Although secularists maintain that the cacti have evolved over the last two million years, there is very little biological or genetic research on cacti because such research, if published, would reveal the deep irreducible complexity displayed by these plants.
From Conservapedia.
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This is one of those examples that works equally well as genuine stupidity or parody. A few years ago, someone at the JREF forum coined the term doppelschaden to describe a position so utterly ridiculous that it is indistinguishable from a parody of itself.
Stupid at least in part, I assume, because there actually is such a literature ?
Well, entering "Cactaceae" into Google Scholar gives me 9,380 results, so there's at least a certain degree of research going on. True, cacti are arguably not one of the most well-studied plant families, but that probably is mostly due to the difficulty of preserving and working with succulent plant specimens.
One hast to wonder what the heck is going on here. I suspect this emerges from a fifth grade home schooling creationist science fair project or something...
Hey, isn't all of Conservapedia something that emerges from a 5th grade homeschooling creationist science fair project or something?
I'm just saying.
Greg you failed to actually look at Conservapedia. Ihis case the pro-ID statements were made in February 22 by a single user, was disputed in the talk page on February 27, and were removed on March 1 and has not reappeared in spite of edits by number of people. I would say that this is sufficiently rapid correction given that Conservapedia has far few users than Wikipedia.
You blog entry should be corrected. Yes there is a lot of nuttiness in Conservapedia, but in this case they have done the correct thing and deserve an apology. If a creationist made such a flimsy charge against Wikipedia, I suspect you would be (correctly) accusing them of sloppy work and/or dishonesty.
Some Person: Thanks for unlurking!
You are correct that it was corrected. This is the nature of wikis. To be honest, I was looking at this page via a link:
http://www.conservapedia.com/index.php?title=Cactus&oldid=15693
I'm glad to see that this absurdity was corrected. But conservapedia sill has some pretty dumb stuff in it. "Nearly every culture in the world has a creation story and a flood story" comes to mind (see this:
http://scienceblogs.com/gregladen/2007/11/every_culture_has_a.php
Thanks for the comment.
Wow, someone doesn't know much about cacti. The basal lineage of cacti are leafy, thorny shrubs that drop their somewhat leathery leaves during dry seasons. The next lineage includes the prickly pears that have vestigial leaves that quickly senesce and drop. The highly dervied orchid cacti have readapted to a tropical climate, but whatever genetic change rendered their ancestors ("regular cacti") leafless did not revert just because they weren't in a desert any more. Many tropical cacti have flat, relatively thin leaf-like stems, but no leaves, a real poster child for intelligent design!