Idiots, gullible to the teeth and without the capability to reason, plus greedy dishonest "scientists" have brought us to this point. Want to bet most of the idiots vote Democrap? Sucker bet for sure...
I guess I should be surprised that the believers continue to believe in the scam, despite the evidence that its wrong. But then, they never believed the evidence in the first place.
Trust me, Dr. Lewis has PLENTY of balls... As head of the Jasons, they made some pretty unpopular recommendations, all of which were backed with facts!
As a member of the physics community, I've watched with mounting alarm over the last 10 years as the community became increasingly politicized. I had no idea how bad it had gotten nor to what extent it was driven simply by dollar signs. It's appalling. For a group of people who, to a large extent, don't believe in God and instead believe that the reward for a lifetime of work is to be remembered, this is one hell of an embarrassing legacy to leave behind.
Exactly my point, Ed. They'll be remembered as frauds and charlatans, not as scientists who made valuable contributions to human knowledge. If they had any thought to what they were doing and how they will be remembered, I wonder if they would think it was worth it.
From what I have read, Ed is correct. I don't know anything about ID, but I do know that Darwinism is deader than a doornail. Unlike AGW, Darwinism failed honestly; it was an excellent idea that ultimately did not stand up to the scientific test. When Darwinism continued to be publicly supported, it was clear that this was for ideological, not scientific, reasons. Just like AGW.
juris, I know you asked Ed, but I'll throw in my $0.02 anyway since I'm also a devoted Christian. I take Genesis literally and I believe the evidence that strongly indicates the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
I'm not sure how you define "Darwinism," but evolution through natural selection is definitely the touchstone of molecular biology, and has been proven definitively.
Darwin never said where life came from, he merely explained how it changes over time.
Absence of a causal agent is not evidence of a causal agent.
Kevin, I've been reading a lot about Darwinism lately and would be interested in what LabRat has to say. For the record, I think Darwin's idea was genius, and my objection to it has nothing to do with my religious beliefs (there is nothing in Darwinism that is at odds with my beliefs), but everything to do with science. Here's what I've learned so far:
Darwin’s evolution hypothesis was constructed of four parts that are related to each other the way the four parts of a stool fit together. Darwinism is based on three core ideas:
- The common descent of all life
- Random mutations (very small changes in life forms occurring completely by chance and for no purpose)
- A continuous process of natural selection in which all species compete for survival
The fourth part of Darwin’s hypothesis is the concept of 'gradualism' which connects and rests on the three legs like the seat of a stool. For Darwinism to work, all four components must be scientifically valid -- not a single one can be false. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that the second and third legs have been knocked out along with the seat.
Gradualism is not at all supported by the evidence, and the argument for random mutations has been so thoroughly disproved mathematically that I don't think it's necessary to belabor it.
As for natural selection -- presumably you know about the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance, about 530 million years ago, of new species representing all the basic animal life forms. Ironically, natural selection is problematic not only because of the Cambrian explosion, but because of common descent. The following is a quote from Professor Sean Carroll, who, according to his Wikepedia entry "is at the forefront of evolutionary developmental biology" aka "Evo Devo." In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom he says: "The surprising message from Evo Devo is that all of the genes for building large, complex animal bodies long predated the appearance of those bodies in the Cambrian Explosion. The genetic potential was in place for at least 50 million years, and probably a fair bit longer, before large, complex forms emerged." So the genes necessary for the formation of many complex structures must have predated the Cambrian explosion by at least 50 million years, yet during the Cambrian all of these things are first observed in the fossil record. If all life on Earth has a common ancestor (which could be true) that means some very primitive, as yet undiscovered, animal form must have possessed all of the genes necessary for the Cambrian explosion even though it didn’t have the complex structures itself. In other words, it had these genes even though no advantage had been gained from them and, therefore, natural selection had no chance to work.
I'll get to Ed later, if it's even necessary... dinner looms and my evening is committed.
"Darwin’s evolution hypothesis was constructed of four parts that are related to each other the way the four parts of a stool fit together. Darwinism is based on three core ideas:
- The common descent of all life"
Confirmed by molecular analysis. It actually gets so "common" that one of the problems in bacterial evolution is deciphering the degree to which the oldest roots of the "tree of life" are so molecularly tangled because of linear descent and how much is due to horizontal transfer, gene exchange among bacteria. Making that an even bigger issue is that it's looking as though some of the things we now think of as organelles in eukaryotes turn out to be the descendants of groups of free-living bacteria, stripped down to their most basic components and serving as cellular engines. Single-celled organisms didn't just answer the question of sexual vs asexual reproduction with "yes!", they apparently performed full takeovers at a few points.
Vertebrates, which I suspect you are more interested in, have much cleaner phylogenetic trees. It's really quite easy to construct phylogenies from molecular data that match the previously constructed ones, though there have been interesting results there. But I'll leave it at "the evidence overwhelmingly supports common descent".
"- Random mutations (very small changes in life forms occurring completely by chance and for no purpose)"
What an odd way to construct the concept. Mutations don't occur "completely by chance", they occur due to copying errors, which DNA is much more prone to than RNA (one of the reasons an RNA origin of life is currently one of the strongest schools of thought in theories about the earliest origins), and damage to DNA that is repaired incompletely. Mutagens both very mild and severe occur in nature, but can we at least come to an agreement about "background rate of copying errors"? (Which is itself not even consistent, some regions are much more highly conserved than others by necessity- errors that happen there result in a nonviable organism.) You're right in that mutation occurs for no purpose, but a very large part of any organism's genome is basically epigentic contingency programming; environmental pressures don't affect mutation but they absolutely affect a great deal of which genes are turned on and which off. I've seen epigenetics reported as "challenge to Darwinism" in pop science reporting but it's a long-recognized phenomenon that is nothing of the sort- you just need to have had at least a college-level education in biology to have likely even heard of it.
"A continuous process of natural selection in which all species compete for survival"
Another odd way to put it. selection occurs at multiple levels, the strongest of which is the individual, and by far the weakest one "species". The idea that species-level selection occurs at all is a controversial one, though no doubt if you asked island species who have come into recent contact with mainland ones they'd disagree.
"The fourth part of Darwin’s hypothesis is the concept of 'gradualism' which connects and rests on the three legs like the seat of a stool."
We HAVE advanced rather beyond Darwin and Lyell, you know.
" For Darwinism to work, all four components must be scientifically valid -- not a single one can be false."
For Darwin to have been absolutely right you'd be right. But the core of natural selection as the engine of evolution- change over time- doesn't rely on Darwin. Natural selection requires variation and differential selective pressures. That's it. That's all. It doesn't have to be variation generated purely by completely random mutation (otherwise what purpose meiosis, or sex?), it doesn't have to strictly happen at one speed (pressures are not constant and there is no reason they should be), and there doesn't even necessarily need to be selective pressure on every single trait at all times. Motoo Kimura's big contribution to the field was demonstrating that mutations aren't necessarily bad/good but often entirely neutral in their impact.
