As an astronomer, my familiarity with the details of biological evolution are about on par with that of an interested layman (though being trained scientifically helps with that understanding, adding insight to the process of the scientific endeavor). I’m familiar with the concepts of descent with modification, genetic mutations, natural pressures for adaptations, and the like. I’m less familiar with other aspects, like allele frequencies, how specifically pressures can change adaptations, and what transitional fossils are in the record, but I can probably hold my own against your run-of-the-mill creationist.
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That’s why I loved the book Why Evolution is True by biologist Jerry Coyne. This is a clear, easy-to-understand work that shows you — with no compromising and no backing down — that evolution has occurred, the evidence is overwhelming, and that no other explanation for what we see around us makes sense.
He goes through many, many arguments about this: how we do see adaptation to changing environments, how the DNA records support the change in the genome of life with time and environment, how fossils support evolutionary change.
Moreover, he shows that the scientific theory of evolution by natural (and in some cases, sexual) selection makes clear predictions which are borne out by observations. And on top of that he shows why these conclusions make no sense at all if you think there is some Creator that made us the way we are out of thin air (or dust, I suppose).
I was particularly struck by the concept of geographic isolation and how that affects evolution (perhaps because I spent more than a week last year touring the Galapagos Islands). Species isolated on islands adapt genetically and morphologically (or vice-versa) to the environment, and you can see how there are changes in those species as they radiate out to other nearby islands. We only see species on those islands that come from nearby land masses, as you’d expect from natural methods of dispersion over long time periods (but not what you’d expect for a Creator to simply pop life into existence). And all of this fits in with what geologists see by way of plate tectonics and continental drift.
Creationists love to try to pick apart evolution, looking at minor details in isolation and saying it doesn’t make sense. But they’re wrong: evolution is a beautiful tapestry, a complex fabric of countless threads woven together into a grand picture of life on Earth. And it all holds together.
I strongly recommend this book to anyone with even a passing interest in evolution, or the manufactured controversy of creationism. Coyne’s work is complete and convincing, slamming the door firmly closed on young-Earth creationism. If you have to deal with creationists in your life, this book is something you should keep very handy.
Bonus: my friend Joel Parker interviewed Coyne on his radio show How on Earth (you can get the MP3 through this direct link), and another friend D. J. Grothe interviewed Coyne on his podcast Point of Inquiry.
And I’ll leave you with this, Coyne’s perfect summation of the situation (from pages 222-223 of the book):
Every day, hundreds of observations and experiments pour into the hopper of the scientific literature… and every fact that has something to do with evolution confirms its truth. Every fossil that we find, every DNA molecule that we sequence, every organ system that we dissect supports the idea that species evolved from common ancestors. Despite innumerable possible explanations that could prove evolution untrue, we don’t have a single one. We don’t find mammals in Precambrian rocks, humans in the same layers as dinosaurs, or any other fossils out of evolutionary order. DNA sequencing supports the evolutionary relationships of species originally deduced from the fossil record. And, as natural selection predicts, we find no species with adaptations that benefit only a different species. We do find dead genes and vestigial organs, incomprehensible under the idea of special creation. Despite a million chances to be wrong, evolution always comes up right. That is as close as we can get to a scientific fact.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:30 am
I’ll put it short: great post.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:32 am
“Despite a million chances to be wrong, evolution always comes up right. That is as close as we can get to a scientific fact.”
And yet the YECs look at that and say “Well, there’s always the 1,000,001st time and THEN we’ll prove YOU wrong!”
Sigh… Oh well. Stoutly against the ramparts we must stand. We have truth on our side, and we can show it, with, you know, evidence.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:35 am
I saw a comment on this article over at JREF saying that “evolutionists” always avoid the elephant in the room: how did it all begin? The commenter there seemed to be under mistaken the impression that the Theory of Evolution says something about how life began, whereas I believe that question is addressed by abiogenesis, no?
April 15th, 2009 at 11:37 am
This book sounds great. I do hope that he takes the same even-handed approach to moderate Christians that you do, and doesn’t lump-in and alienate the moderates along with the fundamentalists. If your quote is representative, I don’t think that is a problem, though.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:38 am
I’ve been watching a PBS series (through Netflix) called, oddly enough, Evolution. It’s narrated by Liam Neeson. I highly recommend it.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:44 am
Allow me to recommend another book: “Evolution: What the fossils say and why it matters” by Donald Prothero.
http://www.amazon.com/Evolution-What-Fossils-Say-Matters/dp/0231139624/ref=sr_1_10?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1239816911&sr=8-10
I am about half way through it and it gives very convincing evidence for evolution. It’s also extremely entertaining, because the book is as much about debunking creationism/intelligent design as anything else. In short: creationists just don’t know what they are talking about. Anybody who makes the slightest effort to understand the evidence will see why evolution so convincing.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:50 am
The people that need this book will not read it though.
However, they will still act as if they have and denounce it. Bunch of lying IDiots…
April 15th, 2009 at 11:58 am
I’m halfway through this book and agree that it’s excellent. I spotted it at the local bookstore a few weeks back while looking for new astronomy/cosmology books, thumbed through it and decided to buy it on the spot. I’m glad I did. It’s a good read and will serve as a good reference book, too.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Cue creationist posting “But it’s only a theory!!!1!!” in 3, 2, 1…..
April 15th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
I’d love to support the AStore you’re linking to, but its admin has failed to add a link for the Kindle version of the book. Can you suggest that please?
April 15th, 2009 at 12:12 pm
What I find most amusing is that the anti-evolutionists don’t even know what they have a problem with. It’s not so much evolution -per se- as the thought that -humans-, in particular, evolved. It’s a big jump from birds on remote islands to humans when you don’t have a fossil record beyond Neanderthals and humans seem so distinct from other species. Imagine trying to explain DNA sequencing and its significance to somebody from the late 19th century. Wasn’t this even before electric lighting, much less radio and other things we take for granted?
But over time the “problem” has become more and more simplified and unrelated to the real question, perhaps because the honest question is being answered. It’s no longer “did man also evolve?” to seemingly believing that the carbon isotope ratio in some clams somehow proves that the deity is a sadistic bastard who created the world 6000 years ago but seems to be much older to trick people so they can burn in hell for lacking faith, or something.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:32 pm
As physics is my first love, I try to keep abreast of the latest theories, specifically attempts to create a Grand Unified Theory. One of the consequences of some such theories is the branching universe hypothesis, ie, in which the universe branches into identical copies at a decision point, where an event could go one way or another, so it goes BOTH ways,,,
To the YECS,,,yes, the universe you inhabit may well be less than a nano-sec old, or 6000 years but EVOLUTION is still the way things got to their present state of complexity. It’s just that this PARTICULAR universe may be on a very long branch,,,,
There! Everybody is right,,,
(I love stirring the mud,,,)
GAry 7
April 15th, 2009 at 12:33 pm
It’s a good thing that neither of those are actually true.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:51 pm
Unfortunately I am blind and can’t find a way to send this directly to you. However, there is an amusing evolution/creationism cartoon on http://www.licd.com today. Careful looking through back comics, can be NSFW.
April 15th, 2009 at 12:58 pm
Thanks for the rec, Phil. I’ll add it to my list. Just finished The Beak of the Finch and it was A-MAZE-ING.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:00 pm
@Robert
Haha! Funny cartoon.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:01 pm
How to disprove evolution: Go to Washington, DC.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:03 pm
Hey, phil, are you aware that author has a blog by that same name?
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/
April 15th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
This post and all the comments praising this book make me sad. The thing is: I ordered this book via an online bookstore. When the delivery guy came I wasn’t home however, so het delivered it to my neighbors for me to pick up later. But my stupid-ass neighbors lost the package! € 43.00 (there was another book in the delivery) Down the drain…
April 15th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
Saying that a theory is true just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. Even the arguably most successful theory ever, Newton’s gravitation, has been superseded by Einstein’s relativity. Science is constantly in motion, always bettering itself. That is said by a pro-evolution scientist and atheist. Evolution is a great theory, with lots of support and an overwhelming consensus among scientists. Creationism is not even a theory, since it makes no prediction about anything (how could it — God can do everything and the opposite). It has no place in science not based on the evidence, but just based on its formulation. Evolution will be replaced one day, not by creationism but by the relativity equivalent of biology. This book, as I understand from the review, does a disservice to the cause of science and its popularization. By the way, Darwin’s The origin of species takes on all the different objections to his theory and is a great read.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Hey Robert, I have an off-topic question for you, and I hope I can help (others–feel free to chip in). I’m busy prepping a new web site for a comic strip idea I had a couple of months back. The comic strip itself is very basic — there’s no artwork worth speaking of (I can’t draw!) — and since it’s really just the script that’s important, there’s really no reason why a blind person couldn’t appreciate the content too if it was in a format that their screen-reader software could capture.
The question is, is there a way to do that? I know with regular images you can define a text string using the “alt” attribute for the screen reader to pick up, but since this is an eight panel strip, with maybe up to 20 separate sentences, in a single JPEG, I’m not sure how practical it is to put the whole script in there. Are there any alternatives?
April 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Chapter 1 of the book is excellent.
I haven’t got to chapter 2 yet…
April 15th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
Let’s see, to take a cue from my pre-emptive anti-anti-vax post, evolution deniers, please read this before posting:
* It’s just a theory.
Yes, just like gravity is “just a theory”. Anti-evolution types tend to not understand what “theory” means in a scientific context. It means that the idea started out as an hypothesis, based on observation; that researchers made predictions based on the observations and the hypothesis; that they collected more data, tested those predictions and re-examined the original ideas, and that this process has been done over and over and over until the idea is supported by so much evidence that it is as close to fact as science can come. Further, like any theory in science, it can be falsified if some new data comes along showing it to be wrong. Contrast this with the “theory” (and I use the quotes on purpose, there) of Intelligent Design or Creationism. ID consists pretty much only of questioning evolution. It makes no predictions. It has no research testing any ideas. It cannot be falsified. The “evidence” provided of supposed irreducible complexity does not rule out evolution of the structures examined, nor does it show how such a structure may have been designed and created as is. In short, though evolution deniers claim that ID is a theory, it is not.
* There are no transitional fossils.
Every fossil, and indeed every living creature, is transitional between and older form and a newer (or yet to come) form. We have a pretty good collection of fossils that show a transition from older forms to newer forms, such as the transition of large land mammals to whales. Scientists using the Theory of Evolution have even predicted a transitional form and where to find it. This transitional fossil, tiktaalik, was found based on these predictions.
* Evolution denies God.
Nothing in the Theory of Evolution denies the existence of God (or any other deity). At best, it merely contradicts a literal interpretation of either of the two biblical creation stories (and any of the countless other creation stories from other religions/cultures).
* Evolution says that life just sprung out of nowhere.
Not true. The Theory of Evolution says nothing about the origins of life. Rather, the theory examines how life changes over time and across environments after it already exists. There is a branch of science, however, that is examining the origins of life: abiogenesis. But, that is currently separate from the ToE and is still in its infancy, scientifically speaking.
Those are just a few of the bigger myths and misconceptions that I can think of. Those more familiar with the ToE than I, please feel free to add to the list.
April 15th, 2009 at 1:31 pm
[...] Coyne review [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 1:53 pm
Phil Plait:
Proofreaders love to nitpick grammar/spelling errors; in the second paragraph, fifth line:
I think that should be for, not “fro”.
Phil, don’t trust spell-checkers!
April 15th, 2009 at 1:58 pm
@ Todd W.
“* Evolution denies God.
Nothing in the Theory of Evolution denies the existence of God (or any other deity). At best, it merely contradicts a literal interpretation of either of the two biblical creation stories (and any of the countless other creation stories from other religions/cultures).”
While I agree with all of your points, I would point out that many people have tried to argue that evolution does prove that God does not exist. This taints evolution for many who do not interpret the Bible literally and may be a source of animosity towards the theory of evolution who then view the theory as a weapon of those opposed to religion. Ken Miller does a very good job of explaining this and other possible reasons for opposition in his book “Finding Darwin’s God”.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
Todd – My only minor suggestion would be to maybe embed the link below (with the W W W) to the name “Tiktaalik” in your post. A reader could click on it and go to New Scientist’s short article for what the fossil represents.
newscientist.com/article/dn14952-missing-link-fossil-stuck-its-neck-out.html?feedId=online-news_rss20
April 15th, 2009 at 2:12 pm
@Cheyenne
Yeah. I have my reworked my anti-anti-vax post offline and added in a bunch of links to further information. I haven’t done it with this one yet because, well, I don’t know nearly as much about evolution as I do about the whole vaccine-autism thing.
Anyone want to do up a decent post with links to resources/evidence for the various anti-evolution myths?
April 15th, 2009 at 2:29 pm
Todd W.:
I’m working on it — with cartoons, too!
April 15th, 2009 at 2:30 pm
“I can probably hold my own against your run-of-the-mill creationist.”
Which is a good thing considering that your average creationist would probably objects to astronomers as well if any of them actually believe in the idea of a young Earth. If the universe was only 6,000 years old then that would mean that the visible universe (and the Big Bang that spawned it) contradicts Scripture as well. Just keep on posting awesome astronomical research and that will refute creationism just fine without having to invoke biology at all.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
@IVAN3MAN
Woot!
April 15th, 2009 at 2:35 pm
RL: I think evolution can be used to show that no god or gods are required to explain the diversity of life on Earth, or can be used to show that god-as-designer is not needed or does not exist. It certainly disproves a literal reading of Genesis. But “evolution, therefore no god(s)”? I haven’t seen that particular argument (that I can recall). I guess if someone puts all there god eggs in the Paleyan watchmaker’s basket, then yeah, I guess they’re scuppered. Certainly a better argument is “no evidence for god, therefore no god(s).
By the same reasoning all of science is thus “tainted” science deals with the natural and the real. As soon as deities or the supernatural are invoked it’s game over for science. God(s) is/are not accepted in any scientific theory; evolution is no different from any other science in this regard; they are all equally godless. If people who are turned of by the “atheist” nature of biology look carefully they’ll see that all of science is “atheist” in that no god(s) is/are ever invoked to explain anything.
April 15th, 2009 at 2:42 pm
Try “And Index to Creationist Claims”: http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/
YouTube: AronRa’s “1st Foundational Falsehood of Creation” video (this is the first in a series): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KnJX68ELbAY&feature=channel_page
…To name a couple.
I can’t figure out why people think that being formed out of mud or spoken into being is more believable than a natural process that is still working on life today. An argument that a moderate Christian might have of a creationist is this: Why are you limiting God’s power to only what you believe is the the “literal truth”?
But, yeah, if the ID movement can actually get a serious hypothesis up with some solid evidence to back it up (no, “well life is too complex” is not evidence or even a solid argument).
April 15th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
[...] as a testable, provable theory is superior to Creationism. And when I read an article such as Bad Astronomy’s, one gets the impression that Creationism is really more of a mass, evil, global conspiracy to [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 2:52 pm
[...] as a testable, provable theory is superior to Creationism. And when I read an article such as Bad Astronomy’s, one gets the impression that Creationism is really more of a mass, evil, global conspiracy to [...]
April 15th, 2009 at 3:07 pm
The book is lying on top of my heap-of-books-to-read. Just finished The Demon-Haunted World (shame on me for my slow ways) and I’ll be reading the first pages in a few minutes.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:09 pm
“Anyone want to do up a decent post with links to resources/evidence for the various anti-evolution myths?”
I have many of them on my blog but here’s one you might enjoy. It’s all about transitional fossils and how creationists try to deny them:
http://worldofweirdthings.com/2008/12/23/the-dilemma-of-transitional-fossils/
April 15th, 2009 at 3:15 pm
@AP
Although I agree with you that we can’t, strictly speaking, call evolution true even though it satisfactory explains all presently known relevant data.
I do have to take issue with your assertion that “evolution will be replaced one day, not by creationism but by the relativity equivalent of biology. “. That some successful theories have been superseded by better ones does not imply that all successful theories will be superseded by better ones. That’s a Logical Fallacy.
We can’t tell whether evolution will be replaced. It depends on future discoveries.
IF, someday relevant data show up that does not fit evolution as we know it today, THEN, and only then, it must be refined or even superseded by a better theory. Until such a discovery is made we should stick with Occam’s Razor. Whether such a discovery will ever be made is just unknown.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
I like your list, Todd. I tried to write something similar once; went something like this:
I always meant to add more but, curiously, it’s never been an issue. I’ve yet to come across the creationist who could manage rule one.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:27 pm
Phil you allude to endemic species, a phenomenon that really opened my eyes a bit further to fascinating aspects of evolution while visiting central Nevada.
In the Great Basin Chain (the series of mountain ranges that stack width-wise, instead of length-wise, and begin with the Wasatch in Utah on the east and run to California’s White Mtn on the west) you see endemic species. These ranges (Monitors, Toiyabes, White Pines) are islands like the Galapagos but instead of water in between there is impassable (for the native life) desert, causing separate development. The Sierra Nevada, which rose to the west of this chain, blocks incoming moisture causing moisture islands and forcing individual adaptation traits (particularly in Nevada which has more mountain ranges than any other state). An observable eye-opener right in our backyard.
April 15th, 2009 at 3:30 pm
@ tacitus
Go see http://www.darthsanddroids.net. They basically have the comic and below it just the script of it. Works well in my opinion. Sorry for the off topic everyone.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
I *just* saw this at the local bookstore, two days ago!
April 15th, 2009 at 4:25 pm
go to youtube.com and (with an open mind) search Louie Giglio How great is our God tour. then prove evolution.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:48 pm
Call me up when a rock turns into a frog . Otherwise you folks
are just like the creationists… priests preaching a religion
that is based on facts, not faith.
April 15th, 2009 at 4:51 pm
Explain this then, for all those fans of physics out there, how does evolution get around the second law of thermo dynamics…….hmmmm!
April 15th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
What is the general opinion of -The Beak of the Finch-? Personally I loved it. I think I may hunt down a copy of this book as well.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:08 pm
Todd, you might want to add this one. Common, and yet so easy to disprove.
what?, the second law of thermodynamics states ‘the entropy of <>B>an isolated system which is not in equilibrium will tend to increase over time, approaching a maximum value at equilibrium.’ (Quote from Wikipedia, emphasis mine) The key is the bit in emphasis — the Earth is not an isolated system. If you look outside (assuming it’s daylight and clear out), you’ll see a big ole source of energy beaming down on you. We like to call it ‘the Sun’. If you take the Sun + Earth system as a whole, the negative entropy flow involved in life on Earth (either static or evolving) is far offset by the amount of positive entropy produced by life using the energy of the Sun.
Honestly, if evolution couldn’t meet basic physical laws, then it wouldn’t have lasted 20 years, let alone 200.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:11 pm
The Beak of the Finch is one of my favorite books of all time. Very rewarding read.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
“What?”, you are so right. The second law of thermodynamics shows that, within a closed system, entropy will increase over time. Obviously, the earth is a closed system. For evolution to be true, the earth would have to have some great external energy source to constantly beams rays of energy (say, in the form of heat or light or some combination thereof) to the earth, permitting the development and transformation of life.
Clearly, evolutionists did not consider this. Or perhaps they did, but they knew that they would have to propose the existence of some sort of giant, blazing energy-emitter, and the concept is just ridiculous! If there were such a thing, surely we would see it! I imagine it would be so bright we couldn’t even look at without harming our eyes!
April 15th, 2009 at 5:20 pm
“Otherwise you folks
are just like the creationists… priests preaching a religion
that is based on facts, not faith.”
Stupid facts. Reality is no more valid than myth. Only mad dogmatists base their beliefs on facts.
Now if you’ll excuse me, I have to go feed my unicorn.
April 15th, 2009 at 5:27 pm
I say what is a Poe…
Hmm, who is up for a game of “who’s on first”?
April 15th, 2009 at 5:54 pm
“Why Evolution is True” book review
As an astronomer, my familiarity with the details of biological evolution are about on par with that of an interested layman (though being trained scientifically helps with that understanding, adding insight to the process of the scientific endeavor). …
April 15th, 2009 at 6:04 pm
Coyne is quoted as follows:
“every DNA molecule that we sequence, every organ system that we dissect supports the idea that species evolved from common ancestors.”
Creation tells us that the various creatures were made:
“according to their kinds”
e.g.
Genesis 1:21
So God created the great creatures of the sea
and every living and moving thing
with which the water teems,
according to their kinds,
and every winged bird
according to its kind.
And God saw that it was good.
http://www.biblegateway.com/ passage/?search=Genesis1;&version=31
Cutting-Edge Science teaches us:
“- The specific complexity of genetic information in the genome does not increase spontaneously. Therefore, there is no natural process whereby reptiles can turn into birds, land mammals into whales, or chimpanzees into human beings.”
See: http://www.kolbecenter.org/church_teaches.htm
The evidence shows:
bacteria produce bacteria,
fish produce fish,
finches produce finches, and
humans produce humans.
Variation within a kind … YES.
Evolution from one kind to another kind … NO.
See:
Natural Selection vs. Evolution
http://www.answersingenesis.org/articles/ee/natural-selection-vs-evolution
April 15th, 2009 at 6:14 pm
LOL! zar wins 4 internets.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
This is a political issue, folks, not a scientific one.
Please keep this in mind. Political issues must be watched with constant vigilance. There may be occasional appeals to legal support, for example, as seen in the Dover case. For the most part, it is a battle of public image.
These people fight dirty, and have learned many tricks of the trade for manipulating a bureaucracy. Notice that Texas managed to stack, through hook and through crook, the textbook decision committees with creationists. They have good verbal discipline now, and no longer create written (or any other permanent) records with any hints of religion.
When they intimidate or push out non-creationist in the bureaucracy, they find innocent sounding bureaucratic lingo and leave no written records when possible. They perform the harassment in person rather via E-Mail.
NASA climate scientists were not some isolated cases of religious and political extremists using slimy tactics to harass critics.
These people have adapted, and the ends justify the means. My bet is that, over time, these people will evolve to rival the worst of the Scientologists in the underhandedness of their tactics. Group discipline actually can work to some extent, and the rest of us have to keep an eye out.
They don’t believe in open review.
They don’t believe in honesty.
These are not true Christians in core principles. They are merely self-appointed food soldiers in some splinter sect, not unlike the 19 who abused Islam to justify carrying out 9/11, except that these idiots are going after a scientific theory they find offensive, instead of a bunch of buildings that symbolize US dominance.
It would be good if ACLU/NSF/whatever could sweep in with lawyers and rectify these issues, but it is never that simple given the state of politics in Texas.
Just as moderates in Islamic states need to address the issues of Islamic extremists that feed terrorist cells, moderates in Texas (and several other states) need to stand up and replenish their political system with rational technocrats rather than religious ideologues.
They must fix their own system to prevent this problem.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:19 pm
All the evidence in the world that proves A = true doesn’t prove that B <> true. It only proves A = true.
Evolution may be, but that in and of itself doesn’t disprove God. Nor does proof of God disprove evolution.
They are separate ideas and have to be proved or disproved separately.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
“THE ANCESTOR’S TALE” by Dawkins is so far my favorite book on evolution. It doesn’t waste time trying to defend it. It just takes you through that beautiful tapestry of life and shows you just how mind boggling it is. Anyone who claims that science takes all the wonder of of life and the universe NEEDS to read this book.
April 15th, 2009 at 6:55 pm
Ernest,
You are absolutely correct. Years ago (when I was very hungry) I worked in “Christian” broadcasting. These people (the leaders, anyway) are pure evil and dishonest as a 3 dollar bill.
Embezzling funds from their own business (while firing crew people who dared ask for their pay for being “unchristian”); openly lying about their “good works” (broadcasting from “Africa” while they were, in reality in a small studio in Southern California); having “prayer sessions” where the main topic of discussion was the possibility of overthrowing the government in a military coup; spending “love offerings” on prostitutes…it goes on and on.
They are evil, pure and simple. Don’t trust them and don’t think they are silly fools who can just be ignored. They want nothing less that a theocratic dictatorship and will not rest until they get it.
Fortunately, the checks and balances in our system help to prevent this. But, whether you are from a red or blue state, keep your eyes on your civil liberties. These people want to take them from you.
April 15th, 2009 at 7:35 pm
@Robert — thanks for your reply. Yes, something like that could work. I assume if it was easily available via an accessible link as opposed to being on the same page then that would be ok too (not sure about formatting issues, just yet).
April 15th, 2009 at 7:54 pm
Ok, I’m with Phil on the,”my familiarity with the details of biological evolution are about on par with that of an interested layman”
One exception is that I’m only an amateur astronomer and still require a “day job” as it were.
Help me understand why the good science of evolution becomes a scientific proof of no deity. To me, evolution explains the biological processes of life. It does not create physics, or chemistry. Proof of evolution does explain gravity or sub-atomic particles. All these things are necessary ingredients for evolution. Without these processes then you cannot even begin evolution.
Now help me understand why creationism is even mentioned here. If you want science then stick to science and let the facts speak for themselves. Take the high road.
Mike
April 15th, 2009 at 8:10 pm
Old news. I knew evolution was the real deal before I even learned how it worked. Some kids just pick up on things faster than everyone else.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
Daffy Says:
Years ago (when I was very hungry) I worked in “Christian” broadcasting. These people (the leaders, anyway) are pure evil and dishonest as a 3 dollar bill.
AH! Another one who suffered through unimaginable hypocrisy…. I worked 1977-1982 (at least the first couple years) at a station that carried only ‘religious’ programming (there were also Jewish programs, but no Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, etc. programs – and calls would be people asking if this was the ‘christian’ station, I’d respond it’s the Religious Station).
One time, when the format was going to change, I was cleaning out the storage for the program tapes, found Old Time Gospel Hour tapes from years before (Jimmy Swaggart) and asked why we had the old tapes. Turns out Swagger hadn’t paid his bill!
Also: Todd’s list
Irreducible complexity should be included.
J/P=?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:36 pm
Thanks Phil, just ordered it on Amazon. It’s only $17.61 right now.
April 15th, 2009 at 8:40 pm
Well, now, leave it to Mother Nature to foul up old theories, leaving them in the dustbin of history. For the longest time, people actually thought that all animals were always as they were and never changed.
Nevermind that dogs were easily changed (”Yeah, but a chihuahua is still a dog.” “Yes, but all dogs are a subset of the gray wolf, which is related to all the other species of wolves, in turn they are related to foxes, hyenas, and other canid. Yeah, and they’re related to bears further back. Even further back to felines.”) through breeding methods. Or cows, cats, corn, potatos, and the ever-changing broccoli.
Anyway, all species were thought to be static. And wouldn’t you know, Nature through both Charles Darwin and Carl Linn some curveballs. It turns out that the concept of “species” is more of human invention than reality. Species, are in fact, fluid.
“You don’t see no ‘croco-bird.’” Yeah, but you do see many species of finches. Many species of birches. The greatest amount of species in any category of life-forms is actually in beetles. From the once-holy scarab, to the ladybird beetle, to the bombardier beetle, to the potato beetle, to the wheat weevil. From the most beautiful to the most disastrous of beetles, each species has evolved to this point from a common ancestor. As more niches open (because of human-made environments or the destruction of natural environments) evolution will continue to work on them.
The notion that all species are static is dead.
As for frogs evolving from rocks to prove evolution, well, you have to be completely ignorant to think that evolution predicts such a thing. Just as you have to be totally insane to think that evolution predicts that a bird can evolve to a chimeric form (a blending of two or more animal, like a griffin). Like, guano-brain crazy. What evolution predicts is that a species, given the right opportunities, will adapt to a new environment or other pressures. Since species are fluid and not static, over a long period of time, changes in body structures may arise.
Now, when we see a new species actually being created by a “designer” then science will have consider it. Otherwise, evolution is still the only thing that explains such things as the myriad of beetle species, the many cat species, canines, bears, oh, my.
Yeah, someone mentioned tetrachromatic vision in women. An extra pigment in the eyes that can pick up additional colors. Birds have been tetrachromatic for ages. Turns out, slight mutations are working on humans, too. ( http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/06256/721190-114.stm )
Mother Nature, why the curveballs?
April 15th, 2009 at 8:50 pm
Oh, and I don’t “believe” in evolution. I accept it as much as I accept gravity: it’s real. Anyone who “believes in” evolution should rethink their belief and really investigate it. You’re not doing science any good treating it as a belief system.
Otherwise, you’ll end up like Anaconda trapped in a certain point of view (like, say, believing that only punctual equilibrium is the only way and not accepting parts of gradualism, or that Darwinian evolution is superior to the current model, like that).
Never treat science as dogma or you’ll be chasing your own tail soon enough.
Now, if you’ll excuse me, I’m gonna look in on salamander species of California. Now, talk about a radiating species.
April 15th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
@Nick
Just saw the Giglio talk and I have to admit I was impressed by his use of science to induce awe in the faithful. I mean, hey, at least they’re learning something!
However, I don’t get it’s relevance to this discussion. Did he mention evolution and I missed it?
April 15th, 2009 at 10:24 pm
I agree with Phil. This book is awesome. I have to re-read it and reduce some of its arguments to talking points to respond to creationist arguments with.
April 15th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
@AP
The Newton/Einstein analogy is not a good one. Einstein’s theory of relativity did not overturn or refute Newton’s laws. Rather it circumscribed them or limited their applicability.
In the same way, Darwin’s Origin of Species is not the ultimate expression of the theory of evolution. Contrary to many pseudosciences, where the words of the founder are taken as holy writ, the theory of evolution by means of natural selection has progressed, nay “evolved” since Darwin’s day, let alone been confirmed by proofs undreamed of when Darwin wrote his book. His achievement in part is getting SO MUCH right on such limited evidence. As Coyne’s book points out we have so much more evidence now that evolution is a fact, whether we believe it or not, accept it or not. It is only subject to refinement, not refutation.
