have proven nothing, you have merged threads inappropriately, and you have in fact been shown that every single point that you tried to bring up was wrong. Declaring victory here really is not smart.
=Uncool-

[JOZeldenrust]

Well ... I think I'm about done with this thread having proven my point. CK1, my virologist friend, I've never seen you dodge quite like this before. I asked you why the Wiki 'virus' article doesn't mention the HUGE fact that viruses are essential for bacterial adaptation and survival and you float 2 different Wiki articles at me. I call you on it and you dodge again with yet another different Wiki article. Wow. And you never have answered my direct question. Do you understand that without viruses, life on earth would cease? Yes or no?

I'll be watching the Wiki Virus article closely. If it's not updated with this info in about 2 weeks, I'll do it myself.

Kudos to Joz for having the honesty to admit you didn't know of this information. I would suggest to you that saying it's not very important info is a little like saying "Water is essential to life? Big deal. Not important." Can you imagine if the Wiki article on "Water" didn't mention the fact that it is essential to life on the planet? And a little info on HOW and WHY it is essential to life on the planet?

Come people. Get your brains off Darwinism and think!

Bad, bad creomonkey! Your average Joe comes across water several times a day. People die both from too much and too little water. The quality of water is an important political issue. There are a lot of people who have an interest in knowing that water is essential to life on earth. The relevance of viruses to the evolution of bacteria is relevant to only a very small portion of the population, mostly professional scientists. Those people are expected to keep up with scientific publications in their field of study anyway, so there is very little point in including such details in reference works aimed at the general public, such as the Encyclopedia Brittanica or Wikipedia.

The fact that viruses are essential to life on earth really isn't that big a deal. Pretty much everything is essential to life on earth. Without gravity, life on earth would be just as impossible as without viruses, yet I doubt you'll find a mention of the nessecity of gravity for life on earth on the Wiki page or the EB article on gravity. Do you think such a comment should be there? The same thing holds true for loads of things: without nitrogen, there could be no amino acids, yet should articles about nitrogen mention the crucial role nitrogen has for life on earth?

Nature is an interconnected whole: change anything, and everything changes. If you look close enough, it doesn't really matter what you're looking at: everything is pretty much essential to life as we know it.

So yeah, water essential to all life on earth? Big Fucking Deal!

[Dave Hawkins]

LOL. Keep it coming. You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates. Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

But you know what? I like you all anyway. (Well ... most of you) Let's get you laughing again ...

What were Tarzan's last words?

*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
*
"Who greased the rope?"

(OK. So it wasn't that funny ... but it's all I could think of at the moment)

Have a Merry Christmas!

(See you in the ring again soon!)

[JOZeldenrust]

LOL. Keep it coming. You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates. Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

Have a Merry Christmas!

(See you in the ring again soon!)

It was your claim that creationists were ahead of mainstream science, not our caim that creationists are behind the times (even though they usually are, including Bergman as has been demonstrated in this thread) that was being discussed in this thread.

Bergman wrote a review article, reviewing articles from mainstream scientific publications. It's impossible to write a review article before the original research articles are publicized, so claiming a review article illustrates creationist scholars being ahead of mainstream science is just silly.

You really are a piece of work, Davey. You couldn't just admit defeat, even on such a trivial matter, now could you? You had to move the goalposts again, even though noone was going to be fooled by your dishonesty.

Lying cretin fucktard.

Oh and merry christmas/foodfest to everyone.

[RAFH]

Thankyou, CK1, but I really want to know why Robert R. Wagner, Chairman and Professor, Department of Microbiology, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, 1967–96. Coeditor of Comprehensive Virology (19 vol.); The Viruses (26 vol.) ... spent his whole article talking about how infectious viruses are and how 'virus' is Latin for poison and such, but he didn't breathe a word about the much much much much much much larger role of viruses -- i.e. functioning almost like an external immune system for bacteria?

Can you please give your educated speculative answer on why it seems Wagner is clueless about this and, on the other hand, Bergman is clue-full? (Is that a word?)

Never believe a single word a creationist writes. I took the time to read though the article at britannica, and what did I discover on page 10?

Although viruses were originally discovered and characterized on the basis of the diseases they cause, most viruses that infect bacteria, plants, and animals (including humans) do not cause disease. In fact, bacteriophages may be helpful in that they rapidly transfer genetic information from one bacterium to another, and viruses of plants and animals may convey genetic information among similar species, helping their hosts survive in hostile environments.

As always: Creationists count on the possibility that no one will look up their references and discover their incompetence and/or lies.