"presumably you know about the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance, about 530 million years ago, of new species representing all the basic animal life forms."
Yes, and astoundingly enough, so do evolutionary biologists, who think the Cambrian period is a source of fascination rather than a dark secret. Hence all the discussion of it.
"The following is a quote from Professor Sean Carroll, who, according to his Wikepedia entry "is at the forefront of evolutionary developmental biology" aka "Evo Devo." In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom he says: "The surprising message from Evo Devo is that all of the genes for building large, complex animal bodies long predated the appearance of those bodies in the Cambrian Explosion. The genetic potential was in place for at least 50 million years, and probably a fair bit longer, before large, complex forms emerged.""
Have you read it yet? It's on my shelf but I'm currently occupied with a Boyd work about art as an active human adaptation. According to friends it's quite good. I know you wouldn't just cherrypick quotes in order to demonstrate that respected experts in a field must be dishonest or deluded in believing their field actually exists. That would be careless at best and dishonest at worst.
"So the genes necessary for the formation of many complex structures must have predated the Cambrian explosion by at least 50 million years, yet during the Cambrian all of these things are first observed in the fossil record. If all life on Earth has a common ancestor (which could be true) that means some very primitive, as yet undiscovered, animal form must have possessed all of the genes necessary for the Cambrian explosion even though it didn’t have the complex structures itself. In other words, it had these genes even though no advantage had been gained from them and, therefore, natural selection had no chance to work."
This is only true if you think that each and every gene must be "for" something, or to remain entirely the same in structure and function over time, an attitude which I understand to be common in intelligent design circles. One of the few characterizations you made about natural selection I agreed with is that mutation, and for that matter recombination and sexual reproduction, aren't purpose-directed. It's certainly Behe's model, but as pretty much every single molecular evolutionary biologist (a field Behe claimed did not exist, which either required deliberate dishonesty or a deliberate failure to check on the truth of a statement before saying it- both practices I understand the Bible has a great deal more to say about than it does the origin of life) has pointed out, variations of genes that function in entirely different ways are common. It would be an extrordinary thing to discover that sponges have "genes for synapses", which sponges do not have, to pick on one interesting recent example- but what the sponge has is genes that code for proteins that in creatures with advanced nervous systems are critical in making synapses. It's useful in talking about the science to refer to the "(feature) gene", but genes code for PROTEINS, not features. Sponges don't have genes only useful in the nervous system they don't have, they use the same protein complex to do something else, in this case a much less organized form of cellular communication. Saying that vertebrates have synapse genes found in sponges that don't have synapses is like saying clay has statue molecules despite not always being found in statues.
Seriously Sarah, please do some reading that isn't apologetics and is above high school biology level. I promise you it is fascinating and may give you even more awe in your faith. May I recommend Cohen and Stewart, The Collapse of Chaos? You will probably not agree with everything they assert but it is written agnostically with respect to materialism vs theism and gives one of the best explanations of the actual nature of DNA and genomes, and how evolution operates as a dynamical system, that I have ever read. Dawkins is one of the clearest writers on evolutionary theory, but his often very ignorant ranting about religion poisons him.
[For clarity: my previous comments in bold; LabRat's comments in italics.]
As a scientist and as a Christian, I have no argument with common descent. I believe it has been more or less proven, and it does not contradict anything in the Bible.
I have heard of epigenetics even without a college level education in biology. It is my understanding that environmental pressures cause some genes to be turned on or off and these genetic changes can be passed on to at least one or two generations. This would then be an example of change within a species not caused by a random mutation, would it not? It is slightly reminiscent of Lamarckism to the layman’s eye.
Random mutations (very small changes in life forms occurring completely by chance and for no purpose) ...
What an odd way to construct the concept. Mutations don't occur "completely by chance", they occur due to copying errors, which DNA is much more prone to than RNA ...
As an astrophysicist, I am convinced it would be good if we scientists could learn to talk in two different ways. One way to their colleagues using all of the latest terminology that captures the intricacies and shades of meaning required in a complicated body of ever-increasing knowledge. But scientists should also be able to convey their knowledge (at least the basics) in everyday language so they can share it with the general public. By random, we scientists of course mean that something is undirected and can only be dealt with as a probability. However, the public generally understands that anything that has to be expressed as a probability involves the notion of chance. I was directing my comment to a non-scientist (albeit engineer) which is why I used a term that you as a biologist find 'odd.'
A continuous process of natural selection in which all species compete for survival ...
Another odd way to put it. selection occurs at multiple levels, the strongest of which is the individual, and by far the weakest one "species". The idea that species-level selection occurs at all is a controversial one, though no doubt if you asked island species who have come into recent contact with mainland ones they'd disagree.
Natural selection as Darwin presented it was a continuous process based on competition for survival. Darwin was inspired in his work by the writings of Thomas Malthus who argued that too many offspring are born within any group of animals. With limited resources available, some of the young will die while others will survive. The more 'fit' will be those that have some advantage due to the variability (which Darwinists now believe comes from random genetic mutations) that occurs within any animal population. Thus each individual animal is from birth forced by nature into the inevitable competition for survival. If this is somehow odd to you, your argument is with Darwin and Malthus, not me.
The fourth part of Darwin’s hypothesis is the concept of 'gradualism' which connects and rests on the three legs like the seat of a stool.
We HAVE advanced rather beyond Darwin and Lyell, you know.
I am very much interested in this statement, but it is too vague to be of any use. Do you mean that Darwin's hypothesis about evolution was inadequate or wrong? Was he wrong about "natura non facit saltum," common descent, random mutation, or natural selection? The public would be very interested to have biologists admit this. Or are you merely observing that Darwin didn't know about Mendel's work or genetics at the time he wrote On the Origin of Species ... ? My understanding of neo-Darwinism is that it was a synthesis of Darwin's notions and Mendel's work which rather seamlessly incorporated the findings of modern genetic studies as they occurred. If that is true, my statement that the basic hypothesis of evolution still rests on four fundamental ideas is still correct. If this is wrong, please specify which of Darwin's four basic ideas is no longer included in modern evolutionary theory.
For Darwinism to work, all four components must be scientifically valid -- not a single one can be false.
For Darwin to have been absolutely right you'd be right. But the core of natural selection as the engine of evolution- change over time- doesn't rely on Darwin. Natural selection requires variation and differential selective pressures. That's it. That's all. It doesn't have to be variation generated purely by completely random mutation (otherwise what purpose meiosis, or sex?), it doesn't have to strictly happen at one speed (pressures are not constant and there is no reason they should be), and there doesn't even necessarily need to be selective pressure on every single trait at all times. Motoo Kimura's big contribution to the field was demonstrating that mutations aren't necessarily bad/good but often entirely neutral in their impact.