Gradualism or punctuated equilibrium; it makes no significant difference.
Remember the debate is not about what is true, or what is real. From the creationists’ viewpoint it is not a scientific debate, it’s a political one. Debates are a game, political theatre. Establishment of truth cannot be subject to arbitrary time limits.
April 15th, 2009 at 11:32 pm
John: “AH! Another one who suffered through unimaginable hypocrisy…. I worked 1977-1982 (at least the first couple years) at a station that carried only ‘religious’ programming (there were also Jewish programs, but no Hindu, Buddhist, Taoist, etc. programs – and calls would be people asking if this was the ‘christian’ station, I’d respond it’s the Religious Station).”
About the same time I did. It was…an experience, to say the least. I still feel dirty.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:40 am
ZAR – you just made my day.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:51 am
@Mike Phillips
Help me understand why the good science of evolution becomes a scientific proof of no deity.
It’s not proof that God doesn’t exist. It just show that God isn’t necessary to explain the natural world we see today.
Now help me understand why creationism is even mentioned here. If you want science then stick to science and let the facts speak for themselves. Take the high road.
How is pointing out the weaknesses of creationism not taking the high road? Creationists distort and manufacture facts. Do you think creationists lies should go unchallenged by science?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:13 am
@Richard:
Just as you have to be totally insane to think that evolution predicts that a bird can evolve to a chimeric form (a blending of two or more animal, like a griffin).
Does that mean the Lion/Buzzard in the movie Latitude Zero wasn’t real?
[It's one of the really weird Japanese SciFi movies... stars Joseph Cotten, Richard Jaekel, and Cesar Romero as the villain... great for MST3K fans]
@Daffy:I still feel dirty.
It was one of my most useful learning experiences about ‘theists’….
Sidebar: just a detail, but when speaking of science, Theory should be capitalized, to avoid confusion with the layman use of the term as equivalent to hypothesis.
J/P=?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:24 am
Lol laughable , but hey suppose monkey see monkey do!
April 16th, 2009 at 3:11 am
The book’s cover is legendarily awesome !!
..
And Check out The Ancestor’s Tale by Richard Dawkins..
That book is absolutely amazing!! Give it a read, I am sure anyone who likes science and evolution will LOVE it..
April 16th, 2009 at 3:20 am
AP said:
Well, there are two things here with which I disagree.
First, I would propose that quantum mechanics is more successful than Newtonian gravitational theory. But, as you say, the case is arguable.
Second, there are some theories, of which evolution is one, that have withstood so much testing that we can say something about them with a high degree of confidence: Even if it is in some way wrong or incomplete, it is at the very least a close approximation to how reality is.
So, evolution is true, even if it will subsequently be shown to be incomplete or wrong in some details, because even then it will still be a good approximation, in the same way that Newtonian gravitation is still a good approximation under most circumstances, and hence is still true.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:37 am
RL said:
I have not seen any arguments that try to use evolution to prove that god does not exist.
What I have seen, however, is the argument that evolutionary theory renders god unnecessary. We now know that the biological diversity we see is not the result of special creation, but is instead the result of natural processes operating over large time scales. The biological world is exactly the way we would expect it to be if there was no divine intervention in biological development.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:50 am
Coyne is great, and I look forward to reading the book. I don’t think of that summation as perfect though. It doesn’t mention the observable fact of the process of evolution itself, which would be evident even if we had no theory that explains it.
Even with scientific training it took me a while to understand that evolution is falsifiable. The first example was when I read about the pre-cambrian rabbit. I hadn’t realized that the heredity of traits coming and going set up a testable nested hierarchy.
Now I find the nested hierarchy being my preferred example, because it is so powerful. I have mentioned it before, but The TalkOrigins Archive “29+ Evidences for Macroevolution, The Scientific Case for Common Descent” describes how the methods to pick out a very small set of likely phylogenetic trees out of the enormous set of all possible trees. This process arrive at a fantastic precision:
[I might add that testability derives from the prediction from common descent that there is a nesting at all, but also from the relative robustness of adding new species to old phylogenies (and hence the rabbit).]
That enormous precision, combined with the enormous amount of testable and tested detail due to the many mechanisms and populations involved, makes me claim that evolution is the best tested, hence most successful, theory we have.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:03 am
Todd W. said:
Todd, this was done very well over at TalkOrigins:
http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/
April 16th, 2009 at 5:15 am
“what?” said:
Do you even know what the 2nd law of thermodynamics is?
April 16th, 2009 at 5:21 am
It is strictly true, in that evolution defined as “common descent”, hereditary change over time, is a process that takes a living population to another living population.
This is no different from any other process, that takes a system defined with some boundary condition (here a particular population) to another. Or in other words, when we discuss how the process of gravity takes some bodies from a position to the next we don’t have to explain how any masses at all originate in the first place.
[Btw, note that creationists ridiculously dispute even the very testable definition, because they claim that evolution should instead be about building untestable "irreducible complexity" or explaining thermodynamics of growth and death. I.e. for them evolution doesn't start with living, successful populations as those we observe in nature.]
However, biologists may dispute this because they note that evolutionary mechanisms of some form or other, certainly variation but also probably selection, are expected to have contributed to abiogenesis. Or in other words they want to push the initial boundaries way back. I don’t like that as it is fuzzification and/or expansion, unique mechanisms such as emergence of self-catalytic systems may have contributed.
But biologists like to have evolution theory as inclusive, to change, add or subtract mechanisms under the above definition for the process itself. Seen as such, abiogenesis may be simply an added area. That in my mind conflicts with the idea of theories as testable, where even a change of parameter is strictly a “new” theory. (Since the old parameter range was falsified.) Both practices works, however.
[Thus we have a single inclusive "evolution theory"; it metamorphosed to neo-darwinism to include AFAIU mendelian genetics and population genetics; and IIRC later added molecular genetics, near-neutral genetic drift theory, epigenetics, et cetera. While we have several exclusive "gravitational theories", such as Newton's and general relativity.]
April 16th, 2009 at 5:33 am
Joseph said:
Yes, the facts confirm the conclusion that all life is related.
But what about Gen 2? The order (Adam first, or animals first?) is different there.
What validity does a human document have anyway? Surely reality itself is a far more reliable indicator of how reality behaves than a book that was written by people.
Oh, wow, this is something that only a creationist can come up with. A short parapgraph that is so full ofwrong that it will take at least 5 times as many words to set it right.
This has the hallmarks of our old friend Billy Dembski. First off, what the hell is “specific complexity”? If you parse through Dembski’s twaddle and obfuscation, you eventually find that he defines “complexity” as improbability. If you hunt further, you find that he defines “specification” as improbability. If you hunt still further you find that he defines “information” as improbability.
So, translating back into English, we have “the improbable improbability of genetic improbability in the genome does not increase spontaneously”. Aside from being largely meaningless, this is a bald assertion with no actual factual support.
He then goes on to conclude that there is no process that can turn one kind of animal into another.
But we already know that modern species do not turn into drastically different but also extant modern species. The quotation exhibits a lamentable lack of understanding of what evolution actually does say.
Fixed this for you.
OK, what the hell is a “kind”?
Family? Subfamily? Genus? Species? Subspecies? Variety?
And what possible mechanism could there be to keep naturally-occurring variation that anyone can observe from stepping over your artificial boundary?
But why do you consider a website that is full of lies to support your claim?
No, seriously, quoting AiG instantly loses you the argument.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:34 am
“Since the old parameter range was falsified.” If it was falsified, duh.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:43 am
Mike Phillips said:
If the creationists weren’t doing their damnedest to sow manufactured doubt about evolution, books like this would not even be written.
The facts can only speak for themselves if they have a voice and are given a fair hearing. There are many people in the USA who are working as hard as they can to deny a voice to the biological facts, or to dilute and obscure the facts with their own spin on why the biosphere is the way it is. Go to wikipedia and look up the “wedge document”.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:46 am
I’m referring to writings of Wilson, Dawkins and Dennett. They have been interpreted that way. Whether you personally agree or are aware of this line of thinking is besides the point. My point is simply that believers of religions that don’t interpret the Bible literally have taken a negative view of evolution in the past because of writings like these. Obviously, those who read the Bible literally will be threatened anyway.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:58 am
Here are a few useful arguments to use against your neighbourhood creationist:
1. Q. Why are we humans so vulnerable to back pain and spinal injuries?
A. Because our spines evolved over 100 million years, to be horizontal, not vertical! Our skeleton has exactly the same configuration of bones as that of every other ( quadropedal ) mammal on Earth, just upended 90 degrees. If we were designed by a “creator”, he would have to be pretty stupid!
2. If we were designed as we are by a “creator”, then why do our bodies contain redundant, useless organs? The appendix, for one, is WORSE than useless; it serves absolutely no useful purpose when it’s healthy, and kills you when it isn’t!
3. There are hundreds of species of monkeys found in Africa and Asia, and hundreds more in South America. EVERY species in South America shares a certain characteristic – the prehensile tail – which is shared by NONE of the species in Africa and Asia.
So I defy anyone to explain this fact, except by means of the obvious evolutionary explanation – that the first monkeys, or their ancestors, evolved while Africa and South America were still joined, then after those continents separated, the two populations evolved along separate paths.
( And can anyone with two brain cells to rub together, just look at a map of the world, and claim that Africa and South America were NOT once joined??? )
4. Creationists ask “Where are the transitional forms?” Not only are there plenty of them in the fossil record – archaeopteryx being the best known example – but there are several still living today!!!! Have these idiots never heard of the duck-billed platypus???? What is THAT, if not a transitional form part-way between a reptile and a mammal?
There is also one other egg-laying mammal, the echidna. Then there is the hoatzin – a bird with claws at the end of its wings, showing quite clearly that its wings evolved from reptilian forelimbs. D’OHHH!!!!
5. Finally, while Evolution is a Theory ( in the correct scientific sense of the word ) in the sense of explaining HOW changes occur, no-one can possibly deny that changes within species DO occur – because some have been SEEN to occur, within the timescales of human history!
Firstly, there is a species of moth in my country ( the UK ), which changed colour, from being white with black speckles to black with white speckles, during a period of only a few decades, during the Industrial Revolution in the 18th century. This was because silver birch trees, which are its habitat, became stained with soot from industrial pollution, so the moth’s camouflage had to adapt accordingly.
Secondly, there is a wonderful example of evolution by artificial ( as opposed to natural ) selection – the story of the Heike crab in Japan, as related by the late, great Carl Sagan in his book and TV series “Cosmos”. ( Chapter 2 of the book. )
April 16th, 2009 at 6:29 am
Interesting post. Of course, you’re preaching to the choir here.
As an astronomer, you can answer a question I have in comparing science of physics to that of evolution. Is this a true statement?
We know more about evolution than we do about physics. Over half the universe is missing or can only be detected indirectly. No where near that amount of the evolutionary procession is missing.
All the history of evolution is coded within the DNA molecule. Don’t you wish we had something like the DNA molecule in physics, in which we could decode and determine how the universe developed over time – or what time is for that matter? Maybe it’s in the atom.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:30 am
Darwinists often appeal to natural selection as an alternative to teleology. White rabbits beat out brown rabbits in wintertime because they blend in against the snow and survive to multiply. Conversely, brown rabbits beat out white rabbits in summertime. And this explanation is fine as far as it goes.
But in order to lodge his claim, the Darwinist must assume a surreptitiously God’s-eye standpoint. For natural selection is oblivious to the survival value of camouflage and other adaptive strategies. Only an intelligent observer can appreciate this stratagem. But how could a bottom-up (evolutionary) process solve a problem that only a top-down perspective can grasp? The naturalist must stand outside of natural selection to perceive the (pre-) adaptation of practical means to tactical ends.
http://www.thirdmill.org/newfiles/ste_hays/PT.Hays.Why.Believe.apologetics.1.html
April 16th, 2009 at 8:08 am
All you need to know that evolution is true is that
1. the Earth is more than 4.57 billion years old!
2. DNA has the ability to form and change over time!
April 16th, 2009 at 8:16 am
Joseph: Variation within a kind … YES.
Evolution from one kind to another kind … NO.
What, then, is Helacyton gartleri? If it’s not a change from one kind into another, what the heck is it?
Further, what mechanism prevents small changes from accumulating into large ones? Or are you just making something up?
April 16th, 2009 at 8:18 am
What stumps me is the tone of anger in so many of your posts. Can you not respect those who have had personal experiences with a God who may have played a large role in creation? Some things just can’t be explained. Natural selection makes a lot of sense to me, evolution as a whole – not so much, there is room for parts of the theory of creation and parts of the theory of evolution to co-exist. Why does the discussion always get so hostile? Many of these posts are biased. There is plenty of evidence on the other side – if you look you will find equally compelling books written by scientific scholars who used to be evolutionists but converted because of lack of evidence. I am not going to point out all kinds of things that would not convince those reading this particular board, as I am not convinced by anything I have read here. However, in my experience evolutionists who love to debate this seem to be angry people who love to stroke their own perceived intelligence. Try to move on and humbly accept that others may have different experiences than your own. If you are really interested, try reading as many academic sources from the more creationism side of the spectrum. The longer I live, the more I see that there really is order to everything. There really is no need to argue but to attempt to understand.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:23 am
RL said:
I guess you are right – I have not personally read any Wilson or Dennett, but there is a famous (-ish) quote from Dawkins along the lines of “evolution makes it possible for atheism to be an intellectually satisfying choice”. This has sometimes been twisted by the creos to look as if it was intended to mean that evolution leads to atheism, but that ain’t what Dawkins was saying.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:27 am
Neil Haggath said:
Unfortunately, multiple punctuation marks are a sign of crackpottery, so you may need to revise this a bit.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:30 am
Zar said:
Made of Win!
April 16th, 2009 at 10:16 am
Imagine that one day every single human being on the planet had lost all previous memories associated to both science and religion. Now fast forward and you would notice that all scientific discoveries documented and proved through the scientific method would be exactly the same as prior to the global memory loss incident. Only the pace of the discoveries would vary as well as the vocabulary for each natural phenomenon. Yet not one religion would reappear as identical to what we have today. No Jesus, no Buddha, no Zeus. Surely the notion of a God would reappear as it is a very comforting thought that if you’re lost in an overwhelming reality with insufficient understanding of its mechanics, someone who is not lost is still watching over you and guiding you forward. Comforting, but in all practicality, the notion of a God is inconsequential. All men are born with the ability to pursue happiness, freedom, love and whatever one holds in value – without added external sources.
One should never reject the probability of evolution having created God, rather than God having created evolution.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:24 am
@AP
Saying “Saying that a theory is true just shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works” shows a fundamental misunderstanding of how science works. We can say the sequence of events – the fact of evolution – is true (as recorded in the fossil record), and the theory – the mechanism of evolution – has passed every test that has been thrown at it by legitimate scientific inquiry, so can also be called true.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:58 am
“Explain this then, for all those fans of physics out there, how does evolution get around the second law of thermo dynamics…….hmmmm!”
Rather simple really. The 2nd Law of Thermodynamics applies to a closed system, the earth and the life on it are in an open system. That big shiny thing in the sky pumps a continuous flow of energy into the system.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:07 am
Yo “Moderate” …
Before you accuse us, who fight to protect the sanctity of science from religious extremists, of being “angry”, perhaps you should look at your fellow “God experiencers” who cannot get an ounce of logic together to figure out how to publish a scientific paper.
Yes, you have to publish something. You can’t NOT publish and then cry and whine about not getting equal time.
In fact, the highway that is the history of science is littered with trash theories tossed out the windows of truck loads of harsh, self-centered, self-promoting but OPEN (NON-SECRETIVE) (notice that I did not say “honest”) critics who agree to battle in the arena of scientific debate. Notice the “OPEN” part.
There are rules. Really. You can’t just make stuff up! “I had a personal experience with God” is equivalent to “I had a drug-induced experience with the Easter Bunny”. In either case, the statement does not belong in a scientific debate. If you don’t know why, read the rules.
But even worse, your fellow ID/religious extremists are deliberately using dirty tactics to NOT have to subject their ideas to scientific scrutiny.
Ask yourself: Why have they insisted on attacking school book decision committees? Why are they NOT submitting their “work” to scientific journals?
In fact, their “work” consists of political strategy papers and PR attacks on evolution. A bumper sticker and a press release does not make you a scientist.
The last time I checked, all of the respected science departments in major institution are not even close to considering ID/creationism. Evolution is pretty much all they are teaching.
If 99% of the heart surgeons say you need a bypass, and your friend tells you to keep smoking, would you demand that your high school teacher give equal time to both ideas?
Get real! We are angry … and for good reason!
I am not going to allow you to mess up my kids’ high school education just because you had “an experience”.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:17 am
I think the oldest, least complex lifeform on the planet is the one to blame here. Viruses mutate and cause other life forms to mutate. They are both creators and evolvers. Who knows, any change to the environment may lead to newer, more capable viruses that wipe out the human race. I think viruses serve only one darwinian purpose, to keep life strong by eradicating the weak. They are the guardians of the gene pool and it’s only a matter of time until humans are no longer the acceptable torchbearers of DNA.
My theory makes as much scientific sense as evolution or creationism.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:00 pm
I was just wondering are there any creationists out there that can explain, biblicly, where the hell all these dinosaur bones came from? In my opinion, and I stress “opinion”, that FACT pretty much says a lot for evolution. I think religion has always in some form or another been a way for a very small number of people to control a very large number of people. I think that could also be a fact. All one has to do is look at what the RCC has done to the rest of the world for the past eighteen hundred years.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:04 pm
“All men are born with the ability to pursue happiness, freedom, love and whatever one holds in value – without added external sources.”
True, but without God, or at least some form of supernatural, infinite being, there’s no permanence to any of it. I think that’s what really bothers most people, even if they don’t realize it.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:07 pm
RS : “My theory makes as much scientific sense as evolution or creationism”
Now that’s an easy comment to play with.
I have a theory that the USA does not in fact exist, that it’s a fictional creation made in movie studios in Russia to “explain” why they need such a big military. When you get on an “airplane” and “fly” there you’re in fact in a big simulator that just rolls down the road to a fictional theme park.
My theory makes as much scientific sense and the Theory of Gravity or the Theory That Pixies Are Stealing My Socks.
Specifically, the latter.
You shouldn’t really compare evolution and creationism as thoeries; only evolution is a theory, creationism is an item of faith, as there is no published evidence, no peer review, no expermental data, etc etc. In the case of young-earth creationist US-style evangelicals/southern baptist Christianity, it’s an article of faith in direct contradiction with our perception of reality.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
I wish more Christians would look at evolution as evidence of God’s existence, rather than become threatened by it and bury their heads in the sand. Evolution only strengthens my faith in God, rather than weaken it.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:19 pm
@Invision says
That is a wonderful and almost brilliant idea. It is sofar the best logical argument I have seen in favor of the idea that we created God and not the other way around.
If we ever encounter other life in the Universe and they have their own peculiar set of religions (teapots, noodles and what have you not) that could substitute for the total-loss-of-memory-here-on-earth-thought experiment.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:22 pm
a long time ago in a galaxy far far away there was probably a silicon based form of life with eight arms no eyes, and existed in a state of plasma. They probably felt that the superheated ball of magma they lived on must have been made for them too. by the way really good article.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:24 pm
@pchan80:
>Darwinists often appeal to natural selection as an alternative to teleology.
I don’t think they do. Teleology is philosophy; evolution theory is science. That’s two different ballparks.
>White rabbits beat out brown rabbits in wintertime because they blend in against the snow and survive to multiply. Conversely, brown rabbits beat out white rabbits in summertime.
Is that how you think evolution works?
>And this explanation is fine as far as it goes.
Perhaps, but it has little or nothing to do with evolution. Or are you suggesting that different species inhabit the would at different times of the year?
>But in order to lodge his claim, the Darwinist must assume a surreptitiously God’s-eye standpoint.
Not true. The scientist must only look at the evidence.
>For natural selection is oblivious to the survival value of camouflage and other adaptive strategies.
How so? What do you mean by “oblivious”?
>Only an intelligent observer can appreciate this stratagem.
Please define “appreciate”.
>But how could a bottom-up (evolutionary) process solve a problem that only a top-down perspective can grasp?
The process of evolution doesn’t try to solve problems. Evolution just happens. It is also being observed and thorougly documented by sentient primates. What is the confusion about?
>The naturalist must stand outside of natural selection to perceive the (pre-) adaptation of practical means to tactical ends.
That sentence sounded really good. “(pre-)adaptation of practical means to tactical ends”. Great rhythm. I’m not sure if it means anything, though.
@RS:
>My theory
Sorry, but that is not a theory.
> makes as much scientific sense as evolution or creationism.
Because you say so? Oh, ok.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
@Ernest Hua
I just want to clarrify with the utmost coercion that the theory of evolution is “NOT” a political debate. It is up for speculation, and inquiry, but “NOT” political debate.
If society where to rule that the theory of evolution was false, that wouldn’t make it false. A good comparitive situation is this:
If a man walked down a street one day, stepped into a small backery and bought a doughnut, then in fact he bought a doughnut that very day, at that very time. Now, lets say that one day, maybe the next week, he was called to stand trial as a suspect for a murder case. So, duriong the court session, the lawyer asks him were his was the previous week, and he explains that he was walking down the street, and he bought a doughnut. But then the lawyer says that he has claims from several witnesses that said he was not at the backery at all that day.
And as we move forward, the trial picks up global attention, and pretty soon, you have people across the globe tuning in to see the verdict. But, in all reality that did exist, that does exist, and that will exist, that man “was” walking down that street, and he “did” buy a doughnut from that backery.
So, no matter what the verdict of the jourey is, that man, no matter what anyone says did do those things.
Now, place evolution in this mans place, do you see the comparison? That no matter what society says, and no matter how much people that do not believe him, the man will always be right.
In conclusion, evolution is not a political debate, nor should it ever be.
April 16th, 2009 at 12:56 pm
[...] GREAT blog post on Discover. [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
I don’t see how you got from the first paragraph to the second. If white rabbits beat out brown rabbits, then there will be more white rabbits (by definition). There is no need for anyone or anything to understand or appreciate the strategy, all that has to happen is for organisms with one version of a trait (like fur color) be more likely to pass on that trait than organism with another version of the trait. Evolution does not car why organisms with a particular trait pass it on more often. All that happens is that traits that confer a reproductive advantage compared to competing versions of the trait become more common over time.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:14 pm
@RS
> I think the oldest, least complex lifeform on the planet is the one to blame here.
Viruses are not life forms, and not the oldest bioactive pseudolife either. And why are we assigning “blame”?
> Viruses mutate and cause other life forms to mutate. They are both creators and evolvers.
That viruses can have an impact on evolution is not new. Pathogens are one form of selective pressure, inducing evolution in populations. But beyond that, retroviruses may generate mutations that are occasionally passed on as neutral or even beneficial.
> I think viruses serve only one darwinian purpose, to keep life strong by eradicating the weak.
Evolution is not about strong vs weak. It is about performing well in a given niche. If it was all about strength and speed, there would be no sloths, no worms, no daisies.
> it’s only a matter of time until humans are no longer the acceptable torchbearers of DNA
Say what? What the heck kind of anthropocentric gobbledygook is that? What does that even mean “acceptable torchbearers of DNA”? Human DNA is passed on to the the next generation, but that is true of every single life form on this planet, going back three billion years. Biologically speaking, we are really nothing special.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
I love hearing evolution described in scientific, understandable terms like it is here and plan on getting the book this weekend. I am also an odd duck because I do believe in God and “creationism” but i refuse to believe that God just dumped a bunch of nothing into his KitchenAid and popped the earth out. I get annoyed by bible thumping zealots who insist that because an idea doesn’t hold the attention and awe of a three year old that the idea is not only not well thought out, but against God.
I believe that things were popped out by evolution with or without help from a higher power, simply because I am not in a position to accurately state who (or what) did what several eons ago. Whether God gently directed the paths of adaptation or enjoyed a few games of skeeball in Jersey is beyond my knowledge or consideration when pondering the vast evidence that is presented all over the place that evolution did happen.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
If they just want to have their own personal beliefs, that is fine. What bothers me is that the creationists, including the intelligent design movement, have stated explicitly that their goal is the complete and total destruction of all science. And to accomplish this goal they use lies, intentional misrepresentation, sources that are decades out of data, cherry-picked data, trickery, and personal attacks. I am frankly shocked that more people aren’t angry at that sort of behavior.
Oh, and you know this how, exactly?
The fact that you cannot figure something out doesn’t mean that nobody else has.
Yes, in the areas of science that we do not yet fully understand. But these areas are constantly shrinking, leaving less and less room for your god. This is a bad approach. Besides, it stifles further inquiry. “Goddidit” is not a useful answer to anything.
Such as…?
Lack of evidence for evolution is NOT the same thing as evidence for creationism. Just because science does not have all the answers does not mean any other answers are correct. You need to provide positive evidence supporting your conclusion, not evidence contradicting someone elses’. This is one of the big problems with creationism and ID, pretty much their entire argument is based on the assumption that if they can disprove evolution then they win by default. This is wrong.
You are not going to convince anyone unless you present actual evidence. No one here is going to care about your opinion on the matter unless you can demonstrate understanding of the issues and evidence to back up that opinion. You keep on throwing out unsupported claims and generalizations, that is not going to work here. It is only going to make people assume you have nothing to back up your position.
And as for us convincing you, let me ask you this: what, specifically, would it take to convince you that evolution is correct? Correct in the scientific sense, in that it has been subjected to enough tests that it can be considered at least a very close approximation of how things really work.
You are assuming we haven’t done so already. I have, and I know many others have as well. I for one found absolutely nothing even remotely compelling.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:32 pm
Dear Moderate
The anger of many of these posts stems from having to deal again and again with the same old, tired, hackneyed, dishonest, discredited arguments (see “Second Law of Thermodynamics above). And the fact that, on occasion these tactics actually work to the extent that creationists are able to interfere with the education system does not help our “anger issues” either. Having creationists tell us to “teach the controversy” is like having arsonists tell us to” put out the fire.” Creationism/ID is not science. It’s a PR campaign. It offers no research, no evidence, no hypotheses, no scientific results to show for all its sound and fury. “God did it” is not a scientific answer. Not unless you can prove it. Creationism/ID doesn’t try to prove anything. Its only purpose is to sow doubt and confusion amongst those who don’t know any better to keep them from learning better.
April 16th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
@Moderate
No. There is no evidence in favour of creationism. Zilch. Nada. There are just fallacious arguments. Creationism is an abstract belief system, completely dissociated from reality.
May be anger stems from the Creationists crowd trying to force its counter factual, counter reality, belief system through an infinite barrage of fallacious arguments on the rest of us and the educational system?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:06 pm
I’m pissed off at creationists because I’m tired of people assuming that if I have certain religious beliefs, I don’t believe in evolution, or because I believe in evolution I’m an atheist. Well, I’m actually more pissed off at creationists for trying to get their fairy tales into public school curricula as well as the slew of other wrongheaded policies they want to get put into law.
April 16th, 2009 at 2:31 pm
Just for clarification, a couple of observations:
Coyne’s says, “[...] every fact that has something to do with evolution confirms its [evolution's] truth.”
While this assertion may have force for those who assume evolution true, doesn’t this statement ‘beg the question’ for those who do not make that assumption?
Don’t assertions that ‘beg the question’ begin by stating their conclusion as a premise, then restate the premise as a conclusion?
In order to have a “fact that has something to do with evolution”, don’t we have to assume evolution is true?
Therefore, doesn’t Coyne’s argument succeed only for those who already believe evolution to be true, and thus fails as either an inductive or deductive argument proving evolution true?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:56 pm
Dang, got tied down fighting off a bunch of rabid EUers on the other thread. I wanted to post something but now this thread is up near 100 posts.
There’s a couple of items I think natural selection has a hard time explaining:
1.) HERV (Human Endogenous RetroViruses):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Human_endogenous_retrovirus
It turns out 8 percent of human DNA came from retroviruses. This violates natural selection since this genetic information was not inherited originally and selected by the environment but rather, came from an outside source.
2.) The C-value paradox and junk DNA:
I’d be interested to hear how natural selection can explain the enormous differences in DNA amount between species, often closely related species. Also, 95% of our DNA seems to be junk and not used. How would natural selection explain that fact?
April 16th, 2009 at 2:58 pm
@EvolutiNo: Congratulations, you spotted a tautology. Anything else?
April 16th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
@Lars
Not sure what you’re asking for? Can you say more?
Best Regards.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:18 pm
@ EvolutiNo: It is not begging the question, because if evolution was not true, or at least not an approximation of the truth that holds in those situations, those experiments would not work. To give a non-biological example appropriate to this forum, Mars probes are built and launched based on the assumption that our understanding of gravity is correct. The probes are not designed explicitly to test whether gravity is correct or not, they only assume it because it has been confirmed enough times that it is solid enough to use as a basis for further research. If gravity was not right, the probe would not end up where it is supposed to. So it is testing gravity, even though it does not explicitly set out to test gravity.
The same is true of evolution today. Scientists do not test evolution explicitly anymore, they consider it to have been done enough already that further tests are unnecessary. Instead, they base further research on the assumption that it is true. If it isn’t, then the research would not work. A good example is tiktaalik, where scientists were able to figure out exactly where and when a previously unknown organism should have lived, went to a place with exposed rocks from that time and place, and found exactly the organism they predicted. That was not set up as a test of evolution in general, it was set up as a test of our understanding of the transition from fish to amphibian (a specific case of evolution). But if evolution was not true then that organism should not have been there but not in any of the other fossil beds around the world.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:19 pm
@Torbjorn Larssen “However, as illustrated in Figure 1, the standard phylogenetic tree is known to 38 decimal places, which is a much greater precision than that of even the most well-determined physical constants.”