Wow. My congratulations! You found a needle in the haystack. So I was wrong in saying he "didn't breathe a word about it." OK. But how then do you explain that there is so little information about it? (And I still don't find any info about it at all in the 2006 Prentice Hall Biology textbook) And I'd be curious to know what year this paragraph appeared in EB. I would bet that it appeared no earlier than 1998 (the year of publication of Margulis' book ... CLICK HERE for a excerpt). I will find out on my next trip to the library, I can assure you. So ... I'll take a hit in the "not reading carefully enough department"

It's so entertaining to see davey squirm and try to acquit himself downplay his failures and then redirect the focus. I really feel some psychology class should study davey. There's bound to be lots to learn about the human psyche.

but you haven't refuted my point ... that Bergman was ahead of many scientists in his knowledge of viruses when he wrote in 1999. Remember what the "radical" Margulis wrote in 1998 ...

The point that bears mentioning, however, is that viruses are no more "germs" or "enemies" than are bacteria or human cells.

Why did she write that? Because up until Sonea's New Bacteriology, most people thought this way (including scientists). Those that say "Bah, it was only the commoners that thought this way ... not us enlightened elites!" let me ask "Where do you think us "commoners" get our info from?" The scientists of course.

Not really davey, unfortunately, some of them get their knowledge from the likes of you. And some just go with the flow of crap coming out of hollywood or what they were taught as children, either by mis/dis-informed parents or their peers. Then again, there's just a lot of common knowledge, ever watch that program "Are you smarter than a 5th grader?" Those adults are displaying what they learned from scientists, no siree.

BTW davey, have you selected your candidate for the scientifically error free creationist article? Or come up with your rebuttal to Vox's line by line critique of your hero Bergman or started in on answering all the questions you've dodged as listed here: http://www.rantsnraves.org/showthread.php?t=4661

Cheers davey.

[RAFH]

And I'd be curious to know what year this paragraph appeared in EB. I would bet that it appeared no earlier than 1998 (the year of publication of Margulis' book ... CLICK HERE for a excerpt). I will find out on my next trip to the library, I can assure you. So ... I'll take a hit in the "not reading carefully enough department" but you haven't refuted my point ... that Bergman was ahead of many scientists in his knowledge of viruses when he wrote in 1999.

I just checked my 1989 edition, and found the exact same text.

Roy

OK. So my speculation was wrong. Fair enough. Let's turn our attention to Wiki and see how long it takes for the info to show up there.

Great, davey is running true to form. Can't come up with an error free creationist article and won't defend his hero, so he tries to distract focus by attacking the Encyclopedia Britannica and when he has to eat his words on that he suggests its a recent addition, he's sure of it, and when he has to eat those words, well, let's see, what else can he find to point at, ah yeah, Wikipedia. He'll go after that because it has one page articles he can scan quickly and confidently make a statement about. Yay!!!, davey. You go davey!! What a hero!!!

By the way davey, have you come up with your error-free article yet, of a defense of Bergman or started answering the list of questions you haven't answered, it's right here davey: http://www.rantsnraves.org/showthread.php?t=4661

[teucer]

LOL. Keep it coming. You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates. Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

But you know what? I like you all anyway. (Well ... most of you) Let's get you laughing again ...

What were Tarzan's last words?
*
*
"Who greased the rope?"

(OK. So it wasn't that funny ... but it's all I could think of at the moment)

Have a Merry Christmas!

(See you in the ring again soon!)

And another huge turkey of a post, just in time for Christmas.

[RAFH]

I never understand these threads. Creationism is false; it does more than simply rest on a list of falsehoods, it IS a list of falsehoods. Strip away everything that's false, and there's nothing left of creationism at all.

Maybe these threads are just a vehicle for selecting and exposing specific errors piecemeal?

Basically, yes.

I don't know if you followed the history of this particular thread; I think I summarized in the OP. But, very briefly, Dave Hawkins has repeated claimed that creationist science is every bit as rigorous and scholarly as real science, as practised by grown-ups. And that "science articles" at AnswersInGenesis are at least as accurate, informative, up-to-date, etc. etc. as Nature, Science, or any other peer-reviewed academic science journals. Article after article from AiG has been demolished on these threads. His response: you can find errors in any paper.

He has steadfastly refused to nominate an AiG article that he thinks will bear scrutiny. He has, however, claimed that this Bergman article is revolutionary, groundbreaking, way ahead of its time, real-world science is just now scrambling to catch up to what this creationist saw so clearly 7 years ago, and - most jaw-droppingly of all - that his reading this one creationist article has allowed him to leap-frog ahead of PhD virologists, with all their tedious book-learning and laboratory research, in understanding viruses!

So this thread is all about rubbing his nose in all these claims. The more he persists in his fantasies, the more he refuses to concede the most lost of lost causes, the more fun it is to continue to rub his nose in it.

Surely you don't begrudge me that pleasure, do you?

Rub-a-dub-dub,
rub-a-dub-dub,
dave's nose in the drub
And how do you think it got there?