Your statement again seems to imply that Darwin was somehow inadequate or just wrong. Or perhaps what you are saying is that Darwin is no longer central to evolutionary thought. Is that what you are saying? Also, if you are saying that biologists now believe that some mutation occurs in nature non-randomly, that is a very important new finding that has not been communicated in the popular literature about evolution. Why would biologists withhold this important new information from the general public? The only non-random variation in species I am aware of is the use of selective breeding by farmers and others who have certain predetermined goals in mind for livestock, dogs, cats, etc. Much of your response does not seem relevant to my point.
... presumably you know about the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance, about 530 million years ago, of new species representing all the basic animal life forms.
Yes, and astoundingly enough, so do evolutionary biologists, who think the Cambrian period is a source of fascination rather than a dark secret. Hence all the discussion of it.
I have followed the discussion of the Cambrian Explosion in the works of Carroll, Zimmer, Dawkins, Gould, and others. What I have found is some discussion but no explanation. Perhaps you could explain how such an amazing variety of animal forms could emerge in such an improbably short time with no plausible evolutionary antecedents in the fossil record? I am particularly distressed by Dawkins response to questions about the Cambrian. In his latest book, he sets up a straw man that he conjures from his biased interpretation of Christian scriptures and then triumphantly knocks it over. That is not the scientific response I would expect from one of the world’s foremost biologists to one of the great mysteries of nature.
The following is a quote from Professor Sean Carroll, who, according to his Wikepedia entry "is at the forefront of evolutionary developmental biology" aka "Evo Devo." In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom he says: "The surprising message from Evo Devo is that all of the genes for building large, complex animal bodies long predated the appearance of those bodies in the Cambrian Explosion. The genetic potential was in place for at least 50 million years, and probably a fair bit longer, before large, complex forms emerged."
Have you read it yet? It's on my shelf but I'm currently occupied with a Boyd work about art as an active human adaptation. According to friends it's quite good. I know you wouldn't just cherrypick quotes in order to demonstrate that respected experts in a field must be dishonest or deluded in believing their field actually exists. That would be careless at best and dishonest at worst.
The quote from Carroll's book is unambiguous and does not seem open to more than one interpretation. But just so you know that I am not being careless or dishonest I will provide some additional direct quotes about the Cambrian. I hope these will interest you enough to read his book.
Despite the scarcity of the earlier fossil record, Evo Devo allows us to peer even deeper into animal history, before the Cambrian, to ponder the complexity and forms of the ancestors of the Cambrian animals – especially the mysterious last common ancestor or all bilateral animals, including ourselves. P139
Whatever the Ediacaran oddballs were, during this time the ancestors of the animals of the Cambrian must have existed. We don’t know what they looked like but new insights from Evo Devo allow us to imagine what to look for…To think about our ancestors we have to make some inferences based upon the structure of the animal evolutionary tree. P141
The first appearance of clearly recognizable members of many…groups is in the Cambrian period…we deduce that the common ancestors of various groups must predate the Cambrian by some chunk of time. This is an inference because the fossil record…before the Cambrian is very scanty. P142
It does not appear that scarcity is a fault of the fossil record.
Without confirmed body fossils, paleontology is reluctant to conjure up more than a vague image of a featureless, wormlike creature for the last common ancestor ... (Emphasis added)
If we can’t say much for certain from the fossil record, what can we say about the animal ancestors based on other kinds of evidence? We can make inferences based on what is shared among descendants. This is the critical logic used in Evo Devo to peer into the distant past.
... the common ancestor of bilaterians ... ( ... Urbilateria ... )…had a tool kit of at least six or seven Hox genes, Pax-6, Distal-less, tinman, and a few hundred more body-building genes. It is intriguing to ponder just what so many genes were doing in Urbilateria.
So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record. Worse yet for Darwin, this featureless worm had all kinds of genes that weren’t expressed as actual physical forms for another 50 million years. In other words it had just the right mix of genes to pass on to its descendents to produce the incredible explosion of life forms witnessed in the fossil record even though it accumulated those genes without the help of natural selection.
Do you disagree with these findings of Evo Devo? If you don't, are you willing to admit that the notion of natural selection is inadequate to explain how the Cambrian Explosion took place? Please give some help to an earnest layman who in the face of what a leading biologist has written has no alternative to the belief that if 'Urbilateria' did exist, it must have been genetically preprogrammed somehow – that would certainly be an interesting and mysterious case of your not-completely-random mutation.
So the genes necessary for the formation of many complex structures must have predated the Cambrian explosion by at least 50 million years, yet during the Cambrian all of these things are first observed in the fossil record. If all life on Earth has a common ancestor (which could be true) that means some very primitive, as yet undiscovered, animal form must have possessed all of the genes necessary for the Cambrian explosion even though it didn’t have the complex structures itself. In other words, it had these genes even though no advantage had been gained from them and, therefore, natural selection had no chance to work.
This is only true if you think that each and every gene must be "for" something, or to remain entirely the same in structure and function over time, an attitude which I understand to be common in intelligent design circles. One of the few characterizations you made about natural selection I agreed with is that mutation, and for that matter recombination and sexual reproduction, aren't purpose-directed. It's certainly Behe's model, but as pretty much every single molecular evolutionary biologist (a field Behe claimed did not exist, which either required deliberate dishonesty or a deliberate failure to check on the truth of a statement before saying it- both practices I understand the Bible has a great deal more to say about than it does the origin of life) has pointed out, variations of genes that function in entirely different ways are common. It would be an extrordinary thing to discover that sponges have "genes for synapses", which sponges do not have, to pick on one interesting recent example- but what the sponge has is genes that code for proteins that in creatures with advanced nervous systems are critical in making synapses. It's useful in talking about the science to refer to the "(feature) gene", but genes code for PROTEINS, not features. Sponges don't have genes only useful in the nervous system they don't have, they use the same protein complex to do something else, in this case a much less organized form of cellular communication. Saying that vertebrates have synapse genes found in sponges that don't have synapses is like saying clay has statue molecules despite not always being found in statues.
Again, your response does not give a clear answer to my question, which was essentially, "How can genes accumulate if natural selection is not at work?" Also, if you look at the last quote from Carroll's book, he refers to 'tool kit' genes that are what he calls "body-building genes." He says that his and other research in evolutionary development shows that there are genes such as the Pax-6 gene for eye formation, Distal-less gene for limb formation, and the tinman gene for heart formation. So there are genes that form features.
But the really amazing finding of Evo Devo is that you can put a gene, such as the Pax-6 gene, from a mouse into an insect and it will function correctly for that other species. The following is from the book Evolution by Carl Zimmer who is an enthusiastic supporter of Darwin:
Joy turned to shock when biologists began to find Hox genes in other animals – in frogs, mice, and humans; in velvet worms, barnacles, and starfish. In every case, parts of their Hox genes were almost identical, regardless of the animal that carried them ...