What does that even mean? A phylogenetic tree has a number? Like 15.7689 – what phylogenetic tree does that signifiy? There must be some scheme for converting the nodes on the tree into a real number, or something like that. Please explain.
April 16th, 2009 at 3:24 pm
@ Tom: see here for an explanation:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section1.html#independent_convergence
April 16th, 2009 at 3:34 pm
@Invision “Imagine that one day every single human being on the planet had lost all previous memories associated to both science and religion. Now fast forward and you would notice that all scientific discoveries documented and proved through the scientific method would be exactly the same as prior to the global memory loss incident. Only the pace of the discoveries would vary as well as the vocabulary for each natural phenomenon. Yet not one religion would reappear as identical to what we have today. No Jesus, no Buddha, no Zeus.”
That is highly debatable. Go reread Sagan’s Cosmos, the chapter where he talks about the origin of science in Ionia (modern-day Turkey). There were many cultures (Egypt, Sumeria, India, China, etc.) around at the time. Only one produced science. If you started the human race over again from scratch it is highly unlikely that modern science in its current form would evolve again. Maybe something else equivalent but it is highly unlikely that they would have E = m*c^2, etc.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:07 pm
There’s a good online database containing information on genome size by species:
http://www.genomesize.com
The amount of DNA contained in each cell of the organism is called the C-value and it’s measured in picograms, although there is a conversion factor of 0.978E9 for converting to number of base pairs.
Here is some data:
Homo sapiens (Humans): C-value = 3.50, 46 chromosomes
Gorilla gorilla (Gorillas): C-value = 4.16, 48 chromosomes
Pan troglodytes (Chimpanzee): C-value = 3.76, 48 chromosomes
Pongo pygmaeus (Orangutan): C-value = 3.60, 48 chromosomes
Hylobates agilis (Dark-handed Gibbon): C-value = 3.48, 44 chromosomes
Tarsius syrichta (Tarsier): C-value = 5.26, 80 chromosomes
Lepilemur mustelinus (Weasel lemur): C-value = 3.25, 20 chromosomes
Callicebus torquatus (Titi monkey): C-value = 2.26, 20 chromosomes
So even among primates the C-value various by a factor of 2.3 and the number of chromosomes varies by a factor of 4. The question is why? How does natural selection explain this? If you were to base a phylogenetic tree based on this data what would you come up with?
April 16th, 2009 at 4:34 pm
@TheBlackCat “see here for an explanation”
Those extremely high numbers (e.g., 4.9518e+38 for 30 taxa) are highly suspect IMHO. It would be like calculating the possible number of chess moves 10 moves ahead – you will get a ridiculously high number. A computer chess program may have to calculate all of them and evaluate them but a human chess player never will because most of the moves are nonsense, like moving your rook forward and then moving it back to the same square on the next move, etc. So an extremely high percentage of the search space is garbage.
Also the identification of what the 30 taxa were is not specified. That probably makes a great deal of difference to the situation. If you select amoebas versus humans it is a much easier task to come up with a phylogenetic tree than if you select spider monkeys and howler monkeys.
The human evolutionary story being one of the most recent should be among the easiest phylogenetic trees to come up with, since it is geologically recent and probably the best studied. Yet, the experts can’t even agree on the number of hominid species there were, let alone their phylogenetic differences:
http://www.mos.org/evolution/downloads/desilva.html
“Tim White, Ian Tattersall, and Meave Leakey’s phylogenies, or family trees, all differ, even though their interpretations are based on the same measurements, using the same equipment, the same units, and the same well-aged fossils…
Regarded now as a “splitter,” Ian Tattersall, the curator of the Anthropology division of the American Museum of Natural History in New York, is influenced by his first research interest, lemurs. Fifty species of lemur reside on the island of Madagascar, and by looking only at their skeletons, one may be hard pressed to find enough measurable differences to distinguish all fifty species. Fur color, ovulatory cycles, behavior patterns, communication methods, and genetics do not fossilize. Therefore, even the slightest difference in skeletal morphology might constitute evidence for a new species. Tattersall studied lemur taxonomy for many years and now sees the same diversity in the human fossil record.
“The lemurs had told me a tale of diversity; and looking at the human fossil record, which [has] been steadily expanding…taught me the same thing about hominids,” Tattersall wrote in Monkey in the Mirror (2002, page xiii).
Tim White, a lumper, looks at the fossil record and sees variation within a few species. Ian Tattersall, a splitter, sees diversity and recognizes many different species. To highlight the difference, consider the following example. One million years from now, would a future paleontologist be able to tell that a 7’2” basketball player like Shaquille O’Neal was a member of the same species as a 5’2” actor like Danny DeVito? This is the challenge to a paleoanthropologist; trying to decide whether a new fossil discovery represents a new species, or a variant of an already recognized animal.”
So sorry, I’m not buying the 38-digit precision argument.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:46 pm
Tom Marking:
1. HERVs are easily explained by natural selection. The sequences duplicate themselves within the host genome, and they spread because other sequences do not have this ability. It’s natural selection with the HERV itself as the replicator and the host genome as the environment. HERV sequences remain in the host genome because they are mostly functionally neutral, so natural selection will not eliminate them.
2. Junk DNA is easily explained by genetic drift. Having extra, even enormously extra amounts of DNA, for most multicellular organisms does not matter because the rate limiting step in reproduction is not DNA replication. So the presence of junk DNA is not selected against. It just sits there and accumulates with time. It has already been demonstrated that in single celled organisms where DNA replication is the rate limiting step to reproduction, junk DNA does not accumulate. The genomes remain as small and short as possible, and natural selection eliminates mutations that produce extra nonfunctional DNA.
And in regards to Invision’s thought experiment. It may be that the scientific method may not develop again, but the conclusions of science, whether they are arrived at through the scientific method or some other method, if they are rediscovered at all, will be the same, because they are reflections on reality.
April 16th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
A phylogenetic tree based on C-value for the primates might look like the following. Humans are most closely related to gibbons. Chimpanzees and orangutans are closely related, etc.
|— Titi monkey (2.26)
|—|
| |— Weasel lemur (3.25)
|—|
| | |— Dark-handed Gibbon (3.48)
| |—|
| |— Humans (3.50)
—|
| |— Orangutan (3.60)
| |—|
| | |— Chimpanzee (3.76)
|—|
|——- Gorillas – 4.16
|
|——- Tarsier – 5.26
April 16th, 2009 at 4:53 pm
Dang, that didn’t come out right at all. It removed a bunch of my hyphens and screwed up my diagram. Damn blogging software!!! Well, I think you get the point.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:07 pm
@amphiox “HERVs are easily explained by natural selection. The sequences duplicate themselves within the host genome, and they spread because other sequences do not have this ability. It’s natural selection with the HERV itself as the replicator and the host genome as the environment.”
Well, from the point of view of the HERV it may be natural selection, but from the point of view of the host organism it is foreign DNA that has been injected into the genome which has not been selected by its environment. If species can exchange DNA this way then it is no longer survival of the fittest – it is survival of the organism that just happens to receive the best genes from the invading virus. The fact that almost one tenth of the human genome is HERV means this may have played an important role in human evolution.
“Junk DNA is easily explained by genetic drift. Having extra, even enormously extra amounts of DNA, for most multicellular organisms does not matter because the rate limiting step in reproduction is not DNA replication. So the presence of junk DNA is not selected against.”
Of course, the interpretation of it being “junk” has not been demonstrated. Do you really think they could replace 95% of your DNA with random nucleotides without it affecting you in anyway? Care to sign up for that experiment? It is better to say we don’t know what its function is.
“And in regards to Invision’s thought experiment. It may be that the scientific method may not develop again, but the conclusions of science, whether they are arrived at through the scientific method or some other method, if they are rediscovered at all, will be the same, because they are reflections on reality.”
That’s not a convincing argument. It would be like saying if you could start life on earth all over, you would end up with Homo sapiens after 4.5 billion years because it’s the same universe. If biological evolution follows such unpredictable pathways then surely cultural evolution must to an even greater extent.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
I think some people are just plain mad at the thought that there could be someone or deity smarter than they are. Intelligence and/or has become your God.
I am certainly not here to argue. I am an educated person and read a lot on both sides. Nothing more or less compelling really on either side. That is where my faith comes in. Those who do not have it can not be expected to understand. It is very convincing to me and I am no dummy or wimp who needs a crutch of any kind. I really have all I need with all the holes in the evolution theory combined with my faith. New scientific discoveries are always fascinating to me.
I really think there needs to be a clear distinction between “Natural Selection” and “Evolution.” Natural Selection fits perfectly with creationism and is the crux of evolution theory.
A statement such as the one above telling us how to “argue with your creationistic neighbor” about the appendix. How does he know the appendix serves no useful purpose? I work in a hospital and doctors are really opposed to taking out body parts with no known purpose — simply because the purpose is not known YET. I appreciate their willingness to humbly admit we do not have all the answers. Arguments like that hold absolutely no water.
RESPECTFULLY,
moderate
April 16th, 2009 at 5:24 pm
I think Invision’s little thought experiment is meant to show that because the real world actually exists, the recovery of all scientific knowledge is at least theoretically possible despite a universal human memory wipe. The same phenomena continuing to operate in the same ways they always had would allow observers to work out regularities and suggest hypotheses which could be tested and confirmed and refuted. It would be a lot of work but it is possible (just as we can guess that sentient beings on other planets would still live in an environment describable and discoverable through the same ways we use). Mathematics, physics and chemistry are universal. Literature and religion are not. While extraterrestrials and memory-wiped humans might have capacities to generate religion and literature, the chances of either replicating what we have here and now are pretty much nil since both are dependent on the vagaries of the human imagination (sometimes the vagaries of the imaginations of particular humans) not any structures “out there” in the real world. Human religions did not arise through the scientific study of supernatural beings. The particular details are not there to be recovered. Humans would probably just make up new stuff to call “holy”, “sacred” “divine” and “god”. Just like they did the first time.
April 16th, 2009 at 5:28 pm
@Moderate “I really think there needs to be a clear distinction between “Natural Selection” and “Evolution.””
Precisely, I haven’t read Coyne’s book but I bet you a dime to a doughnut that establishing the “truth of evolution” to him means establishing the truth of natural selection. Natural selection is a mechanism of evolution. There may be 1 mechanism, 17 mechanisms, 83 mechanisms, etc. We don’t know at the moment how many mechanisms there are and what their relative contributions to evolutionary history have been.
“Natural Selection fits perfectly with creationism and is the crux of evolution theory.”
Dang, you just had to go and screw up a perfectly legitimate post, now didn’t you. “Natural Selection” fits perfectly with creationism? Huh?
April 16th, 2009 at 6:09 pm
And so the positive proof of creation/intelligent design is….?
What?
“Holes” in evolutionary theory do not constitute evidence for creationism.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:44 pm
@TheBlackCat
You said, “It is not begging the question, because if evolution was not true, or at least not an approximation of the truth that holds in those situations, those experiments would not work.”
Without granting your claim, I would submit it *is* begging the question for the following reasons:
Premise 1: The central claim of the author is that “Evolution is True”
Premise 2: To support premise 1, Coyne states: “[…] every fact that has something to do with evolution confirms its [evolution’s] truth.”
Premise 3: Premise 2 can be restated as “[...] every fact that has to do with X confirms that X is true.”
Premise 4: Premise 1 can be restated as “X is true.”
Premise 5: Premise 3 and 4 can be combined to illustrate begging the question, “[...] every fact that has to do with X confirms that X is true. Thus X is true.”
Premise 6: Begging the question occurs when a given argument depends on what it is trying to support, and as a result, the proposition is being used to prove itself.
Conclusion: Coyne’s statement from Premise 2 is begging the question.
To be clear, this argument largely illustrates the author’s suboptimal choice of words in the heart of the passage selected to support the book’s primary thesis. Your stated reason for why the author’s words are not begging the question seem not to hold. Do you agree?
Best Regards.
April 16th, 2009 at 6:54 pm
Why are they nonesense? If there is no relationship between organisms, then any tree should be possible.
Yes it is. You obviously did not read it very closely. It took me about 10 seconds of skimming to find the list.
We are dealing with very small changes in a very small population in a very limited geographic region over a very short period of time with a number of different very closely related populations occupying similar geographic areas at the same time. What would give you the idea this is at all easy? I can’t imagine a more difficult situation.
You argument is entirely based on trying to develop phylogenetic trees of extinct organisms known only from bones. The 38 degree of precision trees are based entirely on living organisms where we can compare a wide variety of different traits. Trying to build a phylogenetetic tree of extinct organisms is much, much, much more difficult than trying to build one of living organisms. So attacking the uncertainties in the phylogenies of extinct organisms does not do anything at all to undermine the phylogenies of living organisms.
That is why people base phylogenetic trees only on relevant information for the time scales being looked at. Something like genome length, which changes much too rapidly compared to the time scale of speciation, is not useful for building phylogenetic trees. Of course if you pick a poor parameter to base your tree on you will get a poor tree. Garbage in, garbage out. But the same is true for any scientific measurement.
That is the principle of genetic drift, which has been well-known for decades. Natural selection is not the only thing driving evolution.
Yes, it has been demonstrated. Scientists have literally gone in and changed the sequence to see if it had any impact. Further, nature has done it for us. We can see that those segments of DNA are changing extremely rapidly, so rapidly that there cannot be any impact on the organism from the change. The sequences are arbitrary, it doesn’t matter what they are. Scientists are not just guessing here, the issue has been looked at in a lot depth.
So you are saying the rules that govern nature are a cultural construct? Or are you saying science has absolutely no relationship to nature? Because if nature follows rules, and what we have learned through science is a close approximation of those rules, then it follows that any culture studying those rules should arrive at roughly the same conclusion.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:07 pm
@ Evolutino: Either you do not understand his argument, or you do not understand what begging the question is, or you do not know what a “premise” is.
This is NOT a premise, it is a conclusion. It is not necessary for the argument to work, as I will show below.
You do not support premises, you support conclusions. This not a premise, either, it is a combination of a premise and an argument based on that premise.
Restating a premise is not a new premise.
Here is what the actual argument is:
Premise 1: There are facts that are related to X (whether X is true or false is irrelevant)
Premise 2: All facts related to X support the conclusion that X is true.
Premise 3 (unstated): there are a very large number of facts related to X
Premise 4 (unstated): If all of a large number of facts related to X support X then it can be said that X is true in the scientific sense of the word
Conclusion: X is true
As you can see, this is not at all begging the question. The key issue is that a fact that relates to X does not necessarily have to support X. For instance you can replace X with “the steady-state model of the universe”. In this case there are many facts related to X, but they ended up being facts that contradicted it, not supported it. There is no need to assume that X is true, you only need to have facts that have some bearing on its truthfullness or falsity.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:12 pm
Moderate said,
Correct me if I’m wrong (I’m not a doctor), but aren’t doctors opposed to performing unnecessary and risky surgery on an otherwise healthy individual? That has nothing to do with the appendix’s purpose. I’m sure that if a person elected to have their appendix removed, a doctor would do it.
And you keep saying “we don’t have all the answers.” Please give an example or examples of things you believe that science has not answered, or is not trying to answer.
April 16th, 2009 at 7:13 pm
[...] Why Evolution is True [...]
April 16th, 2009 at 7:59 pm
Doctors will not remove an appendix electively. The theory is that we do not know for certain its purpose, same with tonsils. We don’t have the answer to why we need these organs but popular belief is that they are probably not useless. This is one example of a scientific answer we do not have provided by science.
The answers are not all found in the theory of evolution. I know, I know – You will argue with me. But science can’t explain why my friend with stage 4 breast cancer who was given 3-10 months to live is still alive 5 years later with no sign of the cancer in the 7 different places it was found – bone, lung, liver…Science cannot yet explain many supernatural phenomena so many have witnessed.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:03 pm
@TheBlackCat “Why are they nonesense? If there is no relationship between organisms, then any tree should be possible.”
Because you already know from fossil evidence that most of them are impossible. For example, you know that blue-green algae did NOT evolve from humans because it existed 3.5 billion years ago and hominids have only been around for ~5 million years. So including these obviously false linkages just pads the statistic and gives you your huge number.
“Yes it is. You obviously did not read it very closely. It took me about 10 seconds of skimming to find the list.”
Yes, there were 61 links on that page. One of them had the taxa (Figure 1 as it turned out!). Such a nicely designed web page, NOT.
“We are dealing with very small changes in a very small population in a very limited geographic region over a very short period of time with a number of different very closely related populations occupying similar geographic areas at the same time. What would give you the idea this is at all easy? I can’t imagine a more difficult situation.”
The assertion that the tree of life is known to within 38 decimal places certainly gives that impression, that everything is known about evolution and no more work needs to be done. That’s why I suggest you bury that meme – it gives people the wrong idea. BTW, it wasn’t a very small change – brain size tripled, body size doubled, etc., etc. Those are not minor evolutionary changes.
“You argument is entirely based on trying to develop phylogenetic trees of extinct organisms known only from bones. The 38 degree of precision trees are based entirely on living organisms where we can compare a wide variety of different traits.”
Yes, but a phylogenetic tree doesn’t build itself. There are a large number of degrees of freedom to use in deciding which traits to use for it, either morphologically or molecularly. Who built the tree? What assumptions did they make?, etc., etc. These are all important questions and they influence the final tree.
“Trying to build a phylogenetetic tree of extinct organisms is much, much, much more difficult than trying to build one of living organisms. So attacking the uncertainties in the phylogenies of extinct organisms does not do anything at all to undermine the phylogenies of living organisms.”
Well then, I’d like to see a complete phylogeny of living primates then, comparing morphology versus molecular data. I doubt you will have the same agreement among experts or the same agreement between the two approaches.
“That is why people base phylogenetic trees only on relevant information for the time scales being looked at. Something like genome length, which changes much too rapidly compared to the time scale of speciation, is not useful for building phylogenetic trees.”
Yes, but you can’t know that a priori. You try various parameters and you get different phylogenetic trees. That belies the supposed 38 decimal digits of precision. How do you know which parameters are correct? How do you know which trees are good? This reminds me of the original Out Of Africa – Mitochondrial Eve debacle where they announced that their parsimony analysis unambigously placed Eve in Africa. Then only a few months later it blew up in their faces – it turned out their tree was only one among millions. Most of the trees placed Eve in Africa but there were a minority that placed Eve in Asia questioning the whole Out Of Africa theory.
“That is the principle of genetic drift, which has been well-known for decades. Natural selection is not the only thing driving evolution.”
No, genetic drift does not support the injection of massive amounts of genetic information (up to 10% of the genome) in a short period of time from an external organism. That is neither natural selection nor genetic drift. The closest it comes is to some type of Lamarckian-style inheritance of acquired characteristics although the host organism is not “striving” for any such change.
“Yes, it has been demonstrated. Scientists have literally gone in and changed the sequence to see if it had any impact. Further, nature has done it for us. We can see that those segments of DNA are changing extremely rapidly, so rapidly that there cannot be any impact on the organism from the change. The sequences are arbitrary, it doesn’t matter what they are. Scientists are not just guessing here, the issue has been looked at in a lot depth.”
Some sources, please?
“So you are saying the rules that govern nature are a cultural construct? Or are you saying science has absolutely no relationship to nature? Because if nature follows rules, and what we have learned through science is a close approximation of those rules, then it follows that any culture studying those rules should arrive at roughly the same conclusion.”
Well, this is an open question. In SETI this is called the Incommensurability Problem. We’d like to think that ET shares certain scientific and mathematical principles with us which will make communication possible, and that science has certain fundamental similarities no matter where it is practiced and by whom. I’m not so sure of that. Like I said previously, there were at least six ancient cultures that had the technology and organization to develop science. Only one of them did (Ionian Greeks). That is not a hopeful statistic for the Incommensurability Problem.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:08 pm
Mr. Marking – Not sure your post about natural selection is clear. how does natural selection nullify creation? They both work very well together. In the above post someone asks for what answers are not provided by science. You said yourself that we do not know how many mechanisms there are in the theory of evolution. Right now we do know that natural selection is the biggie. You gave your own example to weaken the evolution argument. Thank you. The theory of evolution is as incomplete as the theory of creation. Faith and experience completes it for me.
April 16th, 2009 at 8:16 pm
You two evolutionists are arguing with one another. Its Ok. Creationists don’t agree on everything either. You use your imagination to imagine 80 some mechanisms of evolution. Why is it such a far cry to imagine there is order in the world that was created by intelligent deity?
April 16th, 2009 at 9:12 pm
@Moderate
Why is it such a far cry to imagine there is order in the world that was created by intelligent deity?
It’s not at all hard to imagine. It’s just hard to find any evidence for an intelligent deity.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:25 pm
Unless of course, you open your mind, books, and heart. The door swings both ways. It makes as much sense as imagining anything beyond natural selection which is pretty well sealed up. The rest of that theory is really up for debate with not a lot of evidence to support it. And wherever there is a big debate, truth usually lies in the middle which would make complete sense. God got this ball rolling and then natural selection stepped in. End of story.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:56 pm
@Moderate “Mr. Marking – Not sure your post about natural selection is clear. how does natural selection nullify creation? They both work very well together. In the above post someone asks for what answers are not provided by science. You said yourself that we do not know how many mechanisms there are in the theory of evolution. Right now we do know that natural selection is the biggie. You gave your own example to weaken the evolution argument. Thank you. The theory of evolution is as incomplete as the theory of creation. Faith and experience completes it for me.”
It depends what you mean by creation. Are you talking about independent creation at the species level or creation of the universe at the beginning of time? There is a big difference between the two. If you are talking about the deity tinkering with life over geological time and directly causing new species to appear, then natural selection denies that since it claims to be the mechanism for that. The fact that there may be unknown mechanisms at work in evolution does not in any way imply that there is a deity or supernatural force involved. Just like any other mechanism we would propose, we would need evidence to assert that a deity is involved. I don’t see any such evidence at the moment.
April 16th, 2009 at 9:57 pm
@Neil: your #3 is crap. For one thing, an obvious alternative for
your scenario is migration of a group of Anthropoidea to South
America at later point, with common traits evolving in that group
after the cat./plat. split. And subsequent extinction of stem
platyrrhini in Africa.
The thing is, assuming the split of areal by opening of South
Atlantic with resulting populations giving rise to catarrhini and
platyrrhini resp. doesn’t work for chronological reasons. It’s much,
much too early. You are postulating crown Anthropoidea circa
90-100Mya *and* presense of stem platyrrhini in the South America
ever since then. That’s 70My long ghost lineage. In the meanwhile,
catarrhini first show up in Fayum Eocene, following anthropoids basal
to catarrhini+platyrrhini (not to mention the groups of about the
same age in the same place that are either basal to cat.+plat., or
actually are stem plat.)
It is possible that groups with more and more traits of crown
Anthropoidea started showing up one after another after remaining
invisible for >70My since their separation, but it’s far more
parsimonious to assume that their radiation happened not in
Cretacious but around Eocene, happened in Africa/Arabia with one of
the branches getting to South America at some point between that and
26Mya (when we see the earliest known platyrrhini in South America)
and radiating there.
BTW, prehensile tail is *not* universally present in New World
Monkeys – it’s present in atelini, but not in the entire platyrrhini.
Platyrrini almost certainly form a clade with catarrhini as a sister
group, but using this particular trait to prove that simply doesn’t
work.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:20 pm
Mr. Marking – creation at the beginning of time. Most of what I see presented here is evidence for Natural Selection, not evolution. No argument. Agreed that just because we don’t have all the answers for evolution it does not necessarily support creation. By the same token, no such evidence for more mechanisms at the moment also means natural selection does not subtract from creationism. Be fair. Read some more. Read things that do not support your own bias. Keep looking. Keep your eyes and mind wide open.
April 16th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
Moderate said,
Are you sure? Almighty Google says otherwise.
Since you don’t seem to understand the definition of a scientific theory, this may be hard to explain. Current hypotheses for the appendix, while not completely conclusive yet, is that the appendix was an organ used by human ancestors to help digest large quantities of plant matter. If humans evolved into carnivores, which we can say with certainty (based on the evidence) that we did, then it is completely possible the appendix became unnecessary. There are other hypotheses as well, which means that while the purpose of the appendix is not yet known with certainty, it is certainly NOT unknowable. So, what you mean is, science has not found the answer yet, but it is likely to find it with further study.
*sigh* Ok, see, its comments like these that frustrate so many people. Let’s not turn this into a discussion about ghosts, ufo’s, fairies, or flying pink unicorns. Science can certainly explain any natural phenomena, given enough evidence.
I’m beginning to wonder if you are sincere in your questioning, or if you are a crank. Do us all a favor, and please, take 5 minutes to educate yourself as to what a Scientific Theory is. Click my name for a start. Or use Google, or Wikipedia, or something. When you come back, let us know if you still think the idea of creationism is as well tested as say, Gravity, Electromagnetism or Evolution.
Open your mind a little bit, and consider the possibility that the biologists, paleontologists, geologists, astronomers, and all the other scientists who have been collecting real physical evidence for centuries, probably have a better understanding of evolution than you think they do.
April 16th, 2009 at 11:00 pm
@ Moderate: Do me a favor please. Can you please explain, in your own words, what you think evolution is? I mean the scientific, biological definition of evolution. Please do not look it up or quote a dictionary or website, I want it straight from your own memory in your own words.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:20 am
Pchan8o said:
OK, this is a wrong term, being inaccurate, inflammatory and diverting the debate from the actual evidence, because it parallels “Christian”; but I shall ignore this in the rest of this comment.
Not “appeal to”. Conclude, from the evidence.
Natural selection is a process that has been observed to occur. There is precisely zero evidence of teleology (intentional planning) in the biological world, although highly specific adaptations can give the illusion of design.
It is also irrelevant from an evolutionary perspective, unless rabbits need considerably less than a year to go from birth to raising their first litter. What would be more relevant would be to examine the geographical distribution of rabbits that remain brown all year, and rabbits or hares that change their coat colour in winter (which arctic hares do). You would find that there is a correlation between the preponderance of one over the other and the proportion of the year there is snow on the ground.
Not so. NS is a contingent process that we can observe all around us should we but look. It is the simple consequence of too many organisms competing for limited resources.
You have not understood NS. It is the process whereby those bunnies that the predators don’t eat (or who don’t freeze to death) are more successful than the bunnies that become lunch for predators. NS operates on the sum total of all adaptations, be they camouflage, behavioural or whatever. If you like, NS is the outcome of some bunnies being better able to survive than others.
What the hell does this have to do with anything? A natural process does not need to understand or appreciate anything in order to occur. Does gravity appreciate or understand the distance between the Moon and the Earth? No, of course not. So why are you trying to anthropomorphise the process of natural selection?
Easily.
How come you find it so hard to grasp that prey that are easily seen by predators will get eaten sooner and more often than prey that are harder to see?
Proving nothing.
Appreciation of a process is a human perspective. NS does not need that in order to occur. Natural selection happens. Live with it.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:55 am
Hmmmmm…..let’s see. Our two choices are:
1) A scientific theory with hundreds of years of research, evidence, fossil records, and a constantly improving body of scientific thought that adjusts for new evidence and technology that helps explain the biological processes that brought about the diversity of species on this planet.
or
2) God did it.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:52 am
Moderate asked: “Why is it such a far cry to imagine there is order in the world that was created by intelligent deity?”
I agree with Jose’s answer – there’s just not any evidence. I’d also add that evolutionary theory doesn’t even require a deity to be involved; the process as understood these days works perfectly well without one.
But there’s another point which bugs me about this – the assumption by creationists that the deity they believe responsible for creation is the Christian God. What is it about creation theory that makes Christianity the proven religion, as opposed to any other?
April 17th, 2009 at 5:09 am
OK, so I’m late to the party, but I’d like to weigh in anyway…
Moderate said:
In case you had not noticed, the anger is not directed at such people.
The anger is directed at those extremists who have made one of humanity’s greatest intellectual achievements into a political issue. The creationists would have schoolchildren taught lies instead of our best understanding of the universe and how it works.
Or are you saying that we should not get angry with people who try to abuse children?
I don’t believe you.
Perhaps there are things that will never be explained, but we cannot know this unless we spend a significant effort trying. We have certainly not been trying for long enough in any field of endeavour to simply give up and say “unexplainable”.
I find it trying that you make this assertion withouit the slightest attempt to justify it.
Are you trying to provoke anger towards yourself?
No. Common descent (a prediction of evolutionary theory) has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.
If you want to have a creator god, that’s fine, but the facts limit where and when she acted: an omnipotent and omniscient deity could quite easily have set things up at the begniing to progress to what we see today, with no need for subsequent intervention. There is no evidence whatever that god has tinkered with life.
Of course, if you believe in the Great Deceiver and Last Thursdayism, then anything could be possible.
Because so many of the creationists do one or more of the following:
(1) Lie;
(2) Misrepresent statements made by scientists;
(3) Ignore evidence that they dislike;
(4) Refuse to justify their statements;
(5) Make arguments from ignorance (a logical fallacy);
(6) Make arguments from personal incredulity (another logical fallacy);
(7) Misrepresent or cherry-pick the facts;
(8) Use the god-of-the-gaps argument (which is both a logical fallacy and bad theology);
(9) Make arguments from authority (another logical fallacy);
(10) Invent new terminology to pretend to some kind of scientific rigour but refuse to define their terms;
(11) Indulge in sophistry (yes, Billy Dembski, I’m lookin’ at you!)
(12) Make ad hominem attacks on their critics (yes, Mike Behe, I’m lookin’ at you!)
