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Edge of Evolution deliberately “misshelved” by Darwin zealot

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At a blog called “biologists helping bookstores,” a Pasadena-based woman whose handle is Shandon explains how she deliberately misshelved Mike Behe’s Edge of Evolution, and a number of other books – distributing them around the store according to her private tastes.

Now, you might think that Shandon (hereafter Misshelver) is restricting the right of others to read. But whoever she is and whatever her connection to biology, she does not see it that way at all. Anyway, see how she describes her modus operandi.

Comments
[...] also: Misshelver and A Man for Misshelver, for a look at the mentality. Neither of these people likely thinks, “I [...]God's iPod - Uncommon Descent - Intelligent Design
September 8, 2011
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O'Leary: "But then he asks the fatal question - the one that drives a stake through the heart of current Darwinism: How much change in life forms over time can reasonably be assigned to this process, given its observed pace? The Darwinists will attempt to raise any and every question, including religion and politics, to avoid systematically addressing that." Well said. This is exactly why the greatest obstacle to a sound scientific understanding of neo-Darwinistic processes is Darwinists. To understand the reality accurately, one must be willing to let go of the mythology. The big problem for Darwinism is not only its observed pace, but also its observed jumping ability. To use Behe's analogy, if the stairs in a stairwell ascend with regularity and only small steps, all may be well. But if there are discontinuities, such as a large empty space between a lower stair and a higher one (e.g. functionless or dysfunctional gaps separating islands of distinct functionality), then those processes may not have the jumping ability to traverse the gap. In such a scenario, natural selection/preservation would work to eliminate departures from the local island of functionality. No amount of pace can help if there are discontinuities too large to traverse effectively.ericB
April 12, 2008
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Someone should keep a compilation of dirty darwinist tricks. It'll be full time job needing frequent attention.DaveScot
August 1, 2007
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This stupid fathead is going to start a misshelving war, with Darwinist books being reshelved in other sections. Two can play this game. One way for the bookstores to put an end to this nonsense is to put The Edge of Evolution in the best-seller sections. Sleazy PZ Myers of course heartily approves of this misshelving -- he says, "I thought we all did this. You mean most people don't?" Several commenters on his blog -- including a bookstore employee -- brag or boast that they have done this misshelving themselves. They also misshelve books in libraries. The greedy Darwinists are not satisfied with their little "victory" of getting "Of Pandas and People "removed" from Dover classrooms (of course, as we know, the book wasn't really "banned," because Wickedpedia refused to put it in the "banned book" list).Larry Fafarman
August 1, 2007
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Thanks Denyse. Good insight. I guess truth has nothing to fear from error but error has everything to fear from being exposed a such. Funny how the Darwinists do the most convincing explanations of people seeking to keep error from being exposed by truth. That must just be a coincidence. ;)Jason Rennie
July 31, 2007
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Acquiesce, The Edge is the the amount of complexity that can ascribed to Darwinian or other natural processes which is essentially mutations/rearrangements of the genome and then selection or drift to fix these mutations/rearrangements. Behe has a chart in the beginning and then on page 218 that represents the amount of fine tuning that is necessary to achieve various levels of complexity. On this hierarchy of fine tuning he locates what could possibly happen by natural processes. He then has a grey area that may or may not be achievable by natural processes and this grey area is the "edge" of where naturalistic processes might be able to produce change but they can go no further. He locates this grey area in the taxonomic hierarchy or genera, family and orders. Classes, cell types, phyla and more complex elements are above this edge and out of reach of naturalistic processes while species, varieties are below it and most likely within reach of naturalistic processes. He is essentially saying this is what we can expect from naturalistic processes and no more. He has drawn a line in the sand and said there is no evidence that nature can cross it. So the "edge" is a location on the hierarchy of complexity.jerry
July 31, 2007
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O'Leary's great encapsulation (as usual) of Mike Behe's book shows what I have been thinking for quiet some time. That we are way way off as to the age of the universe because of these materialistic assumptions. Evolution could not possibly have happened in 13 or so billion years. The universe is much much older. Try trillions of years. It is the greatest cover-up in the history of science.lmunchen
July 31, 2007
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Anyway, I like the approach; does it rely on Dembski’s UPB? Nope. It doesn't rely on anything but empirical tests. The theoretical work was done in DBB, now this actually studies what happens in the real world, with millions of organisms, and lo and behold, the results match the theory. This is why it is so damaging (frightening?) to Darwinists. You can't argue against empirical results the way you can against theory.Atom
July 31, 2007
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I haven’t read EOE yet, what’s the edge, one new macromolecule? Anyway, I like the approach; does it rely on Dembski’s UPB?Acquiesce
July 31, 2007
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Hiding books is not what rational people do. It's what religious zealots do when they can't handle the message.Mats
July 31, 2007
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Jason, it's hard to tell in this case because this individual is unwilling to confront her own real agenda. That is, she tells us - and herself - that she'd like to teach the world biology and that her actions were "light-hearted" (= even if she did some damage, anyone who is annoyed with her has some kind of a problem). Since you mention a 10 year old, even a 10 year old can see that the only foreseeable outcome of her activities is to create difficulties for people who wish to find Mike Behe's book. But a lucid adult of her political persuasion must protect herself from the realization that she is a censor by adopting a variety of poses - and that is just what we do see. So much for psychology 101. Mike Behe's book could well become a target of more anxiety than most because it challenges Darwinism at the core. As I have pointed out elsewhere, Behe does not doubt that Darwinian evolution occurs - he points to instances of it. He has no philosophical problem with common ancestry - he defends it. But then he asks the fatal question - the one that drives a stake through the heart of current Darwinism: How much change in life forms over time can reasonably be assigned to this process, given its observed pace? The Darwinists will attempt to raise any and every question, including religion and politics, to avoid systematically addressing that.O'Leary