Biologists discovered that the Hox genes did the same job in all of these animals: specifying different sections of the head-to-tail axis just as they do in insects. Hox genes in these different animals are so similar that scientists can replace a defective Hox gene in a fruit fly with the corresponding Hox gene from a mouse, and the fly will still grow its proper body parts. P140
I know enough about evolution theory to know that this outcome was totally unanticipated by Darwin or any of his followers. I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this.
Seriously Sarah, please do some reading that isn't apologetics and is above high school biology level ...
Seriously?? I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty.
"Again, your response does not give a clear answer to my question, which was essentially, "How can genes accumulate if natural selection is not at work?""
Okay, I think I understand what you were really asking now. The short answer is found in my comment about the randomness of mutation: the most common copying error in DNA, and DNA's proneness to copying errors is hugely important, is gene duplication. Duplicate genes can mutate without necessarily causing direct selective impact; a mutant duplicate that isn't functional is a neutral mutation as long as there's a functional duplicate that can be read and processed correctly. A mutant duplicate that IS functional in some way can be harmful, but it can also function in ways that are slightly different but still, for the purposes of the organism with the gene, work. The ultimate outcome of this, especially when combined with gene transfer, recombination, and sex, is a constant supply of minor variation that is well insulated from catastrophic consequences but sometimes functions in new ways that may provide advantage. There are multiple genes in humans that vary slightly from each other but seem to perform the same general function- just slightly differently, sometimes in ways that seem to cause pathological consequences, sometimes in ways that seem to give advantage, and sometimes even both at once. The same variant that seems to be associated with very accurate memory for a young human also seems to be associated with Alzheimer's later in life, for example.
A variant that is not very important may- if it turns out to allow a new and highly advantageous function- later become indispensable to further organisms and thereafter become ubiquitous, with variants that don't function that way going extinct except in surviving ancestral populations.
"He says that his and other research in evolutionary development shows that there are genes such as the Pax-6 gene for eye formation, Distal-less gene for limb formation, and the tinman gene for heart formation. So there are genes that form features."
Right. That is what they now. That doesn't *necessarily* mean that is what they- or more accurately their earliest recognizable forms- always did. A developmental gene wasn't necessarily always a developmental gene any more than a horse is necessarily a lungfish. Awkward clunky example, I know, and I've probably beaten my point into the ground if I've managed to make it at all.
"But the really amazing finding of Evo Devo is that you can put a gene, such as the Pax-6 gene, from a mouse into an insect and it will function correctly for that other species."
Pretty neat, isn't it? The genes themselves are highly conserved, and other regions of a given creature's genome provide instructions on how to use them. Sort of like a bucket of legos that may contain instructions on how to turn them into a castle and may contain instructions on how to turn them into a spaceship. Genomes aren't just instructions on how to build a creature, they're also instructions about how to read the instructions. Something that becomes increasingly necessary the more duplicate genes and broken copies and epigenetic contingencies are accumulated.
" I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this."
Is it clear now or should I try again? I really must reiterate my recommendation for "Collapse of Chaos", I think it has a lot of the explanation you're looking for.
"Seriously?? I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty."
I do owe you an apology and I offer it in full. I was wrong to take that tone and I was wrong to assume I knew where you were coming from.
The explanation, which is not an excuse, is sheer frustration. It is infuriating to be constantly told that one of the organizing principles of your intellectual world is nonsense based on reasons given that reveal the speaker both lacks even basic knowledge and has no intention of gaining it- as Ed below.
I imagine the tone of this reply is different from my first and middle ones. Please consider the apology to cover any further snarkiness.
I will caveat though that it really IS rather provocative to claim that the central organizing principle around which the last hundred years of progress in a fied has been based is wrong- but I gather now you didn't realize that it IS that central to biology.
"So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record."
Depends how? Does this invalidate "natural selection is differential selective pressure on variability over time"? You've already agreed that common descent is established fact. Evolutionary theory describes how evolution works and puts the diversity of life into a coherent theoretical context, it doesn't exist to say "life started here and looked like this". One application is to use logical inference as best we can to make accurate speculations about it, but the lack of a fossil record for a billion-year-old soft-bodied theoretical creature doesn't validate or invalidate evolutionary theory; it's merely missing information. We may even have made or be making wrong inferences- but that's how science works, we study the evidence actually available to us and try to make accurate conclusions about it. When we fail that doesn't invalidate science.
" Worse yet for Darwin, this featureless worm had all kinds of genes that weren’t expressed as actual physical forms for another 50 million years."
Again I'm not sure what point you think you're making. The HOX set does the same thing in all descendants and that's why it's interesting to the study of developmental evolution, but that doesn't mean that's what they did in any given ancestor. All of us have lots of genes (or descendants of genes, really) that don't do the same thing for us that they did for a very distant ancestor. We sometimes get the chance to find out what they do instead when an ancestral group is still extant, like the sponges and their genes that are now synapse genes in all creatures with nervous systems but faciliate a different form of cellular communication for the sponge.
Genes code for proteins. Not features. We see the traces of evolution when they DO do consistent things- and of particularly paradigm-changing innovations when they do the same thing in all descendants. Development is of special interest precisely because it is extremely conserved that way.
"In other words it had just the right mix of genes to pass on to its descendents to produce the incredible explosion of life forms witnessed in the fossil record even though it accumulated those genes without the help of natural selection."
What on earth makes you think this? To pick a more physical example, I've got a skeleton that equips me to run around on land, but that's certainly not what the earliest vertebrates were using it for.
A theoretical ancestor had genes that were working very well for it, or it would have been selected out of existence. Later descendants elaborated on those genes in ways that were sometimes surprising and in some cases proved to open up wide new spaces of possibility, and those particular descendants then had a great deal more descendants.
"Please give some help to an earnest layman who in the face of what a leading biologist has written has no alternative to the belief that if 'Urbilateria' did exist, it must have been genetically preprogrammed somehow – that would certainly be an interesting and mysterious case of your not-completely-random mutation."
I am honestly not completely sure where the source of our evident complete disconnect is. To me the transition of genes that now organize the symmetrical development found in nearly all organisms from an ancestral form is to me no different than the transition of an ancestral globin gene into the hemoglobin family of genes found in both organisms that don't need oxygen and those that do; they are putting the same basic substrate to different purpose, but as it turned out being able to safely use oxygen as an energy source is massively advantageous. This family of genes is even older than the developmental genes that Carroll is concerned with, but they are visibly related.
To me this, the panda's thumb, the vertebrate's skeleton, the sponge's "synapse" gene that isn't, and the theoretical ancestor with the HOX genes are all examples of the same underlying principle.
"Or perhaps what you are saying is that Darwin is no longer central to evolutionary thought. Is that what you are saying?"
Yes. Natural selection as I have outlined it is, but Darwin has no more relevance to current work than Kepler has to astrophysics.