Need I go on?
OK, first off, you must specify which other side you mean. Do you mean the very weak ID of Mike Behe (who accepts common descent and natural selection, but insists that some biological features could not evolve, despite being proven wrong every time he finds a new example)? Do you mean the slightly stronger ID of Bill Dembski and Phil Johnson? Do you mean OEC? Do you mean Day-age creationism? Do you mean the full-blown bat-guano-loony reality-denial of YEC?
Second, what “evidence” supports “the” other side?
Third, as far as I am aware, all of the evidence, every last piece of the hundreds of millions of facts that we know about biology, and the relationships and connections between them, support modern evolutionary theory.
Go on, let’s have some examples. And, please, don’t cite Jonathan Wells, who studied biology at the behest of rev Moon so he could deny evolution using technical terminology.
Well, why did you comment here, if you have such a closed mind?
Seriously, if you abandon your preconceptions, study the evidence and go where the facts (and only facts, but all of the facts) lead you, you will arrive at something akin to modern evolutionary theory.
If you have any specific objections or questions, I’d be happy to answer them as best I can.
Or, just maybe, these “evolutionists” are actually experts who really do know what they’re talking about, and get angry when their hard-won expertise is dismissed or trivialised by ignorant lackwits or sophists who care naught for objective truth. Did you think of that?
I daresay all scientists actually do accept this. I would be astonished if the world were populated only by people who share the same views on everything.
But different experiences do not mean that reality itself is different for different people. The world works in its own way, and that way is the same for all of us. The creationists display a lack of humility when they say that reality should be the way they want it to be. But the various brands of creationism are mutually exclusive – it is not possible for more than one of them to be right. And if most are wrong (as they perforce must be), then why not all of them? Science, by contrast, is the humble enterprise of learning what really is. And science has discovered that populations of living things change according to the mechanisms described by evolutionary theory.
If you can find a source from the creationists that displays honest and rigorous scholarship, I would love to read one. But so far, they seem only to produce the same oft-refuted arguments and just make stuff up to affirm their preconceptions.
Order? Yes, perhaps.
But whence comes that order? From an omnipresent, omniscient, omnipotent yet imperceptible deity, or from the operation of natural processes that we can and do observe at work today?
You’re preaching to the choir with that one. Perhaps you should go tell it to the creationists.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:11 am
>>>”Hmmmmm…..let’s see. Our two choices are:
1) A scientific theory with hundreds of years of research, evidence, fossil records, and a constantly improving body of scientific thought that adjusts for new evidence and technology that helps explain the biological processes that brought about the diversity of species on this planet.
or
2) God did it.”
It’s always the way…
The first person who came here objecting to evolution said “GODDIDIT!” The last person who comes here objecting to evolution will say “GODDIDIT!” Always ignoring the fact that evolution DOESN’T say God DIDN’T do it.
(sigh)
April 17th, 2009 at 5:17 am
Ernest Hua said:
Brilliant!
This encapsulates the whole creationist strategy.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:19 am
RS said:
Wrong. Your speculation is on a par with creationism – no specific testable predictions, no evidence to back it up.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:29 am
Who do you think you are ? A kind of Digory Kirke or what ? Do your really say that you witnessed how a deity created this universe ( and created it by means incompatible with the scientific picture of its history ) ?
April 17th, 2009 at 5:42 am
Evolutino said:
No. First of all, there is no requirement to assume that evolution is true.
Second, for those who understand how any specific new fact relates to existing facts, it does indeed add to the framework of evidence that confirms evolution as true.
For example, knowing the sequence of the protein Cytochrome C from humans does not tell you very much. However, knowing the sequence of cytochrome C from humans, horses, cats, mice, rabbits, hamsters, dogs, lions, cheetahs, chimpanzees, gorillas and so on allows one to observe relationships between these organisms. Furthermore, if you compile a chart that shows the amount of similarity and difference between the protein sequences, it shows a very high degree of correlation to a similar chart compiled using only gross anatomy. Thus, more evidence that all life is related.
Yes, they do, and it is a tactic often used by creationists.
No. The discovery of an organism that, for example, used a completely different genetic code from all other known life (e.g. the base sequence CGA in mRNA codes for arginine, as do a few other combinations, and this is exactly the same in every living thing on this planet) would “have something to do with evolution”, and it would directly contradict universal common ancestry. It would be a problem for universal common descent, because the idea of universal common descent predicts that all organisms use the same genetic code.
No. Every new fact that we uncover in biology comes with the opportunity for that fact to contradict some aspect of evolutionary theory.
So far, no fact has contradicted modern evolutionary theory (I distinguish MET from Darwin’s original theory because he got some things wrong).
April 17th, 2009 at 5:52 am
>>>”Who do you think you are?”
They think they can get to say “Goddidit” in a scientific conversation and expect everyone to take their non-scientific idea seriously. And not only that Goddidit, but THEIR Goddidit, and what’s more, did it a certain way but making all the observable evidence LOOK like it was done a completely different way. Of course, only “non-biased” and “open-minded” individuals can see the validity of their ideas.
Anyone who disagrees is obviously a biased closed-minded mean nasty elitist evil atheist Darwinist left-wing Liberal fascist un-Christian anti-religious anti-American God-hating Nazi Socialist Communist evolutionist Satan worshipper, who’s going to burn for eternity in hell.
And God loves you.
Dis iz still a scientific conversation, rite?
April 17th, 2009 at 5:52 am
Tom Marking said:
Well, first off, there is only about 80 – 90 % of our DNA that still has no known function, but this does not mean that it has no function.
Second, if what you state is true, then it is a problem for natural selection. However, natural selection is but one mechanism of change among several that are described by modern evolutionary theory. Biologists know about ERVs. They are, inter alia, one of the strands of evidence that indicate common descent, in fact.
However, looking a bit deeper into natural selection can bring us to this:
Selection pressure brings about adaptive change. If a feature of an organism is not subject to selection pressure, it is able to either remain the same or change at random. This latter mechanism of change is usually called genetic drift. If an ERV exists in a genome, and if that part of the genome is not subject to selection pressure (e.g. replicating it is not a substantial burden), then it can easily remain the same.
Moreover, even if something is detrimental, it will only be eliminated from a population when something better turns up (or if the whole population becomes extinct). If an entire population has a whole bunch of ERVs in their genomes, the ERVs will only be removed if one or more individuals can suddenly generate a mechanism for removing the ERV.
April 17th, 2009 at 5:57 am
Tom Marking said:
Argument from authority. I cry foul.
Actually, all we can say is that the timing would probably be different.
Since the laws of nature will still be exactly the same a million years from now, even if it took tens or hundreds of thousands of years, we would still eventually end up with the same laws of nature that we have today (and maybe a few more that we have yet to discover). Sure, the formulation would be different, but f = ma and E = mc2 no matter how you express it.
April 17th, 2009 at 6:03 am
Tom Marking said:
OK, Tom, which part of “descent with modification” passed you by?
So chromosome number has changed in our evolutionary past. So what? If there is no selection pressure to keep it constant, then it probably won’t stay constant. Perhaps the change in chromosome number was the speciation event that separated us from our great ape cousins. At this time we don’t know.
You talk also about phylogenetic trees built from C-numbers, but you must remember that natural selection operates at the level of organisms and populations and ecosystems. How relevant to survival and reproduction is the C-number? If it has no direct relevance, then it may not be acted upon by selection at all. It could simply change at random. And if this is the case, then no meaningful phylogeny could be constructed from C-number data.
Have you tried looking that up?
April 17th, 2009 at 7:22 am
Tom Marking said:
No more recent than the evolutionary story of any other extant organism.
This second factor is irrelevant, since no amount of study will give you the right answer if you are missing crucial pieces of evidence.
Assuming you are talking about the evolution of humans from a common ancestor we share with great apes, there is no reason to assume it will be easy to do unless we have fossil evidence of all the hominid species that have ever lived.
Did it not occur to you to wonder why this is so?
Which suggests to me that either the fossils we have are not good enough in terms of the quality of preservation, or we are missing fossil evidence of some key intermediate species, or both.
This is the way science works. Eventually, when there is enough evidence to be certain that we have the correct phylogeny, there will be no disagreement. This is a fundamental pert of the scientific process. Why are you trying to hold it up as if it showed some kind of lack in science?
You evolution deniers amaze me. Sometimes (when crackpot ideas get dismissed for being crakpottery) you’re whining about science not permitting dissenting voices, then you turn around and point to a genuine scientific debate as if it indicates some kind of failure in science!
April 17th, 2009 at 7:26 am
Tom MArking said:
Which may, or may not, have any relevance to the real world.
First, establish the relevance of the parameter you have measured. Then, you can use that parameter to draw comparisons, or not.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Tom Marking said:
But it will only be removed if there is a selection pressure against the host organism having it, and if a mechanism exists for removing it.
What selection pressure could there be against increasing the size of your genome by about 0.01% (ish)?
Well, yeah.
The last universal common ancestor was not a single ospecies, it was a population of many species of bacteria-like things that swapped DNA promiscuously.
What’s the big deal?
One tenth? I’d like to see a reference to that.
Yeah, but you were the one that first used the term “junk DNA” in this thread, so you can’t quibble about the term now.
You are wrong to set those things as parallel.
The laws of nature are an intrinsic part of how the universe works.
Homo sapiens (although, in your case, you seem to be making a big effort to not be very sapient) are a contingent product of the processes of biological succession. Our existence depends on the precise evolutionary history of all life on the planet, mass extinctions and all. For instance, if that asteroid had not struck Earth 65 million years ago, dinosaurs would most probably still be the dominant form of land animals.
Any organism capable of investigating its environment and wondering will eventually uncover the laws of nature, including evolution. We, on the other hand, are a product of historical accident.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:57 am
Moderate said:
Actually, I would love for there to be a deity that’s smarter than I think I am. However, I acknowledge that there is no reason to suppose there actually is one, and no-one has ever found any compelling evidence.
Well, you fooled me on that one.
Whaddya mean “both sides”? Both sides of what?
If you refer to evolution, there is only one side – the science of biology has discovered how and why nature contains the extraordinary diversity of flora and fauna that we observe.
If you refer to “religion versus science”, why are there any sides at all? Perhaps you have fallen for the false dichotomy manufactured by the creationists that “science = atheism”? This is a tactic they have developed to turn people away from science and critical thinking, but it has no substance unless you let it.
Belief in a god of some sort is entirely compatable with recognising that science offers us the best way in which to understand the universe. But the creationists do not want other people to learn that their god does not tinker with the universe, and that the bible is wrong when taken literally.
Which indicates to me, assuming you refer to evolution, that either you have not tried or you have not understood. Or, I guess, that you have fallen for the tactics of the creationists.
Don’t give me that old chestnut.
Of course atheists can understand faith. Many of them used to have it, after all. What scientists in general object to is not faith (many scientists are devoutly religious, after all), it is the rejection of reality by some religious organisations and many individual creationists. And the interference of these people in children’s science education.
Yep, this tells me that you have fallen for the lies of the creationists. There are currently, precisely zero “holes” in evolutionary theory.
Evolution is a fact. Evolutionary theory explains how and why populations of organisms change over time. Perhaps what you refer to is the historical path taken by various lineages? Any biologist will freely acknowledge that we are a long, long way from assembling a complete history of life on earth. This is because the data get sparser and harder to inmterpret the further back in time you go. It is certainly no reflection on the power of evolutionary theory.
Well, this is plain barmy. Many creationists deny natural selection occurs at all, except on the very smallest scale. Natural selection is but one aspect of evolutionary theory, albeit a very important one. No biologist of the last 60 years or so would equate natural selection with evolution.
Perhaps you refer to the fact that most creationists’ biggest issue is with common descent. However, as soon as you acknowledge the (blatantly obvious, BTW) mutability of species, you find yourself on the way to making the prediction that all life is related to one or several initial species. Common descent has been confirmed beyond reasonable doubt.
Well, duh, because people survive and thrive after the appendix has been removed.
This is unlikely to be the reason. The reason is more likely to be that they would rather not perform surgery (which, after all, always contains an element of risk to the patient) if they do not have to.
Which they get from scientists.
Well, oddly enough, you are probably right here, but for the wrong reason.
The appendix is a poor example of a vestigial organ, because there is a school of thought that it does serve a useful purpose in humans, albeit one without which we can live.
However, you seem to have missed the more general point, that vestiges in our anatomy (like the inadequacy of our spines; like the terrible compromise of the human pelvis; like the fact that our teeth suffer terribly from a diet based largely on grains and grain products; like the fact that our skin is composed of scales; like the fact that we need to wear clothes to avoid suffering from cold and wet weather because we have lost our fur; like the fact that our retinas are back-to-front; like the fact that human hands, when they first appear in the embryo, are webbed; and so on) indicate an absence of design and a reliquary of our evolutionary history.
Unless, that is, you subscribe to the theory of Incompetent Design.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:06 am
Ah hem, I never said this was necessarily the work of the Christian God. Another ASSUMPTION made by a couple of you. I see both sides being quick to make far-fetched assumptions. That’s all folks.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:21 am
@Moderate
So, what evidence is there that “the other side” has shown to support its ideas?
April 17th, 2009 at 8:29 am
@Greg in Austin: Way to stroke that intellectual ego. Feels really good to google, doesn’t it. I don’t know the definition of Scientific Theory? Oh my are you presumptuous. You have no idea my academic background and I will not ask you to google me. What you are doing more here is using is philosophy vs. scientific theory. There is a big difference there, too. Just like there is a big difference between evolution and natural selection.This is the attitude that mystifies me from my first post, and I also stated I am not interested in argument. But you are provocative. I expected the comments about unicorns and ufos, but I think you know darn well that is not what I am talking about. It is the collective experience of humans (not these rare, bizarre things) that certainly indicate the existence of soul and spirit. Argue me into the ground if it pleases you so. I know its the really easy thing to pick on. Re: the appendix – may vary by doctors and if they think they’ll get paid or not – but I’ve discussed it with many of my colleagues – certainly not standard practice. My guess is 1000’s years from now we won’t have our appendix if its is not necessary anymore – natural selection will take care of it, and I am fine with that. Peace Out.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:39 am
@Moderate
Regarding the appendix, perhaps you should ask your colleagues why they won’t remove it as an elective procedure. My guess is that they will say that it is due almost entirely to the risks of the surgery as weighed against the (lack of) benefits of removing it without medical necessity. I doubt that they will say that it is because there is some necessity of the appendix to the human body.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:44 am
@Moderate
Ah hem, I never said this was necessarily the work of the Christian God. Another ASSUMPTION made by a couple of you. I see both sides being quick to make far-fetched assumptions.
Why would that assumption be far-fetched? And even if it’s a wrong assumption, who cares? Are you offended that someone might think you’re a Christian? It doesn’t matter what god you believe in. The argument stays the same.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:50 am
@Moderate
My guess is 1000’s years from now we won’t have our appendix if its is not necessary anymore – natural selection will take care of it, and I am fine with that. Peace Out.
It’s possible, but the fact that we can safely remove a bad appendix removes a lot of selective pressure. My guess is that it’s here to stay, along with wisdom teeth and bad eyesight.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:58 am
@ moderate :
I will not ask you to google me.
Good thing too, with an abstract anonymous tag like that there’d be no chance of getting any worthwhile result.
Moderate?
Moderate what? Moderate drinker? Moderate member of the taliban? Moderate member of the Ohio ladies sewing circle? Moderator? Moderate modernist? Moderate eater of sphagehtti? “Moderate” means … well.. not too much really.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:00 am
Not that I should bug people over their choice of moniker here but .. well!
April 17th, 2009 at 9:05 am
@ moderate :
Be fair. Read some more. Read things that do not support your own bias. Keep looking. Keep your eyes and mind wide open.
Just asking but are you assuming we’re NOT already doing this?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:11 am
“All men are born with the ability to pursue happiness, freedom, love and whatever one holds in value – without added external sources.”
fff Says:
“True, but without God, or at least some form of supernatural, infinite being, there’s no permanence to any of it. I think that’s what really bothers most people, even if they don’t realize it.”
I do not believe that God exists, but I do believe in all the good He stands for – as described by human beings. Although I’m no atheist, the atheist’s wager makes perfect sense. I would not want to have an eternal life in a kingdom where its ruler’s morality is irrational. The irrationality being that it’s more important to believe in God’s existence without any sensible proof, rather than believing in decent manners, non-violence, integrity, honesty and all such values that have very real and proven positive consequences.
Nothingness after life can be a bothersome issue for some. In reality, I acknowledge the possibility that there is no life after death for exactly the opposite reason – it increases my respect and value towards life itself while I live it. Many who await paradise in the afterlife are unaware of their capabilities to create their own paradise right here on earth. Life and evolution is all about constant changes going on. People who do not embrace change as an intricate part of reality, have a tendency to shield themselves by strengthening the barriers of their comfort zones. It can be a sad sight to witness their desperate struggle to defend their bubble from popping.
If there is a God, I think of Him as a parent just like many religious people do. And so, one beautiful day there comes a moment when the child has grown up to the point where she is ready to stand on her own. And when that happens, when she stands on her own two feet without her parent’s aid or support, it is usually a moment of great pride to the parent.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:42 am
@mostly flying sardines, Todd W, and Jose’: You are assuming I don’t ask why they don’t remove it. Fact is, there are several reasons, one of them being it may be useful yet. I am not assuming you don’t read conflicting sources but someone above did admit that they don’t. Be honest, you just like to pick on someone who differs from you because I get so much from flying sardines! Brilliant! Someone was picking on those who think its the Christian God, too. When they find out their assumption is wrong, they pick on something else. You might be surprised by my credentials, but it is not in my nature to share them. Whatever. It is very difficult to convince someone who does not appear aware of their own soul that they exist. You win, wise guys. Black and white thinkers bore me to tears.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:45 am
@Moderate
Since you ignored my question the first time, I’ll ask again, what evidence is there that “the other side” has shown to support its ideas?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Moderate:
>>>”Ah hem, I never said this was necessarily the work of the Christian God. Another ASSUMPTION made by a couple of you. I see both sides being quick to make far-fetched assumptions. That’s all folks.”
What difference would that make??? Sorry, I thought this was a scientific discussion. Silly me.
Todd W.
>>>”Since you ignored my question the first time, I’ll ask again, what evidence is there that “the other side” has shown to support its ideas?”
Yes, that’s one I’d like to know the answer to also.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:53 am
@Nigel Depledge “No. Common descent (a prediction of evolutionary theory) has been proven beyond reasonable doubt.”
@Torbjorn Larssen “The Scientific Case for Common Descent” describes how the methods to pick out a very small set of likely phylogenetic trees out of the enormous set of all possible trees. This process arrive at a fantastic precision”
Common descent is not a validation of natural selection. Why? Because many different evolutionary theories predict it as well, such a Lamarckian, perhaps ID, and potentially many others. Having a phylogenetic tree does not speak to the mechanism or mechanisms which caused it. So, while common descent may be a prediction of natural selection it is not unique to natural selection.
April 17th, 2009 at 9:54 am
Moderate:
>>>”It is very difficult to convince someone who does not appear aware of their own soul that they exist.”
Hmmm, I don’t seem to be aware of the existence of my own (or anyone else’s) soul, although as a fellow human being I am quite sure that we both share the same attributes. Um, unless you’re female. But anyway, what exactly is a “soul” and how does one determine/measure/quantify it’s existence? And what does is have to do with evolution, or science in general for that matter?
April 17th, 2009 at 9:55 am
>>>”Because many different evolutionary theories predict it as well, such a Lamarckian, perhaps ID, and potentially many others. Having a phylogenetic tree does not speak to the mechanism or mechanisms which caused it.”
Uh, ID “predicts” it?
How? When?
(gasp) WHO?!?
April 17th, 2009 at 10:06 am
@Nigel Depledge “The discovery of an organism that, for example, used a completely different genetic code from all other known life (e.g. the base sequence CGA in mRNA codes for arginine, as do a few other combinations, and this is exactly the same in every living thing on this planet) would “have something to do with evolution”, and it would directly contradict universal common ancestry. It would be a problem for universal common descent, because the idea of universal common descent predicts that all organisms use the same genetic code.”
Mitochondria have several different codons from the standard genetic code. Several other organisms such as Mycoplasma have variations on the standard code too. From what you are saying, this appears to invalidate common descent.
http://www.answers.com/topic/genetic-code
The following organisms have non-standard genetic codes:
1.) mammals
2.) mitochondria
3.) drosophila (fruit flies)
4.) yeast
5.) higher plants
6.) protozoan nuclei
7.) Mycoplasma capricolum (a species of bacteria)
April 17th, 2009 at 10:22 am
I’m about done here. But lets all get out our Mcat and Lsat and Sat and act scores and pore over them with a couple cocktails. You are intelligent people. You really don’t want to hear it from me, and ID person. But you know where to find it and then discredit the authors, so go ahead. But don’t allow me the same privilege since I must be stupid. But yeah, what it comes down to as I thought about this just now in the shower is that we will likely never agree, and in the end that just has to be OK. I have no interest in trying to quantifying the soul. It is an experiential and individual and wonderful thing which you seem to have a hard time getting that gray matter around. Yeah, I guess I am moderate – drinker, community member, scientist, that is the way I generally live my life. So shoot me.My good friend from college with whom I have been discussing some of these things (atheist) (philosophy honor undergrad, Harvard Law) is a black and white thinker so would not smoke Marlboro Mediums when they came out. Too wishy washy for her. She stuck with the Reds for years – but since she is smart, she did eventually quit all together. But you see how irrational this all can be. Or maybe you can’t.I am sorry. I am willing to agree to disagree but you cannot give that same space?
April 17th, 2009 at 10:22 am
@Darth Robo “Uh, ID “predicts” it? How? When? (gasp) WHO?!?”
http://www.ideacenter.org/contentmgr/showdetails.php/id/1449
Interview with Michael J. Behe:
“ML: In The Edge, you make a defense for common descent (p.182) and later attribute it to a non-random process (p. 72). Considering the convergent evolution of the digestive enzyme of lemurs and cows, hemoglobin of human and mice, and in your own work resistance mutations that also arise independently (p77), why such a commitment to common descent? Isn’t genetic convergent evolution or even common design (considering your view of mutations) good alternative explanations to common descent?
MJB: I don’t think so. Although those other explanations may be true, I think that common descent, guided by an intelligent agent, is sufficient to explain the data. It has the great advantage of being easily compatible with apparent genetic “mistakes” shared by organisms, such as the pseudo-hemoglobin genes I wrote of in The Edge of Evolution.”
April 17th, 2009 at 10:23 am
“The irrationality being that it’s more important to believe in God’s existence without any sensible proof, rather than believing in decent manners, non-violence, integrity, honesty and all such values that have very real and proven positive consequences.”
Haven’t you heard? Living a good, decent life of moral values is a logical fallacy, since extremist [insert religion of choice here, mainly Christian on this forum] own a monopoly on morality. Duh!
I know people who honestly believe that the most morally corrupt, murderous, malicious rapists their religion can churn out are “saved” (and deservedly so!) as long as the profess their “faith” while those evil enough to attempt to live a decent and moral life by “inalienable” [i.e., secular] human rights are, by nature, damned to hell for all of eternity (and deservedly so!) because they have the audacity to think logically, question the religious author-i-ti, or, God forbid, put human beings above the preachings of said author-i-ti. AND THESE PEOPLE ARE SERIOUS! They mean it, they believe even attempting to question the religious author-i-ti or the existence of their almighty creator is a hell-worthy act of – what’s the word they use? Ah yes – Heresy. Site the word “hypocrite” to said extremists and watch the fur fly, these people do NOT like to be called onto the carpet! They are serious about their domination, they mean business, and they are unapologetically intolerant of tolerance of any kind towards anything which calls their authoritative views into question. They hate the tolerant, they despise logic, and they require unquestioned, blind acceptance of their views, regardless of whether or not they aligns with the much-overhyped laws of the universe. But God loves us.
Not much to add to this particular discussion, except — many such people just love to troll scientific forums such as this one to spread their malcontent with logical thought.
And now back to the show…
April 17th, 2009 at 10:28 am
Moderate – quit your whining, nobody is saying you are stupid because of any alleged religious alignment, spirituality, or whatever; they are saying to certainly appear to be stupid if you are pushing forth ID garbage which has been scientifically disproven many times over. Yes, I’m afraid that science is indeed very “intolerant” to nonscientific “theories” which fail the scientific method. That’s not closed-minded. That’s the only way we know of to determine fact from myth. That’s how we determine reality, whether we are scientists, philosophers, or goat herders, that is the only way which works. ID fails on all counts. Get over it.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:42 am
@Moderate
Yet again, you do not answer my question. You came to this blog. You made a claim (that there was just as much evidence on one side as the other). However, you fail to support that claim with any evidence, instead opting to tell us to go find it ourselves. That is poor scholarship on your part. When you make a claim, you should be ready to produce the evidence that supports your claim or led to your conclusion.
You are also making allusions to degrees or academic achievements by yourself and others, which smacks of Ivory Tower syndrome. Not saying that’s what you are doing, but there seems to be no reason for you to even bring it up, so why bother.
It’s very simple, and I’ll ask, yet again, what is the evidence on the “other” side? Please provide examples with links to your sources for those examples.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
It is easiest to remember that evolution applies to populations such as species. Whatever “kinds” are, rest assured that using them as a basis for observations will fail.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:54 am
Not at all. Teleology in biology is falsified, so it doesn’t make sense to think of it as “an alternative”.
Adaptive systems are, trivially, learning from their environment (by way of methods like trial-and-error or trial-and-reward). An adaptive evolutionary population is no different (negative selection or less reproduction corresponds to trial-and-error, positive selection or increased reproduction corresponds to trial-and-reward).
So there are no ends, just discovering what works in a certain situation.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:55 am
Or even simpler: if animals can grow, how can thermodynamics be a problem for biology?
[Can also be modified to: if animals can grow in size and complexity during development, how can thermodynamics be a problem for biology? But it's really the first question that stumps denialists of thermodynamics. Or evolution, it is hard to tell when they screw up both basic sciences so thoroughly.]
April 17th, 2009 at 10:57 am
All evidences shows that cellular life forms, or at least the first RNA world life, preceded viruses which are, famously, parasitic.
The rest of your argument is illegible, since it confuses biology with religious teleology (”purpose”).
But this:
is pure anthropocentric nonsense.
If you mean that humans can go extinct, sure. But which species can’t?
But if you mean that humans don’t evolve because we are somehow special, explain why paleontologists found recently that natural selection has increased two orders of magnitude in humans in historical time (due to the massive population increase). [See Hawks et al.]
Currently we are probably among the fastest evolving species outside of unicellular species. (I assume rats can give us a run for our money.) “Humans” are only ‘humans’ for so long, in short time we will be something different because our environment changes all the time.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:02 am
No, that is exactly how scientific theories works: theory gives predictions, that are tested. If the theory is wrong, it will fail in one of its predictions against observation.
You are proposing to replace predictive science with descriptive philosophy (trying to explain merely what we already know), or worse, theological dogma. This is untenable because it will prevent us from knowing what is correct. We must always question facts and theories, there is no other way that works.
[Btw, tautologies, which seems to concern your philosophical/theological presumptions in matters of science, are perfectly all right in sciences. How else can a theory build on facts while at the same time predicting them? The trick is that ad hoc models, explaining only what they are meant to explain, can be tested outside current data. And fundamental theories like evolution theory or quantum theory aren't ad hoc anyway, but predicts much more from the start.]
April 17th, 2009 at 11:08 am
@Nigel Depledge “Well, first off, there is only about 80 – 90 % of our DNA that still has no known function, but this does not mean that it has no function.”
Uh, I believe that was the argument I made to TheBlackCat. BlackCat says science has proof that this DNA has no function. BTW, still waiting on those sources for that claim, BlackCat.
I am skeptical of such claims for various reasons. Let’s say you have your DNA gene adjacent to some junk DNA. All it takes is one mutation of the stop codon for the gene and guess what?, your “junk” DNA is junk no longer. RNA polymerase will begin reading it and constructing a protein out of it. That’s why it is extremely dangerous for organisms to have lots and lots of nonfunctional DNA in their genome. Simple mutations can cause it to become functional. So if it’s not junk then natural selection should operate on it. If natural selection operates on it then natural selection should be able to explain the wide differences in both C-value and chromosome count among closely related species.
“Argument from authority. I cry foul.”
I only mentioned the Sagan chapter so you could go read it and I wouldn’t have to redo the entire history of Ionian science here.
“Actually, all we can say is that the timing would probably be different.
Since the laws of nature will still be exactly the same a million years from now, even if it took tens or hundreds of thousands of years, we would still eventually end up with the same laws of nature that we have today (and maybe a few more that we have yet to discover). Sure, the formulation would be different, but f = ma and E = mc2 no matter how you express it.”
Yes, that’s your assertion. Where is your evidence for it? All scientific cultures on Earth derive from a single instance, the Ionian Greeks roughly 2,500 years ago. There are no other scientific cultures that derive from some other source and we have not found ET cultures so far. So you have no evidence for that assertion other than handwaving.
“OK, Tom, which part of “descent with modification” passed you by? So chromosome number has changed in our evolutionary past. So what? If there is no selection pressure to keep it constant, then it probably won’t stay constant.”
O.K. I see I have to lay out the problem for you:
Homo sapiens – 46 chromosomes
Chimpanzees – 48 chromosomes
Divergence time – ~7 million years
Callicebus cupreus (Titi monkey) – 46 chromosomes
Callicebus torquatus (Titi monkey) – 20 chromosomes
Divergence time – perhaps several million years based on average divergence times for primate species
So in the human/chimpanzee case we have a change of 2 chromosomes over the course of 7 million years. In the case of the Titi monkey we have a change of 26 chromosomes over the course of several million years. Where is the rhyme and reason to that? Why is the rate of change of the chromosome number in the Titi monkey so much bigger? Is it the environment? If so what about the environment explains it?