He makes claims,
He plays games,
He doesn't name names,
Tis enough to make the fish stare.

Also, exposing Bergman's errors, ignorance, and incompetence has been something of a vehicle for communicating actual information about microbiology that some readers have found interesting.

Plus it shows exactly what davey considers bleeding edge breaking "science news".

[Coleslaw]

LOL. Keep it coming. You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates. Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

Quite the contrary. Your surprise at learning from the Bergman article the kind of stuff that ck knew 30 years ago supports the idea that creationists are behind the times, it doesn't kill it.

[VoxRat]

Originally Posted by Dave Hawkins
LOL. Keep it coming. You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates. Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

So when you say

You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates.

to whom are we illustrating this?
To you???
Can you find a single person on the planet who agrees with you that that's what this thread "illustrates"?
Well, probably you can; lots of creationists, like you, seem to agree with anything that any other creationist says, regardless of how contradictory. (Case in point: R.H. Brown and "the RATE group" on the constancy of radionuclide decay rates). But can you find a single person on the planet who agrees with you, and can write a coherent, grammatical defense of your position? I predict no.

Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

Pure Monty Python Black Knight bluster and bravado.
And just as convincing.

Do you really think you're fooling anyone?

That sentence clearly implies that my position - that Bergman doesn't know what he's talking about, is not saying anything that hadn't been common knowledge for decades, and is saying that incompetently, inaccurately, and just plain wrongly - has been decisively disproven.

And yet...

• you can't say why; all you can do is just keep asserting that it has, and
• after nearly 3000 visits to this thread, you can't find a single person who thinks you have a point.

This sort of situation doesn't ever give you pause, Dave?
This sort of situation doesn't cause you to think, "hmmm... I wonder if maybe I could be wrong here?"

[RAFH]

LOL. Keep it coming. You all are illustrating in living color the obtuseness of mind that Darwinism creates. Your "Creationists are behind the times" fairy tale has now died. R.I.P.

Quite the contrary. Your surprise at learning from the Bergman article the kind of stuff that ck knew 30 years ago supports the idea that creationists are behind the times, it doesn't kill it.

Not to mention Bergman's article was hardly worth reading in the first place, much of it is wrong, filled with spelling errors, incorrect citations and references, and often dated material, not to mention conclusions Bergman appears to have reached on his own with nothing to support it.

[VoxRat]

Could someone lend me a hand with this episode of "afdave vs. afdave"?

Since I shrouded Dave behind the "ignore" curtain, I've had second-hand intimations that he's poo-pooing this whole thread because I'm being unfairly "nit-picky". So what I'd like is the appropriate Dave quote that expresses his disdain for "nit-pickers" to juxtapose with this quote

Remember ... scientists are concerned with DETAILS!

and this quote

I am a guy who is very interested in details

[ck1]

Could someone lend me a hand with this episode of "afdave vs. afdave"?

Since I shrouded Dave behind the "ignore" curtain, I've had second-hand intimations that he's poo-pooing this whole thread because I'm being unfairly "nit-picky". So what I'd like is the appropriate Dave quote that expresses his disdain for "nit-pickers" to juxtapose with this quote

Remember ... scientists are concerned with DETAILS!

and this quote

I am a guy who is very interested in details

From Dave's post #153312:

Quote:
I think very few in the life sciences were aware of this and I'm not sure that Voxrat and CK1 were aware of this.

They are spending a lot of time nitpicking Bergman's article, but they should be spending some time explaining why there's nothing about this HUGE piece of information in the sources above.

This may be the only place Dave used the word "nitpicking". However, he made it clear when he started his own Bergman thread, that he did so because he wanted to divert the discussion to focus on the "big picture" and avoid the details.

[Deleet]

How about this one?
http://www.answersingenesis.org/tj/v17/i1/DNA.asp

A number of studies have demonstrated a remarkable similarity in the nuclear DNA and mtDNA among modern humans. In fact, the DNA sequences for all people are so similar that scientists generally conclude that there is a ‘recent single origin for modern humans, with general replacement of archaic populations.’8 To be fair, the estimates for a date of a ‘most recent common ancestor’ (MRCA) by evolutionists has this ‘recent single origin’ about 100,000-200,000 years ago, which is not recent by creationist standards. These estimates have been based on comparisons with chimpanzees and the assumption of a chimp/human common ancestor approximately 5 million years ago. In contrast, studies that have used pedigrees or generational mtDNA comparisons6, 10, 11 have yielded a much more recent MRCA—even 6,500 years!10

[Coleslaw]

This may be the only place Dave used the word "nitpicking". However, he made it clear when he started his own Bergman thread, that he did so because he wanted to divert the discussion to focus on the "big picture" and avoid the details.

Isn't that like saying you want to solve a jigsaw puzzle without bothering to put the pieces together?