"Also, if you are saying that biologists now believe that some mutation occurs in nature non-randomly"
It doesn't occur completely and totally randomly, no. Some things reliably induce mutation. Some regions of the genome will contain many more mutations than others, and this is one of the things used to construct phylogenetic trees, since more conserved regions with fewer mutations can be used to roughly estimate time of divergence. Some forms of mutation are much more common than others. Some of these differences underly important mechanisms of evolution- like gene duplication being the most common form of DNA copying error.
" that is a very important new finding that has not been communicated in the popular literature about evolution."
Is what I just said what you thought, or something different? From my point of view non-random aspects of mutation are important and allow evolution to behave in certain ways, but you may have actually meant "mutations are purpose-directed".
"The only non-random variation in species I am aware of is the use of selective breeding by farmers and others who have certain predetermined goals in mind for livestock, dogs, cats, etc. Much of your response does not seem relevant to my point."
Yet you said earlier you are aware of epigenetic phenomena, and sex is often not random; sexual selection is still a hot and often very contested topic in biology. If my response isn't relevant to you it may be because I don't understand what point you think you're making. The commenter below who suggested substituting "chaotic" for "random" may have provided an important clarification.
" What I have found is some discussion but no explanation. Perhaps you could explain how such an amazing variety of animal forms could emerge in such an improbably short time with no plausible evolutionary antecedents in the fossil record?"
As the commenter below pointed out, one of the innovations of the Cambrian was hard body parts. The Burgess shale is remarkable because it was a very rare sort of fossilization event; preserving soft-bodied animals for 500 million years requires extremely specific conditions and then requires that nothing destroys it and then requires that we find it. There probably was rapid adaptive radiation simply because more varied life created more niches, much as we have much more complete records of rapid adaptive radiation when vertebrates colonized land, grasses became prevalaent, and the dinosaurs departed and left a massive quantity of empty niches to inhabit- but far less rapid than *instant*. You say "with no antecedent", but the record we have of pre-Cambrian life is extremely thin for reasons of pure geology.
"I am particularly distressed by Dawkins response to questions about the Cambrian. In his latest book, he sets up a straw man that he conjures from his biased interpretation of Christian scriptures and then triumphantly knocks it over. That is not the scientific response I would expect from one of the world’s foremost biologists to one of the great mysteries of nature."
I'm going to take a moment to enjoy warm common ground. Dawkins's ignorant, blinkered, and spiteful attitude to religion in general and Christians in particular is a profound tragedy for science education, and while I love his earlier work and earlier writings explaining evolution I dearly wish he had stopped there. I'm also going to recommend Cohen and Stewart again; they have a very interesting take on the Cambrian explosion contra Gould's and don't poison their writing by railing against religion.
Speaking of Malthus, I dread unchecked geometric growth of this discussion. We'll see how long it can be sustained. Part one.
"As a scientist and as a Christian, I have no argument with common descent. I believe it has been more or less proven, and it does not contradict anything in the Bible."
Fair enough. That I am arguing with Ed below who is denying the entire possibility does not mean I therefore argue it with you just because you're both Christians. I apologize.
" It is my understanding that environmental pressures cause some genes to be turned on or off and these genetic changes can be passed on to at least one or two generations. This would then be an example of change within a species not caused by a random mutation, would it not? It is slightly reminiscent of Lamarckism to the layman’s eye."
Change to the phenotype, not change to the genotype. What genetic information is passed on to the next generation is the same result of meiosis and sex as it would be otherwise- but which bits are turned on and which off are indeed partly dependent on parental imprinting. Mammals are even wholly dependent on it, which is why parthenogenesis appears in fish and reptiles but never mammals. Without the epigenetic information from the other parent, development fails.
It may look like Lamarckism, but it isn't quite. It's all still based on heritable variation, it's just that, as you may be seeing, mutation is the least of the sources of variation that selective pressures act on in practice. It's just the only one that brings in wholly and entirely novel variation.
"As an astrophysicist, I am convinced it would be good if we scientists could learn to talk in two different ways. One way to their colleagues using all of the latest terminology that captures the intricacies and shades of meaning required in a complicated body of ever-increasing knowledge. But scientists should also be able to convey their knowledge (at least the basics) in everyday language so they can share it with the general public."
I just deleted a fairly lengthy bit because I now think it was an overreaction. Condensed: I keep picking on your phrasing because it's not quite accurate in ways that I think generate and enhance misunderstanding. I actually do spend a lot of time blogging about evolution and my hope and my goal is to make it comprehensible to a layman; I do it because it's fascinating and beautiful and I'm passionate about it and want to share that with the curious. I'm irritable because I have the sense that you are not actually curious but rather seeking to deny without working to gain understanding- which may not even be true and in which case I would be being unfair.
"The more 'fit' will be those that have some advantage due to the variability (which Darwinists now believe comes from random genetic mutations) that occurs within any animal population. Thus each individual animal is from birth forced by nature into the inevitable competition for survival. If this is somehow odd to you, your argument is with Darwin and Malthus, not me."
Please stop referring to modern evolutionary theory as "Darwinism" or I will be forced to do something childish and begin referring to astrophysics as Ptolemyism.
Again, not exactly accurate- Darwin had no mechanism to pin heritability on and he knew it, and his proposed theoretical one was entirely wrong. We now know about genes, and evolutionary theory did not achieve the central status in biology it has now until the Modern Synthesis merged what naturalists knew and understood with what geneticists did. We now understand genetic variability to be constantly generated- yes, by mutation, but primarily by gene transfer, recombination through meiosis, and sexual reproduction.
"Do you mean that Darwin's hypothesis about evolution was inadequate or wrong? Was he wrong about "natura non facit saltum," common descent, random mutation, or natural selection?"
I mean it was wrong in many of the details of his writing, but a correct broad observation of how nature works. We can probably dispense with common descent as an argument between you and me at this point. "Natura non facit saltum", for example- it is now understood that evolution doesn't proceed at the same pace and that pace can at times be quite uneven, the Cambrian explosion being a classic case in point. You don't get a bird from lizard parents- but when some natural innovation or event opens up a new space of possibilities for life, the speed of adaptive radiation picks up dramatically. When selective pressures change dramatically, so does the pace of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium, however, is not news. If the public has not heard it is because the public is not listening.
" If that is true, my statement that the basic hypothesis of evolution still rests on four fundamental ideas is still correct. If this is wrong, please specify which of Darwin's four basic ideas is no longer included in modern evolutionary theory."
I was under the impression that I had just done that. You seem to think that periods like the Cambrian are unusual because they are not as gradual as other periods; periods of rapid adaptive radiation fit seamlessly into modern theory even if they might have surprised Darwin. Natural selection does involve differential selective pressures, which is not actually always the same thing as direct competition- modern evolutionary theory also involves a great deal of work on the selective advantages afforded by cooperation, and also the high degree to which many mutations turn out to be neutral in effect, as well as the contribution that plain old genetic drift can make. You put mutation as one of your "legs", but the primary sources of variation on which selection acts in effect are only indirectly due to mutation.