“You talk also about phylogenetic trees built from C-numbers, but you must remember that natural selection operates at the level of organisms and populations and ecosystems. How relevant to survival and reproduction is the C-number?”
It certainly has more relevance than building a phylogenetic tree based on cytochrome C, which has been done and is apparently being trotted out as having 38 decimal digits of precision. Cytochrome C is a protein of roughly 100 amino acids so ~33 DNA nucleotides code for it. So basing a phylogenetic tree on Cytochrome C is looking at 1 part in 100 million of the DNA that’s there. Does that make any sense?
“Assuming you are talking about the evolution of humans from a common ancestor we share with great apes, there is no reason to assume it will be easy to do unless we have fossil evidence of all the hominid species that have ever lived.”
I’m NOT THE IDIOT claiming phylogeny is easy. It was someone else. I claim that it is very difficult.
“Which suggests to me that either the fossils we have are not good enough in terms of the quality of preservation, or we are missing fossil evidence of some key intermediate species, or both.”
Or their interpretations of the same evidence are different.
“You evolution deniers amaze me.”
Please pay attention, Nigel. Your reading comprehension leaves much to be desired. I am not an “evolution denier”. My beef is with natural selection.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:09 am
Is it some requirement that creationist arguments naturally progress to the point where the use of paragraphs or extra spaces at the end of sentences is forbidden?
Or, maybe by the second or third posting their brains are just thinking up stuff so fast their fingers can’t keep up. Pretty darn special, if that’s the case.
I think the generic “crank” arguments various posters have developed need to be updated with this feature, as it seems a common trait to all manner of cranky subjects.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:20 am
@Jose:
My guess is that it’s here to stay, along with wisdom teeth and bad eyesight.
Interesting choice, especially for me, since
1) I have 2 wisdom teeth rather than the standard 4 (Wiki’d it, and varying numbers are not terribly uncommon)
2) I am very nearsighted and have worn glasses since about five years of age.
J/P=?
April 17th, 2009 at 11:23 am
@Nigel Depledge “Which may, or may not, have any relevance to the real world. First, establish the relevance of the parameter you have measured. Then, you can use that parameter to draw comparisons, or not.”
How do I do that? Is Cytochrome C established as a relevant parameter? If so why since it is only one one hundred millionth of the genome?
“But it will only be removed if there is a selection pressure against the host organism having it, and if a mechanism exists for removing it.”
Your missing the point. Natural selection deals with selection of inherited characteristics. HERV was NOT inherited originally, it was acquired. If you want to now say natural selection deals with acquired characteristics then that’s fine, but recognize it is an extension of the original theory.
“What selection pressure could there be against increasing the size of your genome by about 0.01% (ish)?”
There is the metabolism factor. All that energy the organism spends in replicating that extra nonfunctional DNA could be used for other purposes. There is your selection factor.
“One tenth? I’d like to see a reference to that.”
http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?id=how-to-resurrect-an-extin&cid=0&ei=eqVfRe-iOr3mHK-fxfwG
“Nearly 8 percent of the human genome consists of such captured retroviral DNA sequences, which gradually become garbled over the millennia. A few of those acquired more recently, however, have nearly complete sequences. They belong to an extinct family of retroviruses called HERV-K (for human endogenous retrovirus, K type). Some of these HERV-K elements seem to play a role in placental development and even cause viruslike particles to form in certain tumors. Researchers could not isolate a functioning, infectious HERV-K virus from human samples to study its possible function, though.”
“Yeah, but you were the one that first used the term “junk DNA” in this thread, so you can’t quibble about the term now.”
Oh please. I used the term as it is commonly referred to. I never accepted the mainstream position that it has no function.
“The laws of nature are an intrinsic part of how the universe works.”
Perhaps, but the interpretation of those laws can only be seen through the filter of human culture.
“Homo sapiens (although, in your case, you seem to be making a big effort to not be very sapient)…”
Oooo, low blow there, Nigel. Your ad hominem arguments overwhelm me.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:29 am
@ Tom Marking:
There are so many comments that I have started to answer them in turn. Excuses if you got answers already:
What are you trying to say here? Natural selection isn’t the only mechanism of evolution. There are many others such as genetic drift, which gives genetic information which ” was not inherited originally and selected by the environment”.
More specifically what you are describing is lateral gene transfer (LGT), which is known to happen (for example by some such DNA having different G/C ratio used for the same amino acids due to different thermal adaption). There is AFAIU a lively debate how much such transfer, for example between our bacterial mitochondria genome into our nuclear genome, means. Especially in bacterias LGT may fuzzify lineages based on diverse species concepts.
As it happens, both these very old misunderstandings of biology is treated by T Ryan Gregory on Genomicron, who researches genome size and usage specifically. To avoid the spam filter I won’t give links, but you can google Gregory.
Gregory on the so called “C-value paradox”:
“There are, it was discovered, salamanders with 40x more DNA per genome than in humans. This made no sense. DNA amount is constant within species because it is what genes are made of, and yet more complicated organisms (which presumably require more genes) may have substantially less DNA in their genomes than simpler organisms. This became known as the “C-value paradox” in the early 1970s.
It was not long before the apparent “paradox” was resolved: most DNA in animal and plant genomes is not genes (it is “non-coding DNA”). This means that genome size need not be related to the number of protein-coding genes, and that there is no reason to expect more complex animals to have more DNA in their genomes.”
Gregory on the so called “junk” DNA:
“As it stands, the evidence suggests that about 5% of the human genome is functional at the organism level. The total may be higher — as noted, Comings suggested 20% is actively utilized. It is conceivable that 50% or more of the genome is functional, perhaps in structural roles or some other higher-order capacity. It would require evidence to support this contention, however, and the question would remain as to why an onion requires 5x more of this structural or otherwise essential DNA, and why some of its close relatives can get by with half as much while others have twice the onion amount. There is nothing remarkable about onions in this sense, by the way — animal genome sizes alone cover a more than 7,000-fold range, and even among vertebrates there is a 350-fold difference. The range among single-celled protozoa is at least 30,000-fold, though even higher estimates have been presented.
The take home message is simply this. What we know about eukaryote genomes suggests that there are many mechanisms that can add non-coding DNA that do not require it to be functional. This does not in any way preclude the possibility of, or invalidate the search for, function in some, many, or possibly even most of those non-coding components. How much proves to be functional is an empirical question, and at present the indication seems to be that most non-genic DNA is non-functional. That said, non-functional is not the same as inconsequential.” [Note that Gregory mentions his famous "onion test" which all ideas about C-value and/or non-coding DNA must pass.]
I believe both quotes answer your question about selection specifically. (I.e. it isn’t the only mechanism of biology, and never was, but may be part of an answer in specific cases.)
May I note that it is funny that you reference 40 year old biological science instead of the latest that has superseded it. This is the same period from which AIG and DI originally dug up their ‘latest’ science that they try to attack. Is that a coincidence?
April 17th, 2009 at 11:31 am
@Moderate
Someone was picking on those who think its the Christian God, too. When they find out their assumption is wrong, they pick on something else. You might be surprised by my credentials, but it is not in my nature to share them.
Now you sound like someone who’s making a childish ploy to make it sound like they’re not Christian and are in a scientific profession. For the record, both points are irrelevant to the discussion.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:35 am
Moderate said,
According to your own words, “The theory of evolution is as incomplete as the theory of creation. Faith and experience completes it for me,” indicates you do not know the difference between a scientific theory and a non-scientific theory. I may be wrong, so if you can explain to me what you think evolutionary theory really is, perhaps you can remove any misunderstanding.
Now who is being presumptuous? I have no idea what you meant by your earlier comment, “Science cannot yet explain many supernatural phenomena so many have witnessed.” Please give me an example of a “supernatural phenomena.”
Moderate, you may not be a total crank, but you certainly have many of the same attributes:
1) You make claims without evidence
2) You ignore evidence that is contrary to your claims (i.e. doctors electively removing the appenix)
3) You call everyone else close-mined
4) You cry that you are being unfairly picked on
5) You ignore direct questions
6) You threaten to leave the blog, but still reply
If you are really as open minded as you say, you will consider what everyone else has been asking you. Most of the people here are calm and polite and willing to have an adult conversation, and you are welcome to join in at any time.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:37 am
@John Paradox
I’m a tweener. I have four wisdom teeth, but they’re not fully developed teeth. I didn’t start wearing glassed until I was 7, so you’ve out nerded me.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:58 am
@ Tom Marking:
I thought I did, and gave references to boot. Namely, the resulting maximum likelihood (or similar methods) trees are a subset of all possible binary trees. The probability of that gives these low numbers.
For example, the number of rooted trees with 10 species are 34,459,425, so given 1 – 3 alternative phylogenies out of an ML method will have a precision of ~ 3/3.4^7 or ~ 10^-7.
April 17th, 2009 at 11:59 am
Oops, or that TBC said. Apologies.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:02 pm
I posted this last night but for some reason it didn’t go through. I’ll try breaking it up into several comments.
First, as I keep saying, we are talking about the phylogenetic relationships of modern organisms. Blue-green algae and humans both evolved from a common ancestor that was most likely neither. Second, the whole point is that the fossil record and molecular relationships agree to an extremely high degree of accuracy. That is like saying that because we know the charge of an electron from one experiment, that another experiment agrees with it is meaningless. The whole point is that we can have more confidence in the results if the two experiments agree.
You said that it wasn’t there, but it was. You could have said they you couldn’t find it, instead you said it didn’t exist. Besides, it wasn’t hard for me to find at all, it was the first link I clicked, and as I said it took my about 10 seconds to find the link.
First, I disagree. It may give you that impression, but can you provide any evidence that it gives others that impression? Second, the argument you work making was that it was wrong, not that it gave people the wrong impression. Does the fact that we have detailed measurements of physical constants mean physicists should just give up? Does it give people the impression physics is a waste of time?
Yes, they are pretty small changes as changes go. The difference between breeds of dogs is larger than that.
Yes, which is why people building the trees are expected to describe all of that. The experimental protocol you use for determining physical constants also have a big impact, which is why describing your protocol is considered important. A key part of all science is explaining how you did it so others can verify it and make sure the approach is appropriate.
Of course not, there is no where near enough data to do that. If you want to look at living apes, then the phylogenetic tree is extremely robust. But primates are one of the largest groups of mammals on the planet with hundreds of species.
Sure you can. Just measure the rate at which certain changes occur. If it happens too fast or too slow, don’t use it.
Yes, but then again different measurements of physical constants return different values as well. Does that mean that we cannot trust those values? Of course not. By comparing how the experiments agree, the reliability of the protocols, and how man agree with which values, we can place different degrees of confidence in different values. It is the same with phylogenetic trees. Error bars are one of the defining features of scientific measurements.
You really think that viruses are the only ways for genomes to increase in size? Gene (and junk DNA) duplication, even whole chromosome duplication, is fairly common. It looks like the entire genome of the ancestor of all fish (including us) was duplicated not once but twice.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
@Torbjorn Larssen “What are you trying to say here? Natural selection isn’t the only mechanism of evolution. There are many others such as genetic drift, which gives genetic information which ” was not inherited originally and selected by the environment”.”
The main point is that the mechanism by which HERV has entered the genome is different than the normal inheritance of genes from the parental organism(s). As such, it may exhibit different behavior in the organism than inhertited genes do. The normal mechanisms of natural selection and genetic drift may not apply anymore, or they may need to be modified in some way.
“Especially in bacterias LGT may fuzzify lineages based on diverse species concepts.”
It not only “fuzzifies” lineages but it completely obliterates them. There is no longer any “line of descent” for single-celled organisms since they can trace their genes from multiple sources.
“It was not long before the apparent “paradox” was resolved: most DNA in animal and plant genomes is not genes (it is “non-coding DNA”). This means that genome size need not be related to the number of protein-coding genes, and that there is no reason to expect more complex animals to have more DNA in their genomes.”
The only problem with Gregory’s analysis is this. From the biochemical perspective there is no such thing as non-coding DNA. It is the same molecule as coding DNA. If such “junk” DNA has the correct nucleotide sequence for the promoter then a RNA polymerase molecule can attach to it and start coding it. I’d like to hear Gregory’s explanation for how this “junk” DNA remains junk. I can’t see any biochemical mechanism for it.
“As it stands, the evidence suggests that about 5% of the human genome is functional at the organism level. The total may be higher — as noted, Comings suggested 20% is actively utilized. It is conceivable that 50% or more of the genome is functional, perhaps in structural roles or some other higher-order capacity.”
O.K. So now he’s fudging his initial claim. He starts out saying only 5% of human DNA is functional, but by the end of the paragraph he’s up to 50%. That’s a factor of 10 change in a single paragraph – I’m impressed.
“It would require evidence to support this contention, however, and the question would remain as to why an onion requires 5x more of this structural or otherwise essential DNA, and why some of its close relatives can get by with half as much while others have twice the onion amount. There is nothing remarkable about onions in this sense, by the way — animal genome sizes alone cover a more than 7,000-fold range, and even among vertebrates there is a 350-fold difference. The range among single-celled protozoa is at least 30,000-fold, though even higher estimates have been presented.”
Of course, he doesn’t even attempt to answer the question on the variation among closely related species. His explanation is a non-explanation – he punts the problem and ignores the issue.
“The take home message is simply this. What we know about eukaryote genomes suggests that there are many mechanisms that can add non-coding DNA that do not require it to be functional. This does not in any way preclude the possibility of, or invalidate the search for, function in some, many, or possibly even most of those non-coding components. How much proves to be functional is an empirical question, and at present the indication seems to be that most non-genic DNA is non-functional. That said, non-functional is not the same as inconsequential.” [Note that Gregory mentions his famous “onion test” which all ideas about C-value and/or non-coding DNA must pass.] I believe both quotes answer your question about selection specifically.”
It confirms what I suspected from the beginning which is this, the explanation for the C-paradox according to evolutionary biologists is that it doesn’t apply since this is non-coding DNA even though we admit that we don’t know the percentage of non-coding DNA for sure, and there is no biochemical mechanism to keep it non-coding. So let’s ignore the problem as if it wasn’t there.
“May I note that it is funny that you reference 40 year old biological science instead of the latest that has superseded it.”
The Animal Genome Size database from which I am drawing my data was created in 2001. It is not 40 years old:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Animal_Genome_Size_Database
April 17th, 2009 at 12:05 pm
This guy has some good overviews. Look at the top of the page for a summary (note that only 54% is confirmed junk, the rest is unknown):
http://sandwalk.blogspot.com/2008/02/theme-genomes-junk-dna.html
Looks like it won’t accept the rest of the links I wanted to add. Search the above page for “junk in your genome” (no quotes) and read those articles, they contain the information on the specific types of junk DNA. The rest of the articles are commentary on papers and misconceptions about junk DNA
April 17th, 2009 at 12:06 pm
Tom Marking said,
I’ve been trying to stay out of y’all’s converstation, as it seems to me you’re both saying the same thing. However, and I’m certainly no expert, I have a couple of questions:
Why would we expect the rate of change of chromosomes be similar or constant accross multiple species? What is the rate of change of chromosomes of alligators or turtles over the past 10, 20 or 60 million years?
Please return to your normally scheduled debate.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:09 pm
What is this theory of creation? I mean scientific theory, not guess. I have asked many creationists for this but none have been able to provide it.
It is not hard to imagine. The difference is that when we test the mechanisms of evolution, they work. We can’t test creationism most of the time, and the tests we can do all fail miserably. That is what separates science from non-science. Both come up with knew ideas, but science tests those ideas against the real world. Creationism does not, in fact it tries very hard to avoid making anything statements that can be tested (although they do make mistakes occasionally, and those are quickly tested and shown to be wrong).
Once again making unfounded statements. What is this evidence you claim exists? What are these books? Why does your heart have anything to do with the evidence? Stating it exists does not help. I have seen the sort of evidence creationists find convincing and it is frankly garbage. You could easily change my mind if you have good evidence, but considering my history with creationism so far I am not about to take your word for it. I need to look at it myself and see if it really stands up to scrutiny. It never has in the past.
No, it is really not up for debate and there are mountains of evidence to support it (literally). I would be happy to provide it if you could provide some examples of the sort of evidence you would find convincing.
No, actually quit the opposite is usually true in science. If there are two competing ideas, one is usually flat-out wrong while the other is a fairly good approximation of the truth. Finding the truth to be somewhere in-between is rare indeed.
Evidence, please.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:30 pm
It doesn’t matter whether you are smart or stupid, all that matters is the evidence. Claiming that intelligence somehow makes someone right is the argument from false authority fallacy.
Yes, I do very much want to hear it. Please don’t pretend to be able to read my mind.
If you tell me what sort of evidence you would find convincing, I would happy to present it.
How, then, can we tell the difference between the soul and a hallucination? I can’t get my gray matter around an LSD trip, either, since I have never had one.
I am willing to agree to disagree if someone can show me their position has any merit. So far you have not done so, in fact you have explicitly refused to do so. In the absence of evidence that your side has merit, and because of the substantial evidence I have seen that your side lacks any merit whatsoever, I am not going to agree to anything.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:45 pm
@TheBlackCat “Second, the whole point is that the fossil record and molecular relationships agree to an extremely high degree of accuracy.”
It was my understanding that fossil evidence was not used to construct the phylogenetic tree, that the comparison was between molecular evidence and morphological traits of living species. My point is that you can use fossil evidence to rule out many possible phylogenetic trees. In any case, there is nothing in that model with 38 decimal digits of precision. Rather, the tree has 1.0E38 different possible structures and therefore the probability that two processes would randomly come up with the same tree is 1.0E-38. That is not the same thing as measuring the precision of some physical constant, say the speed of light, to 38 decimal digits. So comparing it to such measurements as the web page attempts to do (gravitational constant if I remember correctly) is bogus.
“You said that it wasn’t there, but it was. You could have said they you couldn’t find it, instead you said it didn’t exist.”
I believe the term I used was “not specified” and it wasn’t on the page in question. It was on a link. Do you really want to quibble over stuff like this?
“First, I disagree. It may give you that impression, but can you provide any evidence that it gives others that impression? Second, the argument you work making was that it was wrong, not that it gave people the wrong impression.”
It is wrong. There is no 38 decimal digit precision. It is, rather, a probability of 1.0E-38. Those two concepts are different. Furthermore, there is still not any evidence that the phylogenetic tree is correct, just that two different methodologies yielded the same tree.
“Of course not, there is no where near enough data to do that. If you want to look at living apes, then the phylogenetic tree is extremely robust. But primates are one of the largest groups of mammals on the planet with hundreds of species.”
First you claim that phylogeny of living species is easy but phylogeny of extinct species is difficult. Now, you appear to be saying that phylogeny of entire families is difficult, but only the phylogeny of these 30 widely separated taxa is easy. So that tends to confirm what I’ve been saying all along, which is that phylogeny in general is a difficult problem.
“Sure you can. Just measure the rate at which certain changes occur. If it happens too fast or too slow, don’t use it.”
And just how do you know how fast the Cytochrome C protein has been changing over the last million years? Do you have any fossilized Cytochrome C from 1,000,000 BCE? Somehow I doubt it. Obviously this was not the criterion for selecting Cytochrome C as the marker to use.
“You really think that viruses are the only ways for genomes to increase in size? Gene (and junk DNA) duplication, even whole chromosome duplication, is fairly common. It looks like the entire genome of the ancestor of all fish (including us) was duplicated not once but twice.”
Well, we know for a fact that this was not how HERV came to be in the human genome. Why? Because it contains characteristic DNA sequences only found in retroviruses. So it came into the human genome via a retrovirus which infected an ancient human at some point in the past.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:55 pm
@Greg in Austin “Why would we expect the rate of change of chromosomes be similar or constant accross multiple species? What is the rate of change of chromosomes of alligators or turtles over the past 10, 20 or 60 million years? Please return to your normally scheduled debate.”
Greg, maybe you don’t know or haven’t heard, but there has been an attempt by evolutionary biologists and biochemists to define something called a molecular clock:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Molecular_clock
The basic concept is that by looking at the divergence of DNA (or its end products – blood proteins for example) among species, you can compute the time when the species diverged. From my memory this concept was first used by Vincent Sarich back in the 1970’s to time the human/chimpanzee split to ~7 million years ago. It has also been recently used by the Mitochondrial Eve folks to date Eve.
I’m not sure what standing this theory has with a majority of evolutionists, but some of the animal genome size data casts doubt on it.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:13 pm
This tree, yes. But it has been used to make other trees and the agreements are also very high.
Yes, you can use experiments to rule out possible results for other experiments. This is not unique to phylogenetic trees, thus it is irrelevant. You can use existing experiments of the gravitation constant to rule out certain values of the gravitation constant for later experiments, for instance.
Yes, it is the same thing. If we measure, say, the gravitational constant to 38 decimal places then we are saying that out of 10^38 possible values of the gravitational constant, this one is the closest. It is exactly the same thing.
For one thing you can compare the change in cytochrome C for a pair of populations that diverged at a known date, for instance from the loss of a land bridge of the growth of a mountain range.
The same is true for a lot of the junk DNA. We know what it is and where it came from. But we also know it tends to duplicate itself in a rapid and unpredictable manner.
April 17th, 2009 at 1:21 pm
http://www.boston.com/news/globe/health_science/articles/2007/09/24/dna_unraveled/?page=1
DNA unraveled
A ’scientific revolution’ is taking place, as researchers explore the genomic jungle
By Colin Nickerson, Globe Staff | September 24, 2007
The science of life is undergoing changes so jolting that even its top researchers are feeling something akin to shell-shock. Just four years after scientists finished mapping the human genome – the full sequence of 3 billion DNA “letters” folded within every cell – they find themselves confronted by a biological jungle deeper, denser, and more difficult to penetrate than anyone imagined.
“Science is just starting to probe the wilderness between genes,” said John M. Greally, molecular biologist at New York’s Albert Einstein School of Medicine. “Already we’re surprised and confounded by a lot of what we’re seeing.”
A slew of recent but unrelated studies of everything from human disease to the workings of yeast suggest that mysterious swaths of molecules – long dismissed as “junk DNA” – may be more important to health and evolution than genes themselves.
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The discoveries have one common theme: Cellular processes long assumed to be “genetic” appear quite often to be the result of highly complex interactions occurring in regions of DNA void of genes. This is roughly akin to Wall Street waking to the realization that money doesn’t make the world go ’round, after all.
“It’s a radical concept, one that a lot of scientists aren’t very happy with,” said Francis S. Collins, director of the National Human Genome Research Institute. “But the scientific community is going to have to rethink what genes are, what they do and don’t do, and how the genome’s functional elements have evolved.
“I think we’re all pretty awed by what we’re seeing,” Collins said. “It amounts to a scientific revolution.”
For half a century, the core concept in biology has been that every cell carries within its nucleus a full set of DNA, including genes. Each gene, in turn, holds coded instructions for assembling a particular protein, the stuff that keeps organisms chugging along.
As a result, genes were assigned an almost divine role in biological “dogma,” thought to govern not only such physical characteristics as eye color or hair texture, but even much more complicated characteristics, such as behavior or psychology. Genes were assigned blame for illness. Genes were credited for robust health. Genes were said to be the source of the mutations that underlay evolution.
But the picture now emerging is more complicated, one in which illness, health, and evolutionary change appear to be the work of almost fantastical coordination between genes and swaths of DNA previously written off as junk.
The idea that genes possess a singular supremacy took a knock when the human genome was fully sequenced in 2003, revealing that only about 1.5 percent of our DNA consists of actual genes coding for protein.
Another 3.5 percent of DNA is of gene-linked regulatory material whose function isn’t well grasped, but which is recognized as vital because it has been precisely duplicated in living things for hundreds of millions of years. “That’s smoking gun evidence that nature cares about this stuff,” said Eric S. Lander, director of the Broad Institute, a research center affiliated with MIT and Harvard that focuses on applying genomics to medicine.
As for the remaining 95 percent of the genome? “There’s this weird lunar landscape of stuff we don’t understand,” Lander said. “No one has a handle on what matters and what doesn’t.”
Until recently, the rest of the genome – the murky regions between individual genes – was viewed as occupied by more or less useless glop. Noncoding DNA is the polite term for junk DNA.
But the glop is starting to look like gold. And genes, in a sense, are losing some of their glitter.
“To our shock and consternation, we’re learning how little we know about the parts of the genome that may matter most,” said Dr. David M. Altshuler, associate professor of genetics and medicine at Harvard Medical School and also a top researcher at the Broad Institute.
“Maybe some of it really is junk. Maybe most of it is junk,” he said. “But one shouldn’t bet against nature. Maybe it all serves some sort of a purpose. We really don’t know.”
This is how science goes forward, of course. Not in a smooth march to the future, but with stumbles, back-steps, and wrong turns. Think of soldiers scrabbling on a battlefield, not gleaming ranks in parade. Scientists, like combat infantry, operate in a fog of confusion and hunch.
Altshuler led a team that earlier this year discovered that a common form of diabetes is triggered by changes occurring in sections of DNA hitherto regarded as junk – that is, occupying space on the genome but regarded as having no particular function.
Neither Altshuler nor his co-researchers fully understand the mechanisms involved, but their work revealed that risks for Type 2 diabetes entail more than a mutated gene. Instead, diabetes – as well as heart disease, some cancers, and other deadly ailments – appear to involve processes occurring in noncoding DNA regions as well as in genes.
Such findings represent a sea change for a science that has typically put genes at the center of the universe, much as ancient astronomers believed sun and stars revolved around the earth.
“We’re realizing that things happening ’somewhere else’ in the genome, not in genes, are playing critical roles” in sickness and in health, Altshuler said.
Although biological dogma has held that organisms – whether human or hydrangea – are largely controlled by a tidy collection of independent genes, scientists were aware of other factors. A curious chemical called RNA has been under scrutiny, but usually only as a bit player, a carrier of messages.
These days, RNA is emerging as a superstar, a prime mover and shaker in cellular processes hitherto attributed mainly to genes. Indeed, major research suggests that a primary purpose of junk DNA might be to create various forms of RNA that, in turn act as regulators for protein-coding genes.
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In June, a consortium of 80 research institutions in North America, Asia, Europe, and Australia completed the first comprehensive effort to plumb all the inner workings of the DNA molecule, not just the genetic portions.
The Encode study shattered the view that genes carry out their labor in relative isolation.
Instead, genes appear to overlap each other and share stretches of molecular code. Moreover, genes and nongenetic DNA appear to work in close, if mysterious, conjunction and also seem to communicate across relatively vast genomic distances in ways not understood.
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April 17th, 2009 at 1:42 pm
Phil,
Look what you started!! HAHAHAH!
I believe that evolution is a tool for creation. That that for what it’s worth.
As far as all this talk of evolution vs creationism, I said take the high road. What I mean by that is use science as a tool to educate the ignorant whomever they may be. If they refuse to see the facts then you cannot convince them by using logical construct. I think that if you ‘fight’ against this mentality you stand to further polarize the gap between evolution vs creationism instead of education which is really what science should be about!
Stick to the facts and those that refuse to believe should be called out as such and not made into a war of words. Science should be proof-filled not argumentative.
Mike
April 17th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2005/10/051020090946.htm
UCSD Study Shows ‘Junk’ DNA Has Evolutionary Importance
ScienceDaily (Oct. 20, 2005) — Genetic material derisively called “junk” DNA because it does not contain the instructions for protein-coding genes and appears to have little or no function is actually critically important to an organism’s evolutionary survival, according to a study conducted by a biologist at UCSD.
In the October 20 issue of Nature, Peter Andolfatto, an assistant professor of biology at UCSD, shows that these non-coding regions play an important role in maintaining an organism’s genetic integrity. In his study of the genes from the fruit fly Drosophila melanogaster, he discovered that these regions are strongly affected by natural selection, the evolutionary process that preferentially leads to the survival of organisms and genes best adapted to the environment.
Andolfatto’s findings are important because the similarity of genome sequences in fruit flies, worms and humans suggest that similar processes are probably responsible for the differences between humans and their close evolutionary relatives.
“Sequencing of the complete genome in humans, fruit flies, nematodes and plants has revealed that the number of protein-coding genes is much more similar among these species than expected,” he says. “Curiously, the largest differences between major species groups appear to be the amount of ‘junk’ DNA rather than the number of genes.”
Using a recently developed population genetic approach, Andolfatto showed in his study that these expansive regions of “junk” DNA—which in Drosophila accounts for about 80 percent of the fly’s total genome—are evolving more slowly than expected due to natural selection pressures on the non-protein-coding DNA to remain the same over time.
“This pattern most likely reflects resistance to the incorporation of new mutations,” he says. “In fact, 40 to 70 percent of new mutations that arise in non-coding DNA fail to be incorporated by this species, which suggests that these non-protein-coding regions are not ‘junk,’ but are somehow functionally important to the organism.”
Andolfatto also found that “junk” regions exhibit an unusually large amount of functional genetic divergence between different species of Drosophila, further evidence that these regions are evolutionarily important to organisms. This implies that, like evolutionary changes to proteins, changes to these “junk” parts of the genome also play an important role in the evolution of new species.
“Protein evolution has traditionally been emphasized as a key facet of genome evolution and the evolution of new species,” says Andolfatto. “The degree of protein sequence similarity between humans and chimpanzees, and other closely-related but morphologically distinct taxa, has prompted several researchers to speculate that most adaptive differences between taxa are due to changes in gene regulation and not protein evolution. My results lend support to this view by demonstrating that regulatory changes have been of great importance in the evolution of new Drosophila species.”
