Sleazy PZ Myers begs the question about truth of evolution

Sleazy PZ Myers wrote,

If we were looking for evidence for evolution, we might as well stop here. The existence of gene families, for cryin' out loud, is evidence for evolution. This paper is far beyond arguing about the truth of evolution — that's taken for granted as the simple life's breath of biology — but instead asks a more specific question: when did all of these genes arise? And they have a general method for estimating that.

(emphasis added)

So there you have it --brazenly begging the question.

BTW, "for crying out loud," also a favorite of Fatheaded Ed Brayton, is a minced Christian oath, where somene starts to say , "for Christ's sake."

PZ alsosays

One of the creationist summaries is by an intelligent design creationist. He looks at the paper and claims it supports this silly idea called front-loading: the Designer seeded the Earth with creatures that carried a teleological evolutionary program, loading them up with genes at the beginning that would only find utility later. The unsurprising fact that many gene families are of ancient origin seems to him to confirm his weird idea of a designed source, when of course it does nothing of the kind, and fits quite well in an evolutionary history with no supernatural interventions at all.

Well, PZ, if these genes are of ancient origin and not the result of random mutation, then how did they get there in the first place? PZ is really talking through his hat here. He has no credibility at all.





BTW -- the paper that PZ discusses is just a big just-so story.