They key idea as I put it is: natural selection is differential selective pressures acting on natural variation. You may not see a difference between this and your own phrasing, and it is not how Darwin would have put it, but it is the fundamental mechanism of both Darwin's hypothesis and modern theory.
To pick an example from astrophysics, epicycles were wrong in every particular but regular predictable planetary orbits exist. Correct observation, wrong explanation. This is a much more extreme example than the difference between Darwin's writing and modern evolutionary theory, but is my point taken?
LabRat, I very much appreciate the apology, and am looking forward to continuing this discussion. However, please give me a day or two, as I'm quite busy, and I'll respond to your comments.
BTW, I take rather a harsh position against biologists in a response to UJ below; but understand that this is largely directed at the biology community and not you personally, as I know you are not an anti-theist.
Fair enough. I managed to acquire a thumping headache due to something that has nothing to do with you or this discussion, so I am grateful for the break.
I did respond to that, but detente between the two of us for the purposes of productivity seems to be the best idea by far.
Thank you for your response. I hope you're feeling better. As far as your detailed answers to my comments and questions go, I've gotten what I need and would now like to steer this conversation in a specific direction.
First, a confession. When I first converted from atheism to Christianity a few years ago I was pre-inclined to dismiss the biological sciences. You experienced my prejudice on this blog a few years ago. It was just an instinctive reaction. Since then, I decided it was time to really learn about evolution, and when I actually started studying it in earnest -- not from apologetics, but from the experts -- I realized that not only is biology utterly fascinating but totally supportive of the biblical view of life. So I want to say that I now understand how biologists could feel constantly under assault given the current climate of distrust caused by the ongoing dispute over evolution. I feel great sympathy for the earnest biologists enduring a cloud of suspicion as they toil according to the scientific method. I appreciate the biologists such as yourself who recognize that it isn’t right for people like Richard Dawkins to enlist the full weight of the science of biology to make philosophical/ theological points. Ultimately, it is vitally important for all people in our modern society to vigorously support the biological sciences as they continue to make important breakthroughs in knowledge that will serve humankind in positive ways. But part of supporting biology is ensuring that the integrity of the science is relentlessly protected so that all segments of society can feel total trust in the work that is being done.
So, I also hope earnest biologists can understand the perspective of those who are devoutly religious and are upset when some biologists misuse science to promote atheistic views that are not in the realm of science. Here’s a very recent example, an article in the Vancouver Sun entitled "Scientist sheds new light on free will." It reported that Prof. Patrick Haggard of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience in London had done research on "transcranial magnetic stimulation." The research used magnetic coils to affect the human brain from outside the skull and "then to control the body." With the help of a research assistant, the professor demonstrated how holding a device next to his head could stimulate part of his brain and "If we get it right it might cause something." When the professor’s hand twitched, he responded, "It’s not me doing that, it’s her." The article goes on to report that, although "the machinery can’t force Haggard to do anything really complicated ... The mechanical nature of it is unsettling."
What is being reported is an interesting advance in biological technology. Everyone knows that the brain controls muscle contractions, except in the case of a reflex. Everyone knows that the brain can be stimulated by electrodes implanted in it, which can cause all kinds of reactions and sensations. This experiment takes this understanding one step further. It is interesting and possibly very useful, but that is as far as the science can go. The professor goes too far when he states the following:
"I’m not doing it, [my assistant] is. I’m just a machine, and she is operating me."
"We certainly don't have free will."
"We don't have free will in the spiritual sense. What you're seeing is the last output stage of a machine ... there's no ghost in the machine."
The reporter goes on to write:
"This, Haggard says, has profound implications: philosophically, morally, and – most worryingly – legally."
If a Christian physicist did something similar, if for instance s/he were to say that the big bang proves that God exists, I guarantee that two groups of people would respond with vigorous indignation: atheists and the vast majority of physicists, including most of those physicists who are Christian. The big bang certainly demonstrates that our universe was created in the truest sense of the word 'create,' meaning something out of nothing; but science can go no further; it can make no statement about the creative force behind the existence of our universe.
Professor Haggard is declaring that he has proved that humans have no soul or spirit. This is ludicrous and a destructive misuse of science. He is deliberately picking a fight with all people of faith and in doing so has done a terrible disserve to biological science. By claiming more than science can ever accomplish, by indulging his atheistic views, he has corrupted and tarnished the science of biology. Individuals make mistakes, but what concerns me most about all this is that when individuals such as Haggard, Dawkins, and other atheist biologists misuse biology, there is no public outcry from their fellow biologists and no meaningful attempt by any professional group or body to protect the integrity of the biological sciences. It appears, and I hope with all my heart that it is just an appearance and not a reality, that biology is being turned away from a pure search for truth and increasingly being recruited to provide support for atheistic views. This would be a great tragedy for all humankind. Until Christians see some formal and public outcry from a significant body of biologists against the misuse of science from people like Thomas Huxley all the way to Dawkins, they're going to be mistrustful of all biologists.
Going back to the overall science, I was puzzled when both you and Unix mentioned Kepler as an example of outdated physics. Kepler did not produce any theories, but rather physical laws, and these laws have not been overturned. In fact, in my own work we describe a particular type of orbital motion around black holes as "Keplerian rotation" and Newton's generalization of Kepler's third law is still used to calculate masses of binary systems including double-stars and exo-planets. NASA even named a recent mission to discover exo-planets after Kepler.
However, Kepler was never the full story. Newton went on to make a huge breakthrough with gravity and his laws of motion, but he turned out to be fundamentally wrong about at least one thing (the speed of gravity) and we now know that even his work was not the full story. Regardless, Kepler's and Newton's laws are still very much valid in a particular limit. In fact, one of the first things students learn in modern physics is that virtually all observed non-classical phenomena, whether relativistic or quantum mechanical, converge to the classical (i.e. Newtonian) description in the limit of the large and the slow. OTOH, as you have rightly pointed out, Ptolemy was completely wrong even though he had a workable model. So this leads to my final question for you. What I want to know is what Darwin is to biology. Is he regarded as the Kepler/Newton of biology or is he the Ptolemy of biology?
Sarah, this sort of crap outrages me as well, although maybe not as much as it probably should just because it's annoying background noise to me much of the time, although when I run across it in the news I usually make tearing it to bits my blog priority of the day. You might get a kick out of this one- http://www.atomicnerds.com/?p=2696 Your point made I will take it more seriously from here on out; if it's any comfort this kind of shit only seems to play to the press and not the field itself.
In any case, my faulty comparisons were in part due to what I think is part of our disconnect that caused this entire discussion, which is that physics and biology are two fields that require very different mindsets to approach productively, and I think often physicists and biologists misunderstand each other a great deal just because of this fact, all history aside. So, I have trouble drawing completely accurate analogies just because of that. A deeply important difference is that biology has very, very few laws in the sense of Newton or Kepler's laws; even when we produce fundamental equations, like the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, it's recognized that they illustrate principles but don't actually describe any living population of animals. Too many variables, and most importantly variables that all constantly affect each other at the same time.