April 17th, 2009 at 1:49 pm
Todd – only reason I brought it up was because someone stated I should google THEM, as if they would prove who is the wiser by comparing what achievements we have made. I was only joking. One reason I don’t like blogs is because you can’t hear tone etc. If you could see me and hear me you would know I am not a crank(y) or whining at all. I do not like the potshots, but I don’t take it personally. A lot of this comes down to personality. Oh I can hear it now “how do you define personality” LOL. This is the sticking point – I have no need to know ANYTHING regarding this subject with certainty. I know, its hard for those who don’t have faith to grasp it, and it is therefore pointless to argue. I understand a lot about evolution theory, but would never profess to be an expert or scholar in it. I read anything that comes across my desk on this subject, but honestly don’t seek it out. If you sincerely want to know how a person could in their right mind, not on LSD, might find ID or creation possible and be optimistic about the existence of a decent God, check out James Kennedy, Lee Strobel, or Ken Ham. Actually, these guys are quite a bit more fundamental than me and of course you can find problems. There is enough of that to go around. But it might give you some idea if you have any concept whatsoever. Therein lies my doubt of ever making a settlement. There can be room for gray vs. black and white. The kind of disrespect mentioned above about going to hell for different beliefs and intolerance is not what I am all about, so please don’t judge me. I have only, for the first time ever (not trolling looking for argument) signed onto a blog like this to bring some fair-minded perspective, but with the exception of a few found it to be quite a hostile environment.Even amongst yourselves.
Greg – I didn’t ignore anything about the dang appendix. Once again we can both be right.But of course! You assume only you are. I asked my doctor to take mine out when I was going to be under anesthesia for a different surgery (he actually saw it and took pictures, but he refused to take it out). Anesthesia is far and away the biggest surgery risk. If that thing could later kill me he would have taken it if he was sure it had no benefit. Difficult concept, to be sure – ha -two people having differing but both valid points. ..but what is opinion, how can it be quantified…
April 17th, 2009 at 2:15 pm
@Moderate
Yet again, you fail to answer my question. You stated, in your first post, that “There is plenty of evidence on the other side”. What is this evidence? I’m asking for you to say what you have found as evidence so that I can understand what you are talking about. I could go out and search on my own, but I would have no clue what information out there was actually something that you have found and upon which you base your claim.
Regarding your comments achievements, you did that in more than one post, and I was not referring to your comment about people googling you. Speaking of which, you are the only one that suggested googling the poster. Perhaps you misunderstood Greg’s post, in which he suggested clicking on his name for a link to info about what “theory” means in science or using Google or Wikipedia to find out information about what a scientific theory is.
At any rate, I will ask, yet again, what is the evidence for the other side? Oh, and another question, since I went back and reread your original post; what exactly is the “theory” of creation, since you say there’s room for it? I expect you will dodge my questions again, since you already dodged my request for evidence three times.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:17 pm
@ Tom Marking:
Sorry for the delay, I seem to have the same problem with evolution denialists as you have with gravitation denialists.
As far as I can see you raise two arguments, roughly that you don’t believe in trees, and that the low certainty (high uncertainty) in any one, never mind several competing, methods destroys the precision.
I don’t think any of those are relevant for the precision.
As regards the uncertainty or the specific traits used, that is already dealt with by way of admitting a subset.
Another problem altogether is the loss of resolution that occurs when you look over deep time or divergencies. (Loss of record specifically when you look at fossil species. Effects such as “long baseline attraction” for genes.) The phylogenies TalkOrigins discusses can be taken as based on sufficient resolution of discernible traits, not resolution problems with fossil variation. I.e. stuff like the origin of tetrapod limbs that places tetrapods as a specific clade, not whether what traits places specimens as homo or autralopithecine.
The fact of the matter is that phylogenies for extant species are rather robust.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:22 pm
@TheBlackCat “How, then, can we tell the difference between the soul and a hallucination? I can’t get my gray matter around an LSD trip, either, since I have never had one.”
Sure, we believe you.
“Yes, it is the same thing. If we measure, say, the gravitational constant to 38 decimal places then we are saying that out of 10^38 possible values of the gravitational constant, this one is the closest. It is exactly the same thing.”
It is not the same thing. The gravitational constant is a number. Your phylogenetic tree is not a number, but rather a tree structure. Thus, if I tell you that I have measured the speed of light to be 3.00E8 +/- 1.00E6 meters per second you know exactly what the range is, namely, 2.99E8 to 3.01E8. If you tell me your phylogenetic tree of 30 taxa has been measured to within 1 part in 1 million I have no idea what that means. What is the low measurement tree? What is the high measurement tree? These concepts are meaningless since your tree is NOT a real number. Your 1.0E-38 probability is not the same as precision in a physical measurement.
“For one thing you can compare the change in cytochrome C for a pair of populations that diverged at a known date, for instance from the loss of a land bridge of the growth of a mountain range.”
Yes, but you have no idea of what cytochrome C was like in the ancestral population, only in the descendant populations. I believe your criterion was change over time. Looking at descendant populations will not tell you that.
“The same is true for a lot of the junk DNA. We know what it is and where it came from. But we also know it tends to duplicate itself in a rapid and unpredictable manner.”
See my recent posts. There is a lot of recent research which says that “junk DNA” isn’t junk after all.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:36 pm
@ Tom Marking:
Yes, that is the point exactly. In theory you would have all possible trees to work with. But you have not, because they are nested by way of evolution of traits over time. No process, no time or no traits = no nesting.
It’s not a meme but a verifiable claim. On the other hand, no one claims that knowing electron mass with high precision “gives that impression, that everything is known [...] and no more work needs to be done.”
Personally I think it gives people an idea that they haven’t had before, that biology can be quantifiable and precise.
For answers to the rest of that comment concerning the tree up to “… Natural selection is not the only thing driving evolution.”, see my previous comments.
April 17th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
Okay, this will be my last comment on this thread for a while, since there are other threads in this world. I hope to come back to the remainder.
@ Tom Marking:
Again with the obsession about natural selection?
I was referring to it as a prediction of evolution, common descent, and apparently you agree. Obviously Lamarckian evolution or any modification of the current genetic/epigenetic theory will give nestings too.
It is also a falsifiable prediction (which precludes such fantasies that ID “predicts” it: famously ID predicts everything so it predicts nothing, i.e nothing falsifiable).
April 17th, 2009 at 2:55 pm
No, it is a physical property that we have assigned a number to. The number is based on a completely arbitrary collection of units defined by people.
It doesn’t matter. Whether it is a number or not, it is still one outcome out of many possible outcomes. That is what matters for measuring the determining the precision of something.
Did you read the source I provided? There is a difference between “DNA with an unknown function” and “junk DNA”.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:08 pm
@Torbjorn Larssen “I seem to have the same problem with evolution denialists as you have with gravitation denialists.”
Yes, but the analogy between myself and Anaconda doesn’t hold since I am not an evolution denialist (although I think denier is probably the more appropriate term). I would term myself a “natural selection questioner/doubter”.
“As far as I can see you raise two arguments, roughly that you don’t believe in trees”
Apparently you are having some reading comprehension difficulties. Would someone who didn’t believe in phylogenetic trees construct one of their own? If you recall, based on C-values I derive the following tree:
Humans (3.50) are most closely related to Gibbons (3.48). They perhaps diverged ~5 million years ago. Chimpanzees (3.76) and Orangutans (3.60) having 8 times the difference in C-value as Humans/Gibbons must have diverged ~40 million years ago. And then, Gorillas (4.16) having the most DNA and therefore being the most intelligent of the lot, differ from the assumed Chimp/Orang ancestor (3.68) by 0.48 so they must have diverged from the Chimp/Orang ancestor ~120 million years ago. Oh, what’s that you say? You object to my tree? Why, I did it twice, once blind-folded and got the same tree. It must be correct.
“and that the low certainty (high uncertainty) in any one, never mind several competing, methods destroys the precision”
No, I am saying that your alleged 38 digit precision is NOT a precision, it is a probability.
“As regards the uncertainty or the specific traits used, that is already dealt with by way of admitting a subset.”
Huh, we deal with using Cytochrome C (1.0E-8 of the full genome) as a marker by admitting a subset? Who admitted this subset? I want their name and license plate so I can report them.
“The fact of the matter is that phylogenies for extant species are rather robust.”
I sure wish you and TheBlackCat would agree on that one. According to him, even doing a full primate phylogeny is just too dang hard. Also, before I forget, what are your comments on the recent research by the ENCODE project and UCSD which refute Gregory’s analysis concerning “junk” DNA?
April 17th, 2009 at 3:23 pm
@TheBlackCat “It doesn’t matter. Whether it is a number or not, it is still one outcome out of many possible outcomes. That is what matters for measuring the determining the precision of something.”
In that case you will have no problem at all in showing me the error bars in your tree.
“Did you read the source I provided? There is a difference between “DNA with an unknown function” and “junk DNA”.”
Yes I read it. Interestingly enough the term “DNA of unknown function” doesn’t appear in it. Only the adjective “junk” appears, so I don’t know what they are claiming is the DNA of unknown function. It turns out that DNA segments which previously were declared to be junk have been found to have important biological functionality.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:29 pm
Moderate:
>>>”I understand a lot about evolution theory, but would never profess to be an expert or scholar in it. I read anything that comes across my desk on this subject, but honestly don’t seek it out. If you sincerely want to know how a person could in their right mind, not on LSD, might find ID or creation possible and be optimistic about the existence of a decent God, check out James Kennedy, Lee Strobel, or Ken Ham.”
BWAAAAAA HAAAAA HAAAA HAAAAAAAAAA!!!
Oh, sorry!
And Moderate (and all other people who think we are being “mean” to people of faith) please please please stop complaining about this. Religion itself is not being attacked with this evolution/creationism “controversy. On the contrary, it is science which is being attacked. ID/Creationism is NOT scientific, which is why it’s not taken seriously. The creationists then start complaining (crying) that they’re not being taken seriously. And so what do we do? We ASK them to tell us what EVIDENCE they have. We PLEAD with them to point us to the SCIENCE that backs up their position. And what happens?
They avoid it. As noted right here by one request and Todd W’s three to Moderate to TELL US what EVIDENCE the “other side” is supposed to have. Then comes the inevitable creationist evasion, the mocking of the absurdity of the creationist position, then the lulz. Then the creationists cry.
Again, I’d like to remind everyone that there are scientists who are religious and who STILL ACCEPT evolution, for example Francis Collins. Creationism may be mocked here, but not religion. So if I hear one more fundie cry about not having their (theological, not scientific) objections to evolution laughed at, I will kill a kitten. A REALLY cute one.
April 17th, 2009 at 3:40 pm
@ Tom Marking:
Interview with Michael J. Behe:
“ML: In The Edge, you make a defense for common descent (p.182) and later attribute it to a non-random process (p. 72). Considering the convergent evolution of the digestive enzyme of lemurs and cows, hemoglobin of human and mice, and in your own work resistance mutations that also arise independently (p77), why such a commitment to common descent? Isn’t genetic convergent evolution or even common design (considering your view of mutations) good alternative explanations to common descent?
MJB: I don’t think so. Although those other explanations may be true, I think that common descent, guided by an intelligent agent, is sufficient to explain the data. It has the great advantage of being easily compatible with apparent genetic “mistakes” shared by organisms, such as the pseudo-hemoglobin genes I wrote of in The Edge of Evolution.”
Darth Robo’s translation: “The evidence points to evolution – and GODDIDIT!”
Well, gee, thanks Tom. Good way of showing that there is no way to falsify ID since God can do anything, right? I was already aware that Behe accepts common descent. I asked for predictions made by ID, NOT looking at the evidence AFTER the fact and saying “Well God could have done it that way too!”
But we STILL don’t know HOW to falsify ID, HOW it can be tested, WHAT useful scientific predictions it can make, WHAT it did (the mechanism), WHEN it didit, HOW “design” can be measured/quantified, WHO the “Intelligent Designer” is and HOW can we tell?
So. Your “career” on this blog as an apologist is going well…
April 17th, 2009 at 3:58 pm
@Darth Robo “But we STILL don’t know HOW to falsify ID, HOW it can be tested, WHAT useful scientific predictions it can make, WHAT it did (the mechanism), WHEN it didit, HOW “design” can be measured/quantified, WHO the “Intelligent Designer” is and HOW can we tell?”
You asked for evidence that ID supports common descent. I provided such evidence. What are you bitching about?
“So. Your “career” on this blog as an apologist is going well…”
Apologist for ID? I don’t think so. I view ID as a scam foisted on us by fundamentalist Christians.
April 17th, 2009 at 4:56 pm
Moderate said,
Or, once again, you can be completely wrong. You said the appendix had no known purpose, which is incorrect. You also said doctors do not remove the appendix electively, which is also incorrect. If you said that YOUR doctor did not know what it did, or the YOUR doctor would not remove it, then that is different.
It is interesting that you keep dodging the questions presented to you. If you don’t know, then just say you don’t know.
What is your definition of “Creation Theory?”
What is your definition of “Evolutionary Theory?”
What evidence have you seen that I can test that would encourage me accept creationism?
What is an example of a “supernatural phenomenon” that I can test that would encourage me to accept the supernatural?
April 17th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
@DarthRobo:
So if I hear one more fundie cry about not having their (theological, not scientific) objections to evolution laughed at, I will kill a kitten. A REALLY cute one.
If it’s an ID kitten, would it come back to life in three days?
J/P=?
April 17th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
Tom
>>>”You asked for evidence that ID supports common descent. I provided such evidence. What are you bitching about?”
Did you ‘eck! You showed one IDer who accepts common descent. Big difference.
>>>”Apologist for ID? I don’t think so. I view ID as a scam foisted on us by fundamentalist Christians.”
Oh. So ID is crap then? Thought so.
(shrug)
April 17th, 2009 at 7:22 pm
John Paradox:
>>>”If it’s an ID kitten, would it come back to life in three days?”
Only if you have faith.
Of course, another possible explanation could be that someone stole the body.
April 17th, 2009 at 7:58 pm
This tree has no error bars because the match is perfect. Other trees do not match completely, so they have error bars in terms of the number of branches with disagreements per the total number of branches. It is not my area of expertise but I did some reading on it in the library a few years ago, it is all very interesting.
Did you actually read the breakdown in the percentages of DNA at the very beginning of the page? Here are the final numbers again:
Total Essential (so far) 4.5%
Total Junk (so far) 54%
Notice that the percentages only add 58.5%. That is because we only know what 58.5% of the DNA is. The rest is unknown, may have a function, may be junk.
Such as? And don’t talk about DNA that was simply unknown and then was later found to have a function. As I keep saying, and as the link points out, that is not what junk DNA is. Junk DNA is DNA that is known not to have a function.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:06 pm
It is a shame that @Moderate won’t answer the most direct question:
“There is proof on both sides” – what is that proof?
April 17th, 2009 at 8:11 pm
@TheBlackCat “This tree has no error bars because the match is perfect.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maximum_parsimony
“Parsimony analysis often returns a number of equally most-parsimonious trees (MPTs). A large number of MPTs is often seen as an analytical failure, and is widely believed to be related to the number of missing entries (”?”) in the dataset, characters showing too much homoplasy, or the presence of topologically labile “wildcard” taxa (which may have many missing entries).
.
.
.
Maximum parsimony is a very simple approach, and is popular for this reason. However, it is not statistically consistent. That is, it is not guaranteed to produce the true tree with high probability, given sufficient data. Consistency, here meaning the monotonic convergence on the correct answer with the addition of more data, is a desirable property of any statistical method. As demonstrated in 1978 by Joe Felsenstein, maximum parsimony can be inconsistent under certain conditions. The category of situations in which this is known to occur is called long branch attraction, and occurs, for example, where you have long branches (a high level of substitutions) for two characters (A & C), but short branches for another two (B & D).”
I’d have to know what statistical technique was used in order to evaluate your claim. But if it was the standard parsimony analysis commonly used to develop phylogenetic trees it has a number of well-known problems.
“Such as? And don’t talk about DNA that was simply unknown and then was later found to have a function. As I keep saying, and as the link points out, that is not what junk DNA is. Junk DNA is DNA that is known not to have a function.”
You need to read the articles I provided for details on that.
April 17th, 2009 at 8:34 pm
http://www.princeton.edu/main/news/archive/S22/60/95O56/index.xml?section=topstories
Evolution’s new wrinkle: Proteins with cruise control provide new perspective
Posted November 10, 2008; 10:00 a.m.
A team of Princeton University scientists has discovered that chains of proteins found in most living organisms act like adaptive machines, possessing the ability to control their own evolution.
The research, which appears to offer evidence of a hidden mechanism guiding the way biological organisms respond to the forces of natural selection, provides a new perspective on evolution, the scientists said.
The researchers — Raj Chakrabarti, Herschel Rabitz, Stacey Springs and George McLendon — made the discovery while carrying out experiments on proteins constituting the electron transport chain (ETC), a biochemical network essential for metabolism. A mathematical analysis of the experiments showed that the proteins themselves acted to correct any imbalance imposed on them through artificial mutations and restored the chain to working order.
“The discovery answers an age-old question that has puzzled biologists since the time of Darwin: How can organisms be so exquisitely complex, if evolution is completely random, operating like a ‘blind watchmaker’?” said Chakrabarti, an associate research scholar in the Department of Chemistry at Princeton. “Our new theory extends Darwin’s model, demonstrating how organisms can subtly direct aspects of their own evolution to create order out of randomness.”
The work also confirms an idea first floated in an 1858 essay by Alfred Wallace, who along with Charles Darwin co-discovered the theory of evolution. Wallace had suspected that certain systems undergoing natural selection can adjust their evolutionary course in a manner “exactly like that of the centrifugal governor of the steam engine, which checks and corrects any irregularities almost before they become evident.” In Wallace’s time, the steam engine operating with a centrifugal governor was one of the only examples of what is now referred to as feedback control. Examples abound, however, in modern technology, including cruise control in autos and thermostats in homes and offices.
The research, published in a recent edition of Physical Review Letters, provides corroborating data, Rabitz said, for Wallace’s idea. “What we have found is that certain kinds of biological structures exist that are able to steer the process of evolution toward improved fitness,” said Rabitz, the Charles Phelps Smyth ‘16 Professor of Chemistry. “The data just jumps off the page and implies we all have this wonderful piece of machinery inside that’s responding optimally to evolutionary pressure.”
The authors sought to identify the underlying cause for this self-correcting behavior in the observed protein chains. Standard evolutionary theory offered no clues. Applying the concepts of control theory, a body of knowledge that deals with the behavior of dynamical systems, the researchers concluded that this self-correcting behavior could only be possible if, during the early stages of evolution, the proteins had developed a self-regulating mechanism, analogous to a car’s cruise control or a home’s thermostat, allowing them to fine-tune and control their subsequent evolution. The scientists are working on formulating a new general theory based on this finding they are calling “evolutionary control.”
The work is likely to provoke a considerable amount of thinking, according to Charles Smith, a historian of science at Western Kentucky University. “Systems thinking in evolutionary studies perhaps began with Alfred Wallace’s likening of the action of natural selection to the governor on a steam engine — that is, as a mechanism for removing the unfit and thereby keeping populations ‘up to snuff’ as environmental actors,” Smith said. “Wallace never really came to grips with the positive feedback part of the cycle, however, and it is instructive that through optimal control theory Chakrabarti et al. can now suggest a coupling of causalities at the molecular level that extends Wallace’s systems-oriented approach to this arena.”
Evolution, the central theory of modern biology, is regarded as a gradual change in the genetic makeup of a population over time. It is a continuing process of change, forced by what Wallace and Darwin, his more famous colleague, called “natural selection.” In this process, species evolve because of random mutations and selection by environmental stresses. Unlike Darwin, Wallace conjectured that species themselves may develop the capacity to respond optimally to evolutionary stresses. Until this work, evidence for the conjecture was lacking.
The experiments, conducted in Princeton’s Frick Laboratory, focused on a complex of proteins located in the mitochondria, the powerhouses of the cell. A chain of proteins, forming a type of bucket brigade, ferries high-energy electrons across the mitrochondrial membrane. This metabolic process creates ATP, the energy currency of life.
Various researchers working over the past decade, including some at Princeton like George McClendon, now at Duke University, and Stacey Springs, now at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, fleshed out the workings of these proteins, finding that they were often turned on to the “maximum” position, operating at full tilt, or at the lowest possible energy level.
Chakrabarti and Rabitz analyzed these observations of the proteins’ behavior from a mathematical standpoint, concluding that it would be statistically impossible for this self-correcting behavior to be random, and demonstrating that the observed result is precisely that predicted by the equations of control theory. By operating only at extremes, referred to in control theory as “bang-bang extremization,” the proteins were exhibiting behavior consistent with a system managing itself optimally under evolution.
“In this paper, we present what is ostensibly the first quantitative experimental evidence, since Wallace’s original proposal, that nature employs evolutionary control strategies to maximize the fitness of biological networks,” Chakrabarti said. “Control theory offers a direct explanation for an otherwise perplexing observation and indicates that evolution is operating according to principles that every engineer knows.”
The scientists do not know how the cellular machinery guiding this process may have originated, but they emphatically said it does not buttress the case for intelligent design, a controversial notion that posits the existence of a creator responsible for complexity in nature.
Chakrabarti said that one of the aims of modern evolutionary theory is to identify principles of self-organization that can accelerate the generation of complex biological structures. “Such principles are fully consistent with the principles of natural selection. Biological change is always driven by random mutation and selection, but at certain pivotal junctures in evolutionary history, such random processes can create structures capable of steering subsequent evolution toward greater sophistication and complexity.”
The researchers are continuing their analysis, looking for parallel situations in other biological systems.
The research was funded by the National Science Foundation.
April 17th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
@Tom Marking,
I have not heard of the Molecular Clock, but then again, evolutionary biology is not my specialty. However, I didn’t see in that link an answer to my question. Maybe I need to rephrase it…
What is the rate of change of chromosomes in reptiles, compared to monkeys and humans?
Why should the rate of change be constant across any particular species?
April 17th, 2009 at 10:46 pm
Don’t believe I said “proof”, Lawrence, “evidence” is much different. But who is splitting hairs anyway Mr. Marking? Mr. Marking splits hairs and changes meanings to get his really silly point across. I used myself as only one example. I’ve had many conversations with medical professionals about this and stated that. But you ignore. I haven’t done any archeaological digs myself or tested any DNA and I never claimed to be an expert and have been clear about my rather casual interest in this subject. But you persist in asking me to answer your heady questions. The reason I come back here is because your behaviors are becoming fascinating. Behavior…how do you define behavior. Quantify that. This coming from a “soft sciences” person. ROFLMYAO. This black and white perseverative thinking shares characteristics with a certain disorder. Supernatural experiences are actually fairly personal and not something I share except with the closest of friends where it feels safe. Certainly not here. Feels – what do you mean by that? Intimacy, what is that? I mentioned a couple things I have read (never claimed to do the actual work myself) that I find convincing enough, but again you ignore. One more time: http://www.reasons. org or Only a Theory by Ken Miller. Peace Out.
April 18th, 2009 at 1:24 am
@ Moderate :
(April 17th, 2009 at 9:42 am)
@mostly flying sardines, Todd W, and Jose’ … I am not assuming you don’t read conflicting sources but someone above did admit that they don’t.
So one person (& not me) perhaps says they don’t read creationist polemics and that suddenly makes all of us here close-minded?
Be honest, you just like to pick on someone who differs from you because I get so much from flying sardines! Brilliant!
Who me? Why thank you!
Seriously though : Huh?
I’m having trouble deciphering what on Earth you are trying to say there.
Someone was picking on those who think its the Christian God, too. When they find out their assumption is wrong, they pick on something else.
Sigh. “IntelligentDesign” is not about Christianity though is it? It just “Sigh-un-tiffically” postulates a designer. That “designer” could be Odin, could be Zeus, could be Ooga-Booga, could be Allah, could be etc .. With me so far? Am I wrong so far? No?
So why then are Behe, Ken Ham & most (all?) other major ID C-design proponents Christian – & not just Christian but fairly fundamentalist Christians. Who among the ID-ists claims the go-Designer is really Izanagi the Shinto goddess or Odin or the Great Cargo-Carrier of the Cargo Cult?
If the only people who propose ID are Christian (from one small branch of XNity too), if the ID doctrine was identified by a court as simply a renamed version of “Biblical Creationism” – a political movement designed to teach pseudo-scientific bible mythology in place of science in science classrooms – can you really NOT see why some might see what specific Religion is involved here & then call it out?
Incidentally, as noted by others its NOT “picking on Christianity” to mock the ID-Creationist movemnet which is actually more a political than either a scientific or a religious one. I’ve nothing against Christians or Xn-ity. I don’t want to – nor do I think I do – unfairly single out the religion.
However, what I *do* take issue with is the laughable idea that *any* religion be taught in scence class.
Just imagine rocking up to Church and getting a lecture on astronomy replacing the preists sermon. It wouldn’t be what you’d expect would it? It woulnd’t be the appropriate venue and wouldn’t be welcomed. That’s thesame deal here.
Science should be taught in science class.
Kids have science classes to learn about science – its not for teaching say english or french, gym or home economics, football or cheer-leading. Or religion too. There are other venues or classes for all those other subjects. If kids wnat to learn about religion and its ideas on how the world is (or was created) then there are approprate other places for that. Not science class.
What part of that do you (& the other creationists) just not get?
(& yes, moderate if you say “there’s evidnece for both sides” when ther’es actually only evidence for evolution & have you can’t mention what that creationist “evidence” is – that does make you a creationist.)
You might be surprised by my credentials, but it is not in my nature to share them. Whatever.
Well if you’re NOT willing to tell us your credentials how do you know we’llbe surprised by them?
Go on surprise us. Please do.
Please surprise us even more by providing the evidence or justlinks tothe evidence you claim exists in favoutr of creationism.
It is very difficult to convince someone who does not appear aware of their own soul that they exist. You win, wise guys. Black and white thinkers bore me to tears.
Hey if I don’t exist then whose asking? I know Iexist not that Ihave asouild becuaes I’m consciouss -toquote Rene Descartes “Ithink therefore Iam!”
Black & white thinkers bore you to tears? I find that hard to beleive. You’re weeping would never end. The world is full of such people.
I’m just not sure why you automatically conclude we’re in that “black & white thinkers’ category however?
Surely not just because we agree that evolution is as well established and scientifically axiomatic as gravity and creationism is bunk. That’d be like calling someone a black &white thinker merely because they say in maths 1+1 = 2!
PS. For pity’s sake moderate, have you not yet learnt how to create paragraphs? Here’s a hint. At the end of your sentence or a set of say, two or three sentences on the one premsie or point, press the ‘enter’ key.
If you want your posts to be easy to read – & I don’t see why you wouldn’t – then this does help. Its asmall thing iknow but fsetting out your argument to improve your communication is a good idea.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:00 am
Moderate said:
Yes, you seem to have gone to some considerable effort to make your own opinion about evolution as vague and difficult to parse out as you could. Maybe that’s why people are making assumptions?
Besides, given the whole history of the evolution-denial thing in the USA, it is actually a reasonable assumption that the “other side” to which you so blithely refer is that of the DI / YEC / whatever Christian fundy organisation. It’s certainly not far fetched.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:14 am
Moderate said (in response to Todd W.):
This is not presumption when the evidence is there in your comments.
Your background is obviously a non-academic one. Otherwise you would be able to recognise the value or otherwise of the creationist pamphlets in which you seem to put so much trust.
But these differences are not analogous, so what are you trying to say here?
The attitude you mention has been explained. Or did you fail reading comprehension too? And if you are not interested in argument, why do you insist that we allow validity to arguments that were first refuted more than 40 years ago?
Au contraire, it is you whose comments are provocative.
As far as evolution is concerned, there is no “other side”, despite your insistence to the contrary. All possible “other” sides have been examined and found wanting, mostly in the 19th century. Modern evolutionary theory is a satisfactory and thoroughly supported explanation of how and why the biological world is the way we observe it to be.
And if I say there is no soul and no spirit in humanity, to what evidence can you direct me to show me wrong?
I’m prepared to wager there is none.
Since soul and spirit cannot be proven or disproven by reference to anything objective, these are not part of science. Therefore, whether they exist or not is irrelevant, since they cannot be investigated. However, the principle of parsimony suggests that it is irrational to assume they exist when we have no evidence to indicate their existence.
So, you freely admit that your comments are ilogical and / or unsupportable?
So, if you knew that your statement was so weak and impossible to defend, why did you make it?
Here you illustrate your misunderstanding of evolution.
The human appendix will only be selected out if it is advantageous to not have one. It may gradually disappear through random genetic drift, but this will take longer than a few thousand years (which would be a mere 80 – 400 generations).
April 18th, 2009 at 2:29 am
Tom Marking said:
Actually, yes it is, because common descent is a prediction of speciation by natural selection – although whether the original forms were few or many is, in principle, open.
But Lamarckian evolution was discredited before TOOS was first published. It really does not count. The options at the time were evolution by descent with modification (which predicts common ancestry) and special creation (which implies the opposite).
The only ID advocate who accepts common descent is Mike Behe – all the others deny it (on those rare occasions when they can be pinned down to express an opinion).
Besides, ID is not an actual thoery, unless you count “Someone, somewhere, designed some stuff in biology, at some time. Somehow.”
April 18th, 2009 at 2:30 am
Curses, I fluffed up a close-blockquote tag!
April 18th, 2009 at 4:17 am
Nigel Depledge Says:
Moderate said:
Ah hem, I never said this was necessarily the work of the Christian God. Another ASSUMPTION made by a couple of you. I see both sides being quick to make far-fetched assumptions. That’s all folks.