July 31, 2007
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What I want to know is why does ID threaten a Darwinist like this so much that they feel the need to indulge in antics that would only impress a 10 year old ? Or apparently another "open minded godless liberal" ?Jason Rennie
July 31, 2007
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[off topic] Bob Those arguments you’ve made have been answered. The only effect NS can ‘see’ and ‘select’ are the numbers of surviving offspring. It’s not a magic wand; it can’t examine and select the organism on the basis of complexity unless this extra complexity coincides with an increase in the numbers of surviving offspring. For example, the darker coloured peppered moth wasn’t selected by NS because NS could see it was a different colour. It was selected because the different colour increased the number of surviving offspring over the lighter variety. I noticed you also left the thread without answering Atom’s point [147] 1. Simpler organisms reproduce in greater numbers than more complex organisms. 2. According to NDE, the general trend of life development in earth history is from simple organisms to more complex ones. 3. If NS only selects for survivability and reproductive success, and the simpler the organism the better they do in both respects (see 1 above), then we should expect a trend towards increasing simplicity of organisms. 4) Experimental evidence suggests this is indeed the case when replicators are allowed to mutate and are subject to NS, being selected by reproductive success. Please tell me which of those points is in error. How NS can form a trend of increasing complexity while selecting based on increasing reproductive success? I also will not follow up this point further.Acquiesce
July 31, 2007
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(apologies for being off-topic: don't worry, I won't follow this up further)
Looks like Bob’s given up debating us on the thread ‘Prominent NAS member trashes neo-Darwinism’ see comment 178, still unanswered.
Read comment 176. BobBob O'H
July 30, 2007
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My local Barnes & Noble store had all four copies on an end display around the corner from the science section, so I found it by accident.
I did not mean to imply that this was a case of misshelving. On the contrary, the store seemed to be highlighting it as a new release.russ
July 30, 2007
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"Misshelver (aka Shandon) is undermining the foundations of civil society as well as of science. Her Lysenkoist actions are robbing this next generation from the opportunity to learn and apply the skeptical objective evaluation that is critical to the scientific method." Oh come on now. That is completely out of line to say things like that. Critical thinking is only to be applied to ideas that disagree with the Darwinist Party Line. Not re-shelving it would be running the risk of confusing impressionable youngsters. Wont somebody please think of the children !!!Jason Rennie
July 30, 2007
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I bought my copy at Borders. It was in the science section where it should be. I'd be surprised if there is any concerted effort to put it in the wrong place.dl
July 30, 2007
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I did have a little trouble buying the EOE at my local B&N store. After looking in the science section and not finding it, I asked a clerk who checked the computer inventory, it showed several copies were in the store, but no one could locate one for me.
My local Barnes & Noble store had all four copies on an end display around the corner from the science section, so I found it by accident. This misshelving is not a new tactic. People have been doing this to politically conservative books for a long time. This might be a good application for RFID (Radio Frequency Identification) technology. If you could locate a book by honing in on its tiny transponder, you could put your bookstore back in order pretty quickly.russ
July 30, 2007
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Misshelver (aka Shandon) is undermining the foundations of civil society as well as of science. Her Lysenkoist actions are robbing this next generation from the opportunity to learn and apply the skeptical objective evaluation that is critical to the scientific method. See: Lysenkoism http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/LysenkoismDLH
July 30, 2007
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Well I was in town the other day and tried all the major book stores, not one of them had it on the shelves. Maybe it hasn’t come across 'the pond' yet. Dawkins diatribe against god took up most of the space in the 'science' section. Looks like Bob's given up debating us on the thread 'Prominent NAS member trashes neo-Darwinism' see comment 178, still unanswered.Acquiesce
July 30, 2007
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That sort of conduct is vandalism to a business. I hope the store decides to threaten prosecution.scordova
July 30, 2007
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Amazon happily delivered a copy to my front porch. I'm up to chapter 5. All science so far.DaveScot
July 30, 2007
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I did have a little trouble buying the EOE at my local B&N store. After looking in the science section and not finding it, I asked a clerk who checked the computer inventory, it showed several copies were in the store, but no one could locate one for me. I left my phone number and asked them to call when they found one. No call, but I called them back the next day and yes, they found the book and would hold it for me. I made another trip out and got the book.interested bystander
July 30, 2007
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hmmmm, maybe Shandon isn't the crackpot she appears to be. Maybe all NDE books should be re-located to the Science Fiction section (or at least books by Ricky Dawkins)!JJS P.Eng.
July 30, 2007
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It looks like the author of the blog only read a part of the cover before deciding where the book belongs. I finished reading the book a couple of weeks ago and didn't see anything remotely religious about it, much less fictional. Even if a person disagrees with the conclusions, its clearly not religious fiction. The content-free "me too" comments posted on the blog show how uninformed the blog writer/posters are. Compare those comments with the comments in just about any UD thread (like the "Prominent NAS member trashes neo-Darwinism" thread) and the difference between blogs couldn't be clearer.dl
July 30, 2007
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Reminds me of how atheists put the bible in the fiction section and think they are being "cool". Really, all they are doing is making more work for the people who have to go through the store and re-shelf the books.bork
July 30, 2007
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What do you expect from ideologue crackpots?mike1962
July 30, 2007
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