The short answer is that Darwin is still respected for the contribution of the fundamental mechanism of natural selection, but recognized to have been wrong in many of the details, some of which seem obscure to an outsider but still have very important implications. If you really want to see a professional evolutionary biologist going after Darwin hammer and tongs, read Joan Roughgarden's "Genial Genes". It's quite dense since she's writing for colleagues rather than for a popular audience, but the entire thing is basically a critical deconstruction of his second book on sexual selection and the theoretical heritage it's accumulated since. Quite an effective one if you ask me, too- she's bristled a lot of beards but in my opinion most of her assault is well earned.
To put it in a way that may be more directly clear: modern debates, efforts in career advancement to expand current theory, and points of contention are all based on the theory contributions (and calculations) of thinkers of the last forty years or so. Roughgarden's book on the theoretical heritage of one of Darwin's theories is unusual *because* it calls him back as the source of underlying assumptions modern theory is often based that she believes (and arguably demonstrates) are fallacious.
Sarah, this sort of crap outrages me as well, although maybe not as much as it probably should just because it's annoying background noise to me much of the time, although when I run across it in the news I usually make tearing it to bits my blog priority of the day.
I sympathize with the difficulty scientists have understanding public perception of the work we do. I'm more aware of it than the average scientist who is busily focused on his/her work, because I do a ton of public outreach. You might be surprised by how the general public translates what they read in the scientific news -- and also how one loud, annoying voice becomes the voice of the entire community to them. I am having to deal with this with Hawking's latest pronouncements.
Anyway, this was quite interesting. Thank you, sincerely, for the discussion.
Obviously Sarah responded before I could. She also has a better handle on the exact number than I do. My answer was going to be "I'm not sure. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 billion years." You're also referring to the Bible, so what age do you think the Bible claims the age is?
"evolution through natural selection is definitely the touchstone of molecular biology, and has been proven definitively."
Micro-evolution (variation within limits and within a species) has been definitely proven. For example, microevolution accounts for a wide variety of breed within dogs (chihuahua through great dane), but they're still dogs. Where's your evidence of macro-evolution?
The most commonly cited "proofs" cited today are things like Haeckel's embryo drawings (exposed as frauds more than 100 years ago!), peppered moths (which don't land on trunks and were glued there for the photos), Darwin's finches (their beaks changed back as conditions changed), and four winged fruit flies (which don't have the musculature and skeletal structure to support the extra wings, making them less likely to survive). There's also the Miller-Urey experiment which showed that some of the necessary amino acids could be produced if a certain kind of atmosphere existed; an atmosphere which has since been proven to have been impossible. And of course you probably remember Piltdown Man, though I don't think it's seriously quoted as evidence anymore. All of these are the same quality of science as that used to support AGW.
Another thing that's well established by microbiologists is that proteins read DNA to build proteins needed by the cell. You may not be aware that microbiologists have been working to figure out the absolute minimum number of proteins needed for a cell to function. As of a few years ago, they had narrowed the range down to between 185 and about 230 proteins. How do you explain the formation of exactly the right proteins and the DNA to define those same proteins essentially simultaneously?
That the universe had a beginning has also been definitively proven; as has the fact that time and space itself are part of the universe and could not have existed prior to the universe. How does materialism explain the universe coming into existence out of literally nothing without a cause? (Cause and effect is the foundation of science.) Furthermore, how does strict materialism explain that the universe was formed with exactly the right constants (gravitational force, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, speed of light, etc.) to permit life to exist? The odds against these constants all being right vastly exceeds the total number of atoms in the entire universe.
In fact, Stephen Hawking's latest book actually acknowledges the validity of this Fine Tuning argument. He just tries to defeat it using claims that even other atheist scientists strongly dispute, especially specialists in quantum mechanics, which is not Hawking's field. I should also point out that Hawking's partner in developing the black hole theory, Roger Penrose, has already pointed out massive flaws in Hawking's Multiple Universes theory.
"Micro-evolution (variation within limits and within a species) has been definitely proven. For example, microevolution accounts for a wide variety of breed within dogs (chihuahua through great dane), but they're still dogs. Where's your evidence of macro-evolution?"
"Micro-evolution" and "Macro-evolution" are not separate concepts anywhere but creationist/intelligent design literature. They are the exact same process and differ only in degree. It is one of several reasons why biology has found it impossible to nail down a truly concrete definition of species rather than working off a combination of several- but seeing as how we're talking about the same organisms, I note apologetics has had no more convincing lucks with "kinds".
"The most commonly cited "proofs" cited today are things like Haeckel's embryo drawings (exposed as frauds more than 100 years ago!)"
OH MY GOD, YOU MEAN EMBRYLOGY 100 YEARS AGO WAS INACCURATE? THE FOUNDATIONS OF MY WORLDVIEW ARE CRUMBLING.
"peppered moths (which don't land on trunks and were glued there for the photos)"
Clearly Kettlewell should have waited as long as it took for small insects to land in a good composition and stay there until he had the shot set up. Regardless, work on Biston betularia has proceeded ever since; there's reams of journal literature about them, all with better methodology than Kettlewell. Merely because work has not entered your consciousness does not mean it does not exist and the field is dishonest/deluded.
"Darwin's finches (their beaks changed back as conditions changed)"
I know the study you're talking about, and did you SERIOUSLY just assert traits changing over time in response to changing environmental pressure as evidence that evolution doesn't happen?
"and four winged fruit flies (which don't have the musculature and skeletal structure to support the extra wings, making them less likely to survive)"
Oh for heaven's sake. Those files aren't "proof of macroevolution", they're one example out of many of how multiple different traits during development, including where limbs grow and how many, are controlled by a small number of genes in certain regions. They only exist in laboratories becauset the genomes of wild-type organisms are heavily canalised- resistant to change that extreme. Because, as you have brilliantly observed (no professional biologist could make this observation!), mutations that affect the organism's development that dramatically render it inviable. It takes geneticists ages of breeding to develop laboratory strains that lack the protections in their genome wild ones have and will do things like that and tell them about how development is organized- development is a highly conserved process for excellent reason. No one serious has EVER asserted that the HOX genes drive evolution by doing things like that, because it is patently absurd.
"There's also the Miller-Urey experiment which showed that some of the necessary amino acids could be produced if a certain kind of atmosphere existed; an atmosphere which has since been proven to have been impossible."
Miller-Urey is, in terms of the pace of progress, nearly as ancient as the Haeckel drawings. Please do try to keep up if you're going to make assertions like this. I seriously have never seen you make any assertion about serious scientific claims about the possible origin of life that were any more recent than 25 years ago. And no, I am not any more willing to do your homework for you than the last time we had this argument. For- well, the love of God, I know He is reputed to love truth- GO OUT AND DO SOME REAL RESEARCH THAT ISN'T APOLOGETICS.
"And of course you probably remember Piltdown Man, though I don't think it's seriously quoted as evidence anymore."
One of the most flagrant hoaxes in scientific history is no longer seriously quoted as evidence? NO. You're pulling my leg. It was no longer seriously quoted as evidence about ten minutes after primatologists pointed out the file marks and the fact that the jawbone and skull were from two different known species.
"All of these are the same quality of science as that used to support AGW."
At least AGW has something like a body of literature. The fact that I can easily tell that every single one of your examples is from the SAME BOOK by a man who has admitted the Reverend Moon sent him to get his second degree in order to "destroy Darwinism" is really, really damning.
"Another thing that's well established by microbiologists is that proteins read DNA to build proteins needed by the cell. You may not be aware that microbiologists have been working to figure out the absolute minimum number of proteins needed for a cell to function."
No, because it's only slightly less of a silly and diverting question scientifically as "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" is theologically.
"As of a few years ago, they had narrowed the range down to between 185 and about 230 proteins. How do you explain the formation of exactly the right proteins and the DNA to define those same proteins essentially simultaneously?"
I don't, because again NO ONE SERIOUS HAS EVER ACTUALLY ASSERTED THAT THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. Calling this a strawman fails in its sheer lack of scope. It's a straw giant with a straw family living in a straw castle. The whole point of life from nonlife is that its predecessors were not alive, i.e. not complete cells that satisfy the definition of life as we know it. Every serious theory relating to the ultimate origin of life starts from organic molecules and then self-replicating molecules, not cells, and discusses the formation of those and of the phospholipid structures that make up cell walls and only many, many steps down the line about cells. This would be less gobsmacking if self-replicating molecules that "evolve" very similarly to the way live organisms do but don't satisfy our definition of life- viruses- weren't FUCKING EVERYWHERE AND RIDICULOUSLY COMMON AND VARIED. Not even all of them use DNA for their core self-replication process! Hell, the best theory for why CELLS DO has to do with VIRUSES. Which you would know if you had done ANY RESEARCH AT ALL OTHER THAN THAT REQUIRED TO SOUND CONVINCING TO PEOPLE AS IGNORANT ON THE SUBJECT AS YOU ARE.
What's really riling me up and preventing me from treating you as civilly as I feel obligated to treat Sarah is that I distinctly recall having had this EXACT argument with you at least a year if not more ago, and you can only be making these arguments again because you made no effort whatsoever to honestly learn what scientists actually think and believe and study about evolution. Do you have even the slightest fathom of an idea how doing this makes Christians and Christianity look to people who HAVE? You are claiming the moral authority of God himself- and you are notly being flagrantly dishonest, you're using it as a weapon to attack people who ARE being honest and claim THEY are deceptive and therefore immoral. TO ADVANCE THE MORAL AUTHORITY OF GOD.
It should not be a mystery why the moral authority of Christianity has increasingly little standing in academic circles, and it's not "because they enjoy being immoral". They're holding you to the same standard you claim and you are failing.
It should not be a mystery why the moral authority of Christianity has increasingly little standing in academic circles, and it's not "because they enjoy being immoral". They're holding you to the same standard you claim and you are failing.
I don't think that's the reason Christian moral authority has little standing in academic circles, since the continual raging hatred of Christianity by elites dates all the way back to the time of Christ. However, I will admit that it's an endless source of distress to many Christians that we often discredit ourselves with our behavior; but public failure and humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to an explicit moral standard.
So, as an atheist, what is the explicit moral standard to which you should be held by everyone else? Lest you undermine your standing in Christian circles...
I don't think that's the reason Christian moral authority has little standing in academic circles
Here, I'll agree, mostly, with Sarah, and disagree, mostly, with LabRat.
But that being said...
So, as an atheist, what is the explicit moral standard to which you should be held by everyone else? Lest you undermine your standing in Christian circles...
I've yet to ever meet a Christian who'd ever give me standing, knowing of my lack of belief - if that's the first they knew of me. Many have been confused _later_ finding out about my lack of belief, but if that's the first thing they've known, or what they've identified me as, or making sweeping declarations, I've seen a 100% track record.
I think it's unfair of LabRat to malign all of Christianity with the ID movement. But the ID movement is fundamentally dishonest, it's a deliberate attempt to subvert science - just like AGW proponents. That doesn't mean there's not real discoveries to be made there, just like there's real study to be made of how much Man has contributed to the changing/warming of the environment.
And using religion as a moral authority and trying to hide that, but yet still claim the moral authority is probably a mite wearying. Go argue physics with a IDer for a while. There's plenty in modern physics they disagree with as well.
"So, as an atheist, what is the explicit moral standard to which you should be held by everyone else? Lest you undermine your standing in Christian circles..."
I'm actually pretty comfortable with the Judeo-Christian standard, at least those bits of it that don't claim I need to accept the supernatural in order to have any moral standing at all. As a member of a Western society I AM held to them whether I choose to be or not- but I would choose to be.
Unlike Dawkins, my position on religion- as well as non-religious ethical standards, such as held by the Greeks and Japanese- is that it's a beneficial human adaptation, and besides that it's of a piece along with that Greek philosophy that has founded our intellectual tradition of ethics.
I actually don't think all of Christianity can be identified with the ID movement. I think they're as theologically bankrupt as they are intellectually. BUT their assault on intellectual standards in the name of morality does get attention, and it supports the Dawkins/Meyers breed of toxic atheism as much as Dawkins and Meyers support them. Enemy of my enemy and all that.
"... public failure and humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to an explicit moral standard. public failure and humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to an explicit moral standard."
Sarah, I don't intend to jump into this fray (which is fascinating, to say the least), but I will point out that we've had this discussion before. It has been my observation that failure and public humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to dogma, a very great deal of which has nothing to do with any moral standard. While the moral standard in which it is submerged, and the open subscription to it, both have great merit, it is the silliness in which it is submerged that I find risible, and that is what underlies much of my reaction to it.
I won't claim to have done the study to know, but...
It sounds to me that "Darwin's theory" has been "disproven" in much the same way that Newton's theory of gravitation was "disproven" by Einstein.
Is Newton's math 100% correct? No, it isn't. But it's a remarkably good working approximation, plenty good enough for, for example, the aerospace industry.
To whatever extent I'm off the mark, feel free to educate me. I hardly ever turn down free education.
That the universe had a beginning has also been definitively proven; as has the fact that time and space itself are part of the universe and could not have existed prior to the universe. How does materialism explain the universe coming into existence out of literally nothing without a cause?
That right there is my problem with all the arguments on all sides.
Ultimately it appears to me to boil down to two propositions:
1. Something can spontaneously spring from nothing, thus cause and