–
Yes, you seem to have gone to some considerable effort to make your own opinion about evolution as vague and difficult to parse out as you could. Maybe that’s why people are making assumptions?
Doesn’t that make this a ‘god of the gaps’ argument?
J/P=?
April 18th, 2009 at 4:47 am
@modertate
Once again, you use semantics to avoid answering the question. You say you’ve seen “evidence” on both sides. What scientific evidence have you seen that supports “ID”?
How many times has that evidence been tested or weighed against the evolutionary data? Peer-reviewed? Published in accredited scientific journals?
If it is your own belief that some divine creator is responsible for the genetic diversity on this planet, that’s fine. No one is going to criticize your personal beliefs.
But, on the other hand, if you propose this hypothesis without any evidence, data, or suppor to back it up – we will question you. That’s the scientific method – look at issues from all angles, build support and reproduceable results, then question it again.
Science is not close-minded – ideas, theories and such change on a fairly regular basis, because new data is always available. In this case, since the presentation of first theories of evolution, the evidence has continued to stack up in its favor – from genetic data to fossil records, to even modern-day observations of isolation populations evolving or having recently evolved with new traits.
Step away from semantics & present some evidence to support your hypothesis & we’ll consider it. Not close-minded, but we will give you feedback.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:14 am
Are you kidding? Ken Miller is one of the most vocal opponents of creationism and ID and an extremely strong supporter of evolution despite being a Christian. In fact he played a central role in the victory in the Dover court case where teaching intelligent design was ruled unconstitutional. In that book he argues against creationism and ID, not for it.
As for the reasons website. I decided to do some spot-checking to see how good the evidence they present is. They provided six articles for me to read straight off the bat to try to convince me they are right. They asked me some questions and then provided articles that, I presume, were written to convince me.
The first two articles they gave me, one on the big bang and one on the rate of expansion of the universe, had absolutely no evidence backing them up at all. It was just “the universe is so perfect for humans, therefore it must have been designed for us”. It gets things backwards, humans are perfectly-adapted for the universe they evolved in.
The next article says basically that because Christian theology says that the universe had a beginning, and science says the universe had a beginning, then Christianity must be right. This ignores the fact that many other religions indicated the universe had a beginning, and that the beginning described in the Bible is completely different in pretty much every imaginable way from what really happened. Then they do some complicated and ultimately silly mental and linguistic gymnastics to try to force out-of-context bible versus to conform to the science, but fail miserably.
The fourth article was no different.
The fifth article is similar to the previous. It says :
But they do not say what this supposed fingerprint is. I can only assume they mean the same thing as in the previous articles, that the universe is apparently find-tuned for humans (which is not the case).
I read a bunch of other articles, but they are all the same. They assume God exists, they assume God created the universe, and then they try to force every piece of evidence to conform to that belief. Not once could I find them presenting any evidence that their position is correct, they just tried to make the facts fit their preconceived notions. That is not evidence, it is apologetics, and it is utterly unconvincing to anyone who does not already share your worldview.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:16 am
But Lawrence, people do criticize and mock my personal beliefs here. I haven’t studied the “God of the gaps,” but maybe that’s my belief and I am perfectly content with it. I don’t doubt the things you mention above and of course would never mock things that are fact such as those you mention above (2nd to last paragraph). Not everything in evolution is Proof, though. And some things in my belief system may not be proven until the end of time, that does not make them any less true to me. But yes, all this semantic talk would be really boring to me at a party. Stating premise twice doesn’t make it a new premise etc. We just talk from totally different places. My premise would be that science is not all there is. It is fascinating, but not the be all end all. I’m certainly not as into this as most people here, so I guess I don’t belong. I have no interest in going into the depth some people have. Its just not that interesting and this has been time-consuming enough. Obviously it is your (collective) passion vs. passive interest. After a while it becomes very tiresome and I’d rather spend my time observing things not so concrete, such as the human spirit.Which is what I have mostly been observing here in this blog!I never set out to convert anyone to my beliefs…but what a ride. Thanks guys.
April 18th, 2009 at 8:21 am
@Moderate “Don’t believe I said “proof”, Lawrence, “evidence” is much different. But who is splitting hairs anyway Mr. Marking? Mr. Marking splits hairs and changes meanings to get his really silly point across. I used myself as only one example.”
Huh? Wake up Mr. Moderate. I am not the one who has been slamming you. I haven’t been posting about you at all. But if you insist on finding enemies where none are, let’s get it on…
April 18th, 2009 at 8:50 am
And your conclusion from this seems to be that everyone else is either closed-minded or ignorant. Have you ever considered the possibility that your approach is bad?
April 18th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Mr. Moderate sez:
“After a while it becomes very tiresome and I’d rather spend my time observing things not so concrete, such as the human spirit.”
And I’m sure he’ll publish or otherwise post those observations so others can get a peek at those spirits, too.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:39 am
@Nigel Depledge
Before I respond to your latest in a long string of absurd posts, there is some housekeeping to do. Previously you said:
“The discovery of an organism that, for example, used a completely different genetic code from all other known life (e.g. the base sequence CGA in mRNA codes for arginine, as do a few other combinations, and this is exactly the same in every living thing on this planet) would “have something to do with evolution”, and it would directly contradict universal common ancestry.”
I showed you several specific examples of organisms which do not share the common genetic code. So your options are these:
A.) You must recant your assertion of common ancestry
B.) You must recant your assertion that a universal genetic code is necessary for it
Which one is it, Nigel? A or B?
April 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am
Here are some statistics concerning the posts that have been made on this thread up until now by the major participants:
Darth Robo: 9 posts (0 with links)
Moderate: 14 posts (0 with links)
Nigel Depledge: 25 posts (2 with links)
TheBlackCat: 17 posts (3 with links)
Tom Marking: 29 posts (12 with links)
Torbjorn Larsson: 14 posts (0 with links)
April 18th, 2009 at 11:22 am
Quality over quantity?
April 18th, 2009 at 11:46 am
@Greg in Austin “I have not heard of the Molecular Clock, but then again, evolutionary biology is not my specialty. However, I didn’t see in that link an answer to my question. Maybe I need to rephrase it… What is the rate of change of chromosomes in reptiles, compared to monkeys and humans?
Why should the rate of change be constant across any particular species?”
The Wikipedia article did have some numbers which was 0.7-0.8% change in DNA per million years across a wide variety of species (e.g., mammals, invertebrates, plants, bacteria) for DNA regions of low selection (I have no idea how they know what is a region of low selection) and 1% change per 50 million years in regions of high selection.
I’m struggling a bit to get some more specific numbers for you.
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evosite/evo101/IIE1cMolecularclocks.shtml
Here they claim a specific DNA sequence that codes for the alpha-globin protein changes at 0.56 changes per base pair per billion years. That would be 5.6E-4 changes per base pair per million years multiplied by 3 billion base pairs in the genome or 1.68 million base pairs changing per million years (0.056% change per million years). I haven’t been able to find any data concerning the rate of change in chromosome number over time.
As to why it would be constant across various species, that is the whole point of the MCH (Molecular Clock Hypothesis). It assumes that mutations and selection pressure are operating on DNA in a similar manner across multitudes of species. Hope this answers your question.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:49 am
@kuhnigget “Quality over quantity?”
And the award for most whiny post goes to …
(drum roll)
Mr. Moderate for his “But Lawrence, people do criticize and mock my personal beliefs here…” post.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:56 am
They share the same basic code with a few minor differences. That is NOT the same thing as having a “completely different genetic code”, which was what Nigel was talking about. Even you can tell the difference between the two, right?
Also, your list is somewhat flawed. The mitochondria often have a couple of changes in their genetic code (although it is largely the same), but the mitochondria also have very few genes (most of the genes they need are contained in the nucleus of their host). For them changes in the genetic code are much less dangerous. Changes in the genetic code other than mitochondria are much, much rarer and are all fairly minor.
April 18th, 2009 at 12:15 pm
You’re not listening to me. Every single one of the articles you posted is talking about junk DNA as being “DNA with no known function.” As I have said over and over, even in the paragraph you quoted, that is not what I mean when I am talking about junk DNA. I am talking about DNA that is well-understood and is known to have no role (other than eating up resources and occasionally destroying useful genes). Of course DNA that we don’t understand may have a function. But this is not what junk DNA is, at least not in the sense I am using it.
So I will ask you again, do you have any examples of junk DNA, that is DNA that is well-understood and shown to have no function, later being found to have a function? I don’t care about DNA that was not understood later becoming understood, I care about the specific understanding being changed. Your articles do not show any examples of this.
April 18th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
@TheBlackCat “They share the same basic code with a few minor differences. That is NOT the same thing as having a “completely different genetic code”, which was what Nigel was talking about. Even you can tell the difference between the two, right?”
So, define completely different. Are you talking about every single codon (triplet of DNA nucleotides) encodes for a different amino acid from the one the standard genetic code uses? Why would that be an invalidation of common descent any more than if a few codons code for different amino acids? How was this criterion established and does it make sense? Well, since I subscribe to common descent anyway I suppose there is no reason to belabor the point so I’ll just move on to Nigel’s other points which were…
@Nigel Depledge “Tom Marking said: Common descent is not a validation of natural selection.
Actually, yes it is, because common descent is a prediction of speciation by natural selection – although whether the original forms were few or many is, in principle, open.”
No it is not, because natural selection is not the only theory predicting it. Let me give you an example to clarify things. Q:) Does a falling rock validate Newton’s law of gravity? A: No. Why? Because it is indeed true that an inverse square force law for gravity (i.e., Newtonian gravitation) implies a falling rock, but other force laws do as well. For example, an inverse cube force law would cause a rock to fall as well. You would need to actually measure the force at various distances to validate Newtonian gravitation.
“But Lamarckian evolution was discredited before TOOS was first published. It really does not count.”
It doesn’t matter. It also predicted common descent so the discovery of common descent also validates Lamarckian evolution.
“The options at the time were evolution by descent with modification (which predicts common ancestry) and special creation (which implies the opposite).”
You probably think evolution as an idea was invented in 1859. It was not. It goes back thousands of years to the ancient Greeks:
http://www.utm.edu/research/iep/e/evolutio.htm
“Evolution is not so much a modern discovery as some of its advocates would have us believe. It made its appearance early in Greek philosophy, and maintained its position more or less, with the most diverse modifications, and frequently confused with the idea of emanation, until the close of ancient thought. The Greeks had, it is true, no term exactly equivalent to ” evolution”; but when Thales asserts that all things originated from water; when Anaximenes calls air the principle of all things, regarding the subsequent process as a thinning or thickening, they must have considered individual beings and the phenomenal world as, a result of evolution, even if they did not carry the process out in detail. Anaximander is often regarded as a precursor of the modem theory of development. He deduces living beings, in a gradual development, from moisture under the influence of warmth, and suggests the view that men originated from animals of another sort, since if they had come into existence as human beings, needing fostering care for a long time, they would not have been able to maintain their existence. In Empedocles, as in Epicurus and Lucretius, who follow in Hs footsteps, there are rudimentary suggestions of the Darwinian theory in its broader sense; and here too, as with Darwin, the mechanical principle comes in; the process is adapted to a certain end by a sort of natural selection, without regarding nature as deliberately forming its results for these ends.”
So the main gist of it is this. There were many different theories of evolution to choose from which had been developed over the centuries. It was not a choice between natural selection and divine creation.
“OK, what other theories predict common descent?”
1.) Genetic drift
2.) Sexual recombination
3.) Founder effect
4.) Kauffmann’s theory of complexity
5.) Any of the many ancient Greek ideas concerning evolution
etc.
“The pattern of nested hierarchies we observe in phylogenetic analyses is a prediction of common ancestry, and it would not appear without common ancestry.”
Yes, a phylogenetic tree is a map of common ancestry. So what? What does it have to do with natural selection?
“More specifically, common descent is a prediction of speciation by natural selection. Common descent is only predicted by any theory that allows two or more new species to arise from an existing old one. Evolution by means of natural selection was the first theory to predict this.”
Nope, absolutely wrong. Natural selection is a Johnny-come-lately. Aristotle taught the creation of new species more than two thousand years earlier. Read the link I provided.
“Therefore, modern evolutionary theory is the only theory of speciation that predicts common descent. Therefore, common descent is a validation of evolutionary theory.”
Total garbage.
“Intriguingly, common descent seems to be the largest sticking point that most evolution-deniers have.”
Catch a clue. I am not an evolution denier.
April 18th, 2009 at 1:43 pm
Hi guys. Not to whine – but Ok, I will indulge you. Marking – I lost track – someone was twisting stuff about the appendix and blaming it on me – maybe it wasn’t you. Sorry.
Darth – I have said it in many ways, but you still fail to understand — we don’t seem to understand one another. You keep coming back to science to explain everything. Science is but one dimension of life. Some, like me, I suppose, operate from a different world view. It is not subject to the same rules as the scientific method. I know plenty of religious people who also make room for evolution. In fact, I think I fall somewhere in that spectrum myself. Science people have difficulty with the concept of a spectrum, yet many scientists I know are on one themselves. One that has been noted by others who observe them. You have to step out of the science black/white — right/wrong box to even have the first clue. This is where the communication breaks down.
Black Cat- my APPROACH wrong? What do you mean by that? You don’t need to answer, but my general approach has always worked well for me in life, until I arrived here into this new world where only science exists. Did YOU ever consider that there is another dimension or approach to things. Perhaps an even higher order of thinking? Who said your approach is right? What a ridiculous question, really. When you have all those answers be sure not to spill your cerebral fluid all over yourself in your excitement.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:08 pm
No, communication breaks down because you refuse to answer any of the questions we ask you. We cannot communicate if we do not understand what you are trying to say, but every time anyone asks for clarification or additional information you start complaining about people attacking you and not understanding your way of thinking and then refuse to answer the question. To quote Seargent Bilco, “it is like trying to nail jello to the wall”. Your statements are so vague and without substance that nobody can figure out what you are trying to say. That is why communication is breaking down.
Your approach of throwing out baseless and unsupported statements and refusing every request to support those statements or for any additional information and clarification. Or perhaps I meant your approach of demanding we accept your ideas when you have given absolutely no reason for anyone to do so other than your own hurt feelings.
Well then, whoever you have been interacting with must not have had very high standards of evidence if “because I say so” was enough to convince them. Has that worked well with the IRS? Or have they actually expected you to document things? Do you think they would back off an audit if you started complaining about being attacked and started talking about “other ways of knowing”? Does your employer just take your word on everything, or are you expected to have some sort of paper trail? I find it very hard to believe someone could get through life making vague and ultimately meaningless statements and without once having to offer any support or clarification whatsoever for any claim, but that is the approach you have been using here.
Of course I did. Like many non-religious people I was once religious. You keep assuming that none of us have looked at your side, but we have, many of us were even there ourselves at some point in our lives.
My approach may or may not be right, but it is much more effective when dealing with a skeptical crowd. I am more likely to convince people using facts and evidence than if I just demand that they take my word for it, especially if I were so vague that they cannot even understand what it is I am asking them to accept.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:26 pm
Tom Marking said:
No, these have non-standard codon useage. Yeast, higher plants, mitochondria etc. etc. use exactly the same meaning for each codon that we do. But the genetic code is denegerate (arginine, for instance, is coded by six separate codons). Different organisms can have different common and uncommon codons for the same amino acids, and hence have different populations of tRNAs, but the code itself is universal.
Mitochondria possess no ribosomes of their own. If they used a different genetic code from their host cell, they would simply not get any proteins synthesised correctly.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:44 pm
Moderate said:
At last! An opinion!
Now, perhaps you’d care to explain what convinced you of these following aspects of ID, as expounded by the fellows of the DI’s CRC:
(1) That god (aka “the designer”) must have left evidence of tinkering that we can detect;
(2) That there is only one designer;
(3) That ID is an academic pursuit, when it’s leading proponents cannot agree on such fundamental aspects as (i) the age of the earth, and (ii) whether common descent is true of merely an illusion brought about by “common design”;
(4) That such a thing as irreducible complexity exists; and
(5) That irreducible complexity is a genuine barrier to evolution by natural processes, given that Behe specifically excludes gene duplication and co-option (a common evolutionary mechanism) as a challenge to his concept of IC;
It’s all been done already.
Well, judging from your posts here, you sure have swallowed some whoppers hook, line and sinker. This is not to say you’re stupid, because you are probably exactly the kind of person the DI has been targeting with their slick PR campaigns. What it does say is that you are ignorant of the science. For instance, several of your posts have betrayed an inadequate understanding of what evolutionary theory is, and suggest that you have been insufficiently dritical of the IDists publications (i.e. they have not one peer-reviewed publication that pertains to ID, and yet they believe they have uncovered a new paradigm of biology – yet you seem to grant them more credibility than the scientists who have studied biology for decades).
But at the end of the day, the truth is what it is, and reality does not care whether you agree with it or not, so it’s your loss if you disagree.
However, I would request that you please stop propagating the lies of the creationists.
Either that or a figment of your imagination.
The thing is, if the soul exists but is intangible, it is irrelevant to science. If it exists and can be measured or recorded or at least detected in some objective way, then it is a part of nature and therefore subject to scientific inquiry. But no-one has yet come up with any evidence that it exists. Until there is evidence, it is no more than speculation or wishful thinking.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
Tom MArking said:
That’s not a prediction, that’s Behe claiming that common descent is compatible with ID.
However, since any result or conclusion (except “no ID”) is compatible with ID, this is irrelevant. ID does not predict common descent, because if all organisms had utterly different enzymes for doing the same job, and there were no discernible patterns of nested hierarchies in relationships between organisms, that would still be compatible with ID.
April 18th, 2009 at 2:54 pm
Tom Marking said:
Yes, you did, but we cross-posted. If you look further up the thread, you will see that I was addressing your earlier post, in which you wondered how natural selection accounts for 95% of our genome being “junk”. You were the one that first raised the question of junk DNA, and I thought it was disingenuous of you to challenge TBC when he simply reiterated your earlier statement.
April 18th, 2009 at 3:14 pm
Haven’t demanded a thing. I GIVE UP – YOU WIN if you always go back to science and use exaggerated language. When you a.) can’t take another perspective (I notice it doesn’t happen only with me but amongst yourselves) and b.)insist on only clearly delineated facts, and c.) have a restricted range of interest, it smacks of a disorder which is also nebulous but most definitely exists. I am comfortable with a little mystery in life, and actually find it quite delightful. Of course I don’t use my more perceptive side of my nature with the IRS or my employer, but there is much more to life than that. Thank goodness. Have a pleasant rest of the weekend. Sometimes it is just more important to have peace than to be right.
April 18th, 2009 at 3:26 pm
Oh, yeah. The legendary Other Ways of Knowing that anyone talks about, yet no one saw.
can you be specific ? A\Can you name one another dimmension or another approach or higher order of thinking we keep overlooking ?
Just one. Can you ?
April 18th, 2009 at 3:28 pm
Then good luck with wallowing in your ignorance.
April 18th, 2009 at 4:47 pm
Yes, you have demanded over and over that we accept your views even though you have given us no reason to do so. You have demanded over and over that we acknowledge that your position is as justifiable as our is, even though you have made no attempt to provide any justification for it. Don’t pretend to take the moral high ground now .
Yes, when dealing with a scientific issue (such as evolution) we expect to deal with the issue on scientific terms.
We can take another perspective if it is well-supported, but we are not going to accept a position that is based on nothing but “because I said so”.
Yeah, sorry, I’m not budging on this one. We dealing with factual issues, like how life got to where it is, we expect to deal with it on a factual basis. If you are talking about something fuzzy like emotions, it is a different matter. But on questions of what did and did not happen, we expect that to backed by facts.
My interests are very broad. However, the discussion we are having here is very narrow. I am not going to start talking about my reading habits when discussing evolution because it is not relevant. Neither are your gut feelings or suspicions. I am simply trying to stay on-topic.
And now you accuse everyone who disagrees with you of having a mental disorder. Great way to make allies there.
You said flat-out that you know God was involved in the development of life here on Earth. That is not a mystery, that is a certainty for you.
If you don’t think you can apply it to the IRS or your employer, what makes you think it is justified in looking at science? Do you apply your more “perceptive” side to whether you will die if you jump off a skyscraper? How about if you will get sick ingesting pathogenic bacteria? If not, why do you feel it is okay to apply it to evolution?
We would be happy with that. But you are the one who came here and told us that we are all wrong. People who think like you are trying to force their views on everyone else in the world. It would be great if we had peace on this issue, but as long as people insist on forcing their unfounded beliefs on everyone else it will not happen.
April 18th, 2009 at 5:17 pm
@TheBlackCat “So I will ask you again, do you have any examples of junk DNA, that is DNA that is well-understood and shown to have no function, later being found to have a function? I don’t care about DNA that was not understood later becoming understood, I care about the specific understanding being changed. Your articles do not show any examples of this.”
Understood by whom and at what time period? And you still haven’t answered the basic question, what happens when “junk” DNA is adjacent to a gene and the stop codon of the gene mutates to something else? Will RNA polymerase transcribe the “junk” DNA? I think the answer to that question is yes. If so, in what sense is this “junk” DNA permanently junk?
April 18th, 2009 at 6:00 pm
@ Tom: You obviously have not read the link I provided. If you did you would realize your question is meaningless. Until you make at least a slight effort to become educated on the issue I see no point in discussing the issue further.
April 18th, 2009 at 6:11 pm
Moderate:
>>>”I have said it in many ways, but you still fail to understand — we don’t seem to understand one another. You keep coming back to science to explain everything. Science is but one dimension of life. Some, like me, I suppose, operate from a different world view. It is not subject to the same rules as the scientific method. I know plenty of religious people who also make room for evolution. In fact, I think I fall somewhere in that spectrum myself. Science people have difficulty with the concept of a spectrum, yet many scientists I know are on one themselves. One that has been noted by others who observe them. You have to step out of the science black/white — right/wrong box to even have the first clue. This is where the communication breaks down.”
TheBlackCat answered this perfectly to be honest, I can’t really add much to it. Only to say that your “world view” is irrelevant. Your world view is based on a theology which you cannot back up with objective evidence. You can claim that “supernatural” experiences are all personal or whatever, in which case we can take your claims as seriously as those who believe in UFO’s.
April 18th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
@Tom Marking
>>>”Here are some statistics concerning the posts that have been made on this thread up until now by the major participants:
Darth Robo: 9 posts (0 with links)
Moderate: 14 posts (0 with links)
Nigel Depledge: 25 posts (2 with links)
TheBlackCat: 17 posts (3 with links)
Tom Marking: 29 posts (12 with links)
Torbjorn Larsson: 14 posts (0 with links)”
Ooh that’s nice. Thanks. I wouldn’t call myself a “major participant”, but I wasn’t aware that any of my posts needed links. (shrug)
April 18th, 2009 at 6:18 pm
@Darth Robo “but I wasn’t aware that any of my posts needed links. (shrug)”
What do you think evidence is on a blog, your strong personality?
April 18th, 2009 at 8:45 pm
Well, if I need a link to back myself up, to which particular post are you referring to, Tom?
April 18th, 2009 at 10:32 pm
Good God. I never said any of you were wrong! I give up. You are impossible. Good night.
April 18th, 2009 at 10:35 pm
I think it would seem similar to me to be at a convention for atheists or UFO’s. You all have way more in common than you’d like to admit.
April 18th, 2009 at 11:55 pm
# Moderate Says:
I think it would seem similar to me to be at a convention for atheists or UFO’s. You all have way more in common than you’d like to admit.
Project much?
J/P?
April 19th, 2009 at 12:01 am
Uh-oh, you just broke one of the ten commandments.
You said we all have a mental disorder. That isn’t much better. In the end you really haven’t said anything except that. Everything you have said is so vague and insubstantial that nobody here even knows what your position is.
And now you prove you have not listened to anything anyone here has said. Once again you make a completely unfounded statement with no support, not the slightest explanation as to how we are similar. Actually, this makes you very much like UFO proponents, in that everything is about possibilities and other ways of knowing, no specifics, nothing concrete, nothing outside of your own head and own experiences.
You see how that is different? I gave specific reasons that you are similar to a UFO proponents, as opposed to just making the claiming and expecting everyone to accept it on nothing more than “because I said so”.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:45 am
I would also recommend reading “Your inner fish”. It is not preachy at all, while explaining how the scientific method in different fields is applied to demostrate evolution.
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0375424474
April 19th, 2009 at 3:24 am
Moderate said:
This depends very much on what you consider the other perspective to be. In your case it appears to be a load of wishy-washy feelgood spiritualist hokum. Meaningful debate within such a context is impossible, because words and phrases only ever mean what their author intends them to mean, which is no use at all if you are trying to enlighten someone who does not already understand.
Without verifiable facts, how can anyone ever convince someone else of anything?
This is a serious philosophical question. Outside of the pure logic of mathematics, how can you convince me of the validity of your point of view about the world without reference to facts that I can independently verify? There are always alternative explanations that can be valid, until we start using facts to eliminate some of them.
In the case of ID, it not only has no factual support, it also rests on fallacious reasoning (i.e. there are no arguments to support it that do not recourse to argument from ignorance, argument from personal incredulity or straw-man arguments). And it violates the principle of parsimony.
Eh?
How the hell do you know what things we BA bloggees are interested in, besides what has been discussed here? Sticking to the topic at hand is not a restricted range of interest.
I have no idea what this sentence means.
Why then are you not a scientist?
Science is all about mysteries – understanding them, coming to grips with them, tackling them and, above all, solving them.
Whaddya mean “more perceptive side” of your nature? Do you have extra senses beyond the five usual ones? Or are you referring to your imagination?
But there is no peace without at least learning what the right answer is. I would prefer to be wrong, and to know that I was wrong and then know and understand the right answer, than to be ignorant.
April 19th, 2009 at 3:32 am
Tom Marking said (to Darth Robo):
Tom, you seem to have missed something here.
The topic of this thread is a book about evolution. If you have not read the book, or if you are not familiar with the evidence that supports evolutionary theory, it is not up to us to rectify that balance. It is your problem to deal with, and some of us have provided links to online resources that are quite extensive (e.g. Talk Origins contains pretty much everything you could need to know, and I think it has been linked to at least three times).
Or you could, y’know, read the book.
All of the evidence to which we refer is in the public domain, by being in scientific publications.
However, you are arguing against modern evolutionary theory. Your viewpoint is not that of mainstream science. Therefore, any “evidence” that you need to support your arguments should (a) be summarised for those readers with limited online time, and (b) be linked.
BTW, I have yet to see you produce either compelling evidence or a good argument.
April 19th, 2009 at 3:37 am
Whbo3 said:
Yeah. What (s)he said.
April 19th, 2009 at 3:49 am
Tom Marking said:
Well, it will certainly construct some mRNA, although I don’t know what will happen when the exons are removed.
Erm … I think this is an actual mechanism whereby new functions can be evolved.
No. natural selection will only remove “junk” DNA if there is a selection pressure to do so.
I daresay that aspects evolutionary theory do account for these differences, but this is an area of biology with which I am unfamiliar.
Why don’t you try looking it up, as I suggested earlier?
Natural selection is but one mechanism of evolutionary change, albeit an important one. NS operates where selective pressures exist, but without a selective pressure there will be no selection.
What makes you think that NS should be able to account for the differences in chromosome number and C value?
April 19th, 2009 at 4:18 am
Tom Marking said:
Rubbish.
The concept of testing what we think we know against reality has arisen at least three times in human history (Socrates, Bacon, Galileo).
And reason. I have handwaving and reason.
Look at it this way, Tom:
The concept of testing what we think we know against reality has, even accepting your assertion, arisen once already in the mere 5,000-ish years of human history. Assuming that intelligent species are capable of survivng for long periods of time (as the example with which you quibble did), unless we know of a reason to suppose that this concept is in some way special, there is nothing to prevent the concept from arising again.
If it has arisen at least once in 5,000 years, how many opportunities would it have to arise in, say, 500,000 years? If it did not arise 2,500 years ago, who’s to say it would not have arisen again since then?
It is perfectly reasonable to assume that the concept of testing what we think we know against reality would arise again in the hypothetical scenario that was proposed.
And all it would take to eventually arrive at exactly the same laws of nature is the concept of testing what we think we know against reality.
Why does there have to be an explanation for this trivial fact?
Why can it not simply be hiostorical contingency?
As I have pointed out before, and you seem persistently to fail to understand, if there is no pressure to select for or against a specific number of chromosomes, then there will be random changes, and natural selection will play no role.
No, you are mixing up different commenters’ posts here.
I do not know the precision of statistical correlation of a phylogenetic tree that is based on cyt C (compared with one that is based on gross morphology).
However, my point is that cytochrome C has a critical function in the life of the organism and therefore will be subject to selection pressures.
That should be t’other way around. If it has 100 a.a.s, it will be coded by at least 300 bases (plus promoter, regulatory elements, exons and so on).
No. Because selection does not work directly on the DNA. Selection works on the organism or on populations or whole ecosystems. It is true that, ultimately, selection affects genes, but genes are only a small proportion of the DNA. However, any stretch of DNA that serves a purpose in the life of the organism can, in principle, be subject to a selection pressure. Remember, though, that selection pressures are never constant.
Any aspect of an organism that is subject to a selective pressure will adapt according to natural selection (either that, or the organism will go extinct).
In fact, Tom, you said this:
So you did claim that human phylogeny was at least relatively“Which suggests to me that either the fossils we have are not good enough in terms of the quality of preservation, or we are missing fossil evidence of some key intermediate species, or both.”
Or their interpretations of the same evidence are different.
Well, duh, yeah. What I was talking about was the reasons for different interpretations on the same evidence.
If your beef is with the power of NS to bring about speciation, this is a core component of evolutionary theory, so you are, therefore, an evolution-denier.
If your beef is with whether or not NS exists, it has been observed to occur. So your objection is instantly dismissed by reality.
Either way, your objection has not been sufficiently clear, and your arguments have all been weak or irrelevant. I have certainly had no trouble in refuting what your comments have claimed.
BTW, are you even going to try to demonstrate the relevance of chromosome number to natural selection?
April 19th, 2009 at 5:43 am
@ Tom Marking Says: (April 18th, 2009 at 11:20 am)
Here are some statistics concerning the posts that have been made on this thread up until now by the major participants:
Darth Robo: 9 posts (0 with links)
Moderate: 14 posts (0 with links)
Nigel Depledge: 25 posts (2 with links)
TheBlackCat: 17 posts (3 with links)
Tom Marking: 29 posts (12 with links)
Torbjorn Larsson: 14 posts (0 with links)
What don’t *I* rate a mention there?
April 19th, 2009 at 6:45 am
@ Moderate Says: (April 18th, 2009 at 3:14 pm)
Haven’t demanded a thing. I GIVE UP – YOU WIN
Haven’t demanded a thing? Really?
You come on a science blog and claim “creationists have as much evidence as scientists” & that you’ve seen evidence to back this assertion. We ask politely to see said evidence and get evasive non-answers. You are shown why we think as we do – yet refuse to make your own position or reason for taking it clear. You go on to insult as narrow minded and hint at us being mentally ill & souless or at leasts lacking in perception of any putative soul.
Then to top it off, you say “we win” … like there were *two* opposing sides here and you were trying to get your sides arguments up and have failed.
.. YOU WIN if you always go back to science
You find it surprising that *scientific* evidence and reality based evidence wins a *science* debate over hard to follow wafflings and unsupported non-scientific assertions on a science blog?
.. and use exaggerated language.
Please, moderate would you kindly point out any examples of where the language we’ve used is, in your opinion, exaggerated?
When you a.) can’t take another perspective (I notice it doesn’t happen only with me but amongst yourselves)and b.)insist on only clearly delineated facts, and c.) have a restricted range of interest,
As already noted, *you* make all theses false assumptions based on a single well-defined (well-defined by us anyway!)
blog comments thread. My interests I can assure you are very broad & I frequently take other perspectives seriously when this is merited – and even sometimes when not!
But when it comes to evolution vs creationism the issue is decided by facts and the creationist perspective is, quite simply, utterly wrong and duplicitious. Creationist, it has been well-demonstrated, are almost always either misinformed (sometimes wilfully so) or outright lying. If they want their “perspective” taken seriously maybe they should look at their wrong approach so far and try to be honest!
Which means, frankly, giving up on the idea of teaching what is NOT science in science classrooms. Religious literalism – which is what creationism is -belongs in churches – & maybe its believers personal lives – nowhere else.
it smacks of a disorder which is also nebulous but most definitely exists. I am comfortable with a little mystery in life, and actually find it quite delightful.
Again, are you really assuming or meaning to imply that we aren’t? Can you truly NOT see how people here find that & some of your other unfounded claims & assumptions offensive?
Of course I don’t use my more perceptive side of my nature with the IRS or my employer, but there is much more to life than that. Thank goodness. Have a pleasant rest of the weekend.
You have a good weekend too, moderate. Dare I suggest you could use some of your time to research and (re-?)think a little more on this topic & what you’ve being saying here – perhaps read this ‘Why Evolution is True’ book or some others that give you another more well-founded and factually-derived perspective?
Sometimes it is just more important to have peace than to be right.
I disagree. That is only very rarely if ever the case.
If you’d rather have peace and thereby allow things that are wrong to go ahead – whether those “wrong things” are for example, sitting back and blocking out the sounds of your neighbour beating up his wife & kids or by allowing another type of harm to befall our children through miseducating them by having nonsense taught to our school kids then ..well that’s not good.
Oh & once again, please consider the following hypothetical :
Imagine you go to your Church to hear the Preacher talk about the religious implications of the story of Genesis – & instead there is a scientist at the pulpit there lecturing you about carbon-dating and evolution, tiktaalik and archaeoptryx, neandertals and australopithecines and their development into modern humanity.
How would you feel? How would you react? Would think it appropriate?
If not, why then expect science to put up with the reverse situation?
If “both sides should be taught” – and “the controversy should be taught” as creationists claim – why then do they not read out as much of Dawkin’s ‘The God delusion’as they do The Bible in Church?
Can we ever get you to give us a straight answer on that please, moderate?
April 19th, 2009 at 7:51 am
@Tom Marking:
Sorry to join in late…but I’ve noticed something about your position Mr. Marking. You seem to avoid going into specifics about what you think is a better alternative to what is often referred to as the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, and to specify why it’s better. Instead, as others have already touched on, you seem to rely on merely attacking the modern synthesis as though that somehow makes your position by default the correct one.
This is a pattern typically seen among creationists/I.D. advocates. Since I.D. is in fact nothing more than an overinflated argument from ignorance, this is hardly surprising.
Maybe you count yourself among their number (your comments seem to suggest that, quoting Behe for example), then again maybe you don’t. Either way perhaps it might be best if you explained in more detail what it is that you do in fact support as an alternative explanation and why?
Assuming for the moment that you do in fact support I.D. the question then becomes… Why?
It doesn’t qualify as a theory in the scientific sense.
It doesn’t increase human knowledge of the universe.
It doesn’t even attempt top specify a designer or motive, in fact it deliberately avoids doing so for legal reasons and because that might make it testable.
Unlike evolution, I.D. is not falsifiable since any result or evidence is considered proof of “the designer”.
I.D. doesn’t even try to find positively supporting evidence, therefore it has none to offer. I suspect that the cdesign proponentsists don’t try because they know that they won’t find it.
It doesn’t try to make any kind of scientific predictions because that would require a real theory and would make I.D. testable. You were earlier asked to site an example of such a prediction Tom Marking, you have yet to provide one.
I.D. doesn’t help to solve any problems that humanity faces. Evolutionary theory has helped to create new and more productive food crops to feed the world, developed new strategies for pest control, and combating antibiotic resistant bacteria. What does I.D. do beside attack evolution and the scientific method in general?
The Discovery Institute, which has yet to discover anything scientific, has publicly admitted that the “Wedge Document” is legitimate. That’s where they spell out their intention to undermine methodological naturalism in science, and try to promote a more theocratically controlled U.S.A. This is also why the organization avoids taking a definite stance on the age of the Earth. If they go “Old Earth” the YEC fundies get mad (bye, bye money and school board support). If they go “Young Earth” there goes any more false pretense of being scientific.
So much for their stated goal of promoting scientific debate.
I.D. doesn’t attempt to specify a mechanism for the changes. I.D. advocates ask for more and more detail from supporters of evolution and if it’s not provided right away it’s then announced as “proof” that I.D. is correct and that evolution is “on it’s death bed”. Funny though how when cdesign proponentsists are asked to provide any details we get a response like Dembski’s infamous quip….
Talk about double standards!
The only “research” that cdesign proponentsists perform are things like the following….
Making up definitions and “laws” that both the scientific and mathematics communities find vague and useless.
Looking at other people’s actual research into biology and saying the equivalent of “Well where did that come from Mr. Smartypants Darwinist?”
Writing books and making bad movies.
Also, looking at Richard Dawkins “Weasel Program” written in BASIC in the 1980’s. Hoping to find anything wrong with it. Even though doing so will do nothing at all to the credibility of evolutionary theory, it’s just a cheap (and unsuccessful) attempt at an ad hominem fallacy. By attempting to discredit Dawkins, they hope to create doubt about evolution. So far their attempt at attacking Dawkins has been a laughable failure.
So Tom Marking… if you don’t accept the modern synthesis of evolutionary theory, what do you accept and why?
Do you have a position that’s not based on a logical fallacy, if so what is it?
Can you site positively supporting evidence of your position?
Is it falsifiable, and how so?
Does it make testable predictions?
Does it specify a mechanism that is testable?
Does it advance human knowledge and provide insight to solutions for problems?
Does it engage in actual research, or just try to attack the other side?
Does it really try to advance science, or undermine it in support of ulterior motive?
I’m rather curious as to what your answers will be.
Thanks in advance!
April 19th, 2009 at 9:32 am
Moderate said: “Ah hem, I never said this was necessarily the work of the Christian God. Another ASSUMPTION made by a couple of you. I see both sides being quick to make far-fetched assumptions. That’s all folks.”
Well, I hope you don’t think I was one of these people. My comment was certainly inspired by what you said, but I was speaking of creationists in general, not of you in particular: “But there’s another point which bugs me about this – the assumption by creationists that the deity they believe responsible for creation is the Christian God. What is it about creation theory that makes Christianity the proven religion, as opposed to any other?”
April 19th, 2009 at 10:46 am
@Moderate,
You have said numerous times that you were done here, yet you keep coming back. Was that a lie, or are you just being overly dramatic?
Oh, and I missed the part where you provided your evidence for creationism. Do you not remember saying,
We still haven’t seen your definition of the “theory of creation,” nor have we seen your evidence for it. You have been asked an inordinate number of times for your definition and evidence, and you have refused to answer. Now, do you understand why people here get a little frustrated when someone like you makes wild claims without any evidence to support them?
April 19th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Hi you all, My biggest mistake was coming across this blog rather accidentally and not realizing what die hard scientists you all are. So sorry if I have offended. I actually have an excellent sense of humor and some of this may have been imisinterpreted. My comment about the UFO convention was totally tongue in cheek. My point being that creationists & ID people, evolutionists, and those who believe in those bizarre things (i.e. ALL of us) might all have a lot in common. Please don’t make me list what they are. The majority of humans do believe in some type of God, so it must be frustrating as an atheist to be a minority. Your opinion is that a belief in God is irrational – yet it is so common. You might say it is because of they way we have been reared or because of fear or need for comfort or whatever. Prove that. Those oare only theories. How do you know for certain why anyone believes what they believe? So the burden is on the majority to prove that a God or many gods or whatever exist, knowing full well it is very hard to do without wishy washy mushy personal ancetotal talk. My only really strong assertion here has been that not a single one of us has all the answers. Some (Nigel and whbo3) say it can only be found through the scientific method “its the only way we know how.” That doesn’t mean that it is the only way – the only way in YOUR experience – which may be different that mine. I am not against facts, but I will never let you think you have all of them and you are indeed arrogant if you think you do.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:53 am
Would you mind to demonstrate that gravity is only a theory too by jumping off a high building of your choice ?
April 19th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
TUT – gravity is a fact. duh. No argument whatsoever. It is only a theory as to why it is most humans believe in some form of deity that they are weak or stupid or whatever. Please don’t take my statements out of context, it is so annoying. When I say you win – you win at (almost) getting me to shut up with that exasperating behavior.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:29 pm
@Moderate,
How do you know gravity is a fact? Can you see its effects? Can we make up some sort of tests that would demonstrate gravity? Based on those results, can we predict what will happen in further tests and further observations?
Guess what? WE CAN DO THE SAME THING WITH EVOLUTION!
A SCIENTIFIC THEORY IS GREATER THAN A FACT!
You really need to educate yourself more.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
The reason you think that is because you don’t understand our perspective at all, as you have made clear repeatedly by refusing to answer our questions.
And once again you demonstrate your fundamental problem: your absolute and unwavering refusal to provide specifics. We keep telling you this, yet you don’t listen. That is why you, and most creationists, are so frustrating. We are not mind readers, we do not know what is going on inside your head. Sorry, no dice. What are they? I want to see the list. Otherwise I will assume there is no list and you are just trying to make yourself feel better by projecting your own flaws onto us.
It isn’t that bad, we are a very large minority, probably in the range of 20% of the world population and 15% of the U.S. population. Atheism is the third largest world “religion” and the second largest in the U.S. (more than 4 times larger than all the remaining non-Christian religions combined, and larger than every Christian denomination besides Catholic and Baptist).
Not surprising, humans are not rational animals by nature, it is something that takes work. Work you have stated repeatedly you have no interest in undertaking. As Robert Heinlen said, “Man is not a rational animal, he is a rationalizing animal.”
Easy: almost everyone takes the religion of their parents. That alone should tell you that it is because of the way they were reared. If it was because of some higher truth, you would expect them to flock to one particular religion, the right one. That doesn’t happen, people in the world are fairly evenly split bit Christianity, Islam, and Atheism. But if it is about upbringing, you would expect them to join the religion of their parents, which is exactly what happens.
Which god? There are hundreds, maybe even thousands. If someone proved their god exists, that would prove that everyone elses’ doesn’t. You can’t lump all religious people together like that. Everybody in the world is an atheist when it comes to most gods that others believe in or have believed in. Atheists are simply atheist towards a few more gods than religious people.
But anyway, the burden is always on the person claiming that something happened or that something exists. For thousands of years the vast majority of people on Earth, a far larger percentage than currently believes in Christianity, believed in bloodletting. Yet we now know that not only is bloodletting not an effective treatment, it is actually dangerous. Just because a lot of people believe something does not make it true.
No one denies that. The difference is that we think the answers are worth looking for, while you are satisfied with your ignorance.
If you have another way, please tell us what it is. But if it is just what is going on inside your own head, tell us this: how can your method tell the difference between the truth and a hallucination? If it can’t, then it is useless to us. I’ve asked you this before but, as always, you never bothered to answer.
No one claimed that we have all the facts. Now you are are making up arguments for us that none of us made (in fact we said quite the opposite). But the facts we do have are strongly on our side, and unlike you we have a desire to gather as many facts as possible. If you disagree, please provide some facts that are on your side. But, of course, you have been asked this more times than I can count, so I have no expectation that you will actually answer this time.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:42 pm
Moderate said,
Please, stop making claims that you cannot back up with evidence. Evolution is not bizarre, it is an observed, tested, re-tested, and proven explanation of the real world, just like gravity, electricity, magnetism, plate technonics, relativity, etc. etc. As a scientist who accepts evolution as scientific fact, I am offended that you would lump me in with creationists and IDers.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
US exasparating? Have you not been paying attention to anything we have said? You steadfastly refuse to answer any question posed to you, you keep throwing out the same baseless statements no matter how many times you are asked to back them or, and you still have refused to tell what, exactly you even believe. And yet you still have the nerve to call us exasperating. We don’t even know what your position is, you have refused to even tell us that much. Instead, you tell us you think we have a psychiatric disorder for asking.
April 19th, 2009 at 12:43 pm
Moderate said,
Sorry, I missed the end of that tag…
How exactly are you going to stop me from thinking I have all the facts? Are you going to share your feelings and hope I un-accept what I have accepted as fact? Or are you going to actually provide evidence of your own that disproves previous evidence?
You are wrong, I will be happy to show you how you are wrong, and I will keep showing you how you are wrong until you stop insulting me with your ignorance.
How’s that for hostility?
April 19th, 2009 at 1:19 pm
Moderate:
>>>”The majority of humans do believe in some type of God, so it must be frustrating as an atheist to be a minority. Your opinion is that a belief in God is irrational – yet it is so common.”
And what does this have to do with evolution? I’ll tell you: ABSOLUTELY NOTHING. You seem to be assuming that everyone here is an atheist, when this is not the case. And if one reads too much into it, they may be left with the impression that you are linking evolution with atheism.
There are people here who dispute any ideas you have about a particular god existing, true. And since no-one on Earth has any evidence at all whatsoever of their particular god existing, they are fair points to make. Especially if one is trying to insert (any) god into a scientific conversation.
>>>”My only really strong assertion here has been that not a single one of us has all the answers.”
>>>”I am not against facts, but I will never let you think you have all of them and you are indeed arrogant if you think you do.”
Moderate, no-one is claiming to have all the “answers”, or all the facts. But you seem to have none at all. So really, who is being arrogant here?
April 19th, 2009 at 1:24 pm
Go ahead an be hostile if you like. I am NOT. I am having fun here. You all are an interesting bunch. By asking me to list what the common attributes we share as humans you are asking me to state the obvious. Yet I am supposed to think its obvious when you say people believe in a God because their parents do? Not enough time to spell out what we as humans have in common. But it again demonstrates an inability to see another perspective. Never said evolution is bizarre – just imperfect. There are many examples of you asking me to do rather ridiculous, simple things and again we speak differently. Many times things of mine are taken out of context and exaggerated such as proof vs. evidence, demand vs. wonder or ask, wrong vs. incomplete. It always comes back to that and from where I sit you appear so defensive and nit picking. Just don’t get it. Sorry. I know I appear ignorant and other things to you, mostly just amused. Gotta go.
April 19th, 2009 at 1:37 pm
You tell us we all have a mental disorder and then have the sheer gall to claim you are not being hostile?
Come on. We aren’t stupid. If that was what you were saying, that we are all humans, then it is a pointless and meaningless statement. Although you do have a habit of doing this, based on the context I suspect that is not at all what you really meant.
Do you disagree with my argument? If so, on what grounds?
You’re doing it again. Throwing out a baseless statement and expecting us to just accept it without question. When are you going to figure out that we aren’t going to just take your word for it? You are not convincing anyone here, you are just annoying everyone. And I am talking about your statement that evolution is imperfect.
Such as?
Such as?
Us defensive? Who is the one who refuses to answer even the simplest question and whines about how mean everyone is being?
You are right there. But this is easy for you to rectify: back up your statements!
April 19th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Moderate said,
April 19th, 2009 at 1:24 pm,
April 19th, 2009 at 11:47 am
Maybe I misunderstood you. I thought you were defining creationism, ID and evolution as “those bizarre things.” It would really help if you would make yourself more clear.
April 19th, 2009 at 1:46 pm
@Moderate,
What, specifically, do you find wrong with evolution?
April 19th, 2009 at 1:59 pm
Did I say imperfect – if I did, I meant incomplete. Nothing wrong with it- just not enough to explain everything.
April 19th, 2009 at 2:19 pm
Moderate said,
You said “imperfect’ but “incomplete” is better. However, and I think this is where your major error lies, the Theory of Evolution has never tried to “explain everything,” in the manner in which you think it does. Evolution clearly explains what we have observed for over 200 years. It does not attempt to explain how life originally started, only what it did after it began. There are bits and pieces of the evolutionary process that are either not yet known, or not as well known yet as we would like, but it is so far the best explanation for what we do know.
Just like there are things we don’t yet know about gravity, stars, planets, or even our own Earth, we still know a LOT about all these things, and we learn more every day. Does that make any sense?
April 19th, 2009 at 2:38 pm
As opposed to creationism and ID, which explain nothing.
April 19th, 2009 at 2:47 pm
Boring troll is getting boring.
April 19th, 2009 at 3:03 pm
Never said they did explain everything. Stop putting words in my mouth. Godness me. Just believe they make more sense to me to fill in the gaps. Oooh god of the gaps, God of the gaps! If you think all his was a series of random events that is your right. But good luck trying to convince me and most of the rest of the free or not free world that someone smarter than us had nothing whatsoever to do with it. Yes, Greg, I think we are coming a tiny bit closer in understanding. I really don’t have a problem with anything at all you said in your last post above.
April 19th, 2009 at 7:20 pm
@Moderate
Incorrect: evolution isn’t just “random”. It has some random elements, but it’s not just “random”. Remember that part about selection?
Hmmm… Argumentum ad populum and an argument from incredulity. Two logical fallacies in one sentence. Sorry to break it to you “Moderate” but the only areas in the world where the majority of the population agrees with you any more are the USA and the Middle East, both hotbeds of religious fundamentalism and a literalistic interpretation of religious dogma. Even in the USA it seems to be in a slow decline.
It’s very simple Moderate… if you want to convince either an atheist or an evolution supporter (they are not necessarily the same person, but can be) all you need to do is provide logical arguments and credible evidence. So far Creationism/ID and yourself has done neither. Logical fallacies such as arguments from ignorance/incredulity are not compelling. Instead you seem to justify your inability to support your position by just making a baseless assumption that those that disagree with you are “angry at God”, and yet you ironically complain about others putting words into your mouth.
The scientific position is in fact indeed open minded to changing a position based on credible evidence, you just have to make a good case for it. Unfortunately it’s creationism/ID that is closed minded. They accept neither logic nor evidence that is contrary to their position. Also, they fail to see a lack of credible evidence and logical fallacies for their position as a problem for their own side. They expect to be given special consideration in science for a position that they haven’t even tried to scientifically back up. Then when science doesn’t just accept it, they try to undermine science in general and the educational system instead.
Does that sound open minded of the cdesign proponentsists? Sounds more like a bad case of “Morton’s Demon” and the Dunning-Kruger effect.
Those in the scientific community can list what would convince them that evolution is wrong, the cdesign proponentsists side just hasn’t been able to find it after over 200 years. Atheists can generally list what it would take to convince them that they are wrong, but your side hasn’t been able to provide it after thousands of years.
Can you list any reasonable evidence that you would find convincing that you’re wrong?
I’m curious as to whether there is any reasonable evidence that can convince you to change your position.
April 19th, 2009 at 8:12 pm
I guess showing me how life was breathed into anything would be a good start to convince me. I don’t know why I keep replying. I know you are just having fun with me and I am having fun, too, I guess. Logic is great for some things, but it doesn’t apply to everything. I am so glad life is richer than that.
April 19th, 2009 at 9:06 pm
@Moderate:
Thanks for answering! I’m glad that you’re having fun.
As to your response…
How “life was breathed”? Sounds like vitalism… the long since discredited notion of an undetectable “life force” that is assumed to have properties that contradict each other. I’m going to assume for now that you meant that in a more poetic sense, not literally. Either way it has no direct bearing on evolutionary theory itself, it seems more like concern about abiogenesis. Abiogenesis is the leading scientific theory about how life could have gotten started on Earth, but it’s not evolution. Evolution is what happened after life started, not how it started in the first place. Just as the “Big Bang” theory isn’t directly related to how star systems, and the planets in them form.
As for how life starting, are you aware that scientists have already manged to create RNA molecules (basically simple chemical machines) that are able to self-replicate with variation, and thereby evolve themselves into more efficient self-replicators? RNA structures like this are considered to be one of the more likely avenues of abiogenesis, as per the “RNA World” hypothesis.
http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2009/01/chemical_replicators.php
While this doesn’t “prove” that this is how life started, it gets us a big step closer to an answer. In the meantime researchers are getting closer and closer to creating simple life forms from scratch. All of the credible evidence so far shows life as a very complex series of chemical/electrochemical reactions, but there is no sign of a “life force” per se.
When scientists are eventually able to create simple life from scratch in a lab…what then?
I imagine that there will be a lot of goal post shifting when that happens.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:34 pm
*sigh* and once again you show that you have completely ignored us. As we have said repeatedly, evolution does NOT deal with the origin of life. So let me rephrase the question: is there any reasonable evidence that can convince you to change your position about evolution?
And I should point out that although we have not yet made life in the lab, we are very, very close. Certainly within the next decade, perhaps much less (maybe even half that), we will have completely artificial life.
Further, we have a very good idea how life started. We haven’t worked out all of the details, but we have worked out many of them. The conditions on the early Earth are well-established and are very conducive to producing simple self-replicating molecules. Those are the simplest forms of life, once they existed evolution could take over and push for more and more sophisticated forms of life. The details will take some additional work, and scientists are working hard to work them out, but the general concepts are fairly firm.
Logic may not apply to everything, but it certainly does apply to scientific questions. We aren’t talking about music appreciation here, we are talking about science.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:43 pm
And I have said I don’t completely disagree with all of evolution at all. In fact, I wholeheartedly agree Natural Selection happens all the time. As long as neither of us know for certain the origins of life, I think my guess is as good as yours. Both sides think they have an inkling about this. If we take that out of the equation, and you say that is not what evolution is about, then we simply must agree to disagree. I’m sure I’ll read it in the headlines when we can actually make life more complex in the lab. Until then, Peace.
April 19th, 2009 at 10:52 pm
You still don’t get it. My position isn’t a guess, it is an extremely-well supported, detailed, and specific explanation that can be tested against evidence we find in the natural world. We don’t know for certain how gravity works, but that does not mean saying that invisible pink elephants push us down is as good a guess as general relativity. The answer may not be certain, but when one side fits the facts much, much better than the other side then that is the better answer.
No, one side thinks they have an inkling, the other side thinks they have a set of specific, detailed, testable hypotheses that may need some revision in light of future evidence. There is a big difference between the two.
Agree to disagree aboutwhat? I still don’t even know what your position is. I am not going to agree to disagree when I don’t even know what we are disagreeing about.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:11 pm
Blackcat – your educated guess is that the answer to the origins of life lies in SCIENCE. My educated, but less provable, guess is that the answer lies in ART i.e. more along the lines of music appreciation (your example) and therefore subject to having a “design” for the “creation.” Don’t you see? We come at it from very different angles. One not less valid than the other. Art is quite simply not subject to the same rules of the scientific method so of course it is not as easy to prove. This is my position in a nutshell. I don’t know how else to say it. I can’t help it if you don’t understand it. But what we disagree about is where the answer lies to the question of the origins of life.Clear? I can be respectful enough to agree to disagree. I can see your hope lies in science,you hope to find this answer within your lifetime. My hope lies in something that lies in a dimension not subject to the same rules.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
Blackcat said:
“Logic may not apply to everything, but it certainly does apply to scientific questions. We aren’t talking about music appreciation here, we are talking about science.”
You say we are talking about science, I say we are talking about art. This seems to be where the rubber hits the road for us when discussing the big question of the origins of life.
This is an addendum to my post just above.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:44 pm
@ Moderate,
Ooh, we were so close to understanding each other, and then you said,
IT IS NOT A GUESS! We can say, with a level of certainty, that we know how life evolved on this planet. Using the scientific method, anyone in the world can make observations, gather data, perform tests, and come to whatever conclusion they may on how life evolved. And you know what? For over 200 years, nearly everyone has come to the same conclusions. If you want to argue about the details, then you are going to have to work much harder, become far more educated than you already are, and you are going to have to provide real physical evidence that shows you are right, and everyone else is wrong.
In my humble experience, humans have an instinct, or intrinsic desire, to worship something greater than themselves. Its human nature to believe in a deity. However, humans are flawed, and in this day and age, reality can be clearly defined thru the scientific method. If a god or gods really existed, science would be able to prove it. There is no reason to accept that someone, God or otherwise, created the first life form on this planet, without any real evidence. If we can show that life could have started here on its own, there is no need for a deity. If, on the other hand, someone were to discover evidence, and I mean repeatable, testable, independently verifiable evidence, that God or a god or many gods exist, then scientists, atheists, and everyone here would gladly accept that as fact.
Until then, you have your opinion, and we have our facts.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:51 pm
So is gravity art? How about chemistry? I would like you see you use art to find oil deposits or make a fuel cell engine. You can’t just arbitrarily label something as “art” and then use that to dodge any responsibility to back up your claims. As with my example before, the IRS isn’t going to buy that argument, why should we? Unless you can provide some justification for re-labeling science as art, then I have no choice but to conclude you are simply being evasive as usual.
Second, my position is not a guess, it is a testable hypothesis. It is not more a guess than there is a force carrier particle for gravity is a guess. On the other hand your guess is not educated, it is based on nothing more than what is inside your own head.
Using art to deal with facts and events is completely and totally invalid. Art deals with emotions and aesthetics. But questions of what happened, when, how, and why are NOT matters of emotions or aesthetics, they are matters of facts, and thus they cannot be dealt with by art. You really think a history teacher is going to accept it if you just make up an answer to a question and then claim “but it’s art”? Sure you may be able to see some aesthetic aspects to life, but that is totally independent of the questions of when, how, why, and where. How life makes you feel, whether it is beautiful or ugly, those are things that art can help you with, just as they can tell you whether a building is beautiful or ugly. But art will no more help you figure out how life started than it will help you figure out whether a building will stand or fall.
If you use art to determine whether a car is going to hit you are not, you are going to die. If you use art to how to treat an antibiotic-resistant bacteria, you are going to die. If you use art to write your tax returns, you are going to go to jail. If you use art to figure out the load on the trussels of a bridge, it is going to collapse. And if you apply art to the origin of life, your answer is just as useless as in the above examples. You are using art as an excuse to just make up whatever random thoughts pop into your head. That is fine when dealing with questions of what is inside your head, which is what art ultimately is, but when dealing with anything about the outside world it is totally useless.
April 19th, 2009 at 11:53 pm
@Moderate,
I’ve seen art. I’ve seen the beauty and wonder of incredible things people have created. I’ve also seen the beauty and wonder of the natural world, looking at flowers, sunsets, stars, planets, and galaxies with my own eyes.
Where you may look at something beautiful and say, “That’s so lovely, only God could have created it,” I look at the same thing and say, “That’s so lovely, its amazing how those elements come together to form such a beautiful thing.”
My point is, I don’t need to believe some magical being created the universe in order to appreciate it.
April 20th, 2009 at 12:30 am
Moderate said
and then
How about you show us.
April 20th, 2009 at 1:25 am
@ Moderate
Just a quick question for you Moderate.
When scientists can finally have a well established theory about abiogenesis and can demonstrate that it works without divine intervention…. how will that effect your beliefs then? I don’t mean any sort of disrespect, but you seem to be using abiogenesis as a “test of god”.
If a god can be shown to be unnecessary for abiogenesis, I predict that many theologically inclined people will just move the “goal post” to the period before the “Big Bang”. At least until that one gets answered too (assuming that it can be). As I’ve cited before we are much closer to answering abiogenesis than many non-biologists seem to realize. I suspect that it’s part of the reason for Ken Miller’s position of a god that sort of got the universe started, and then stood back for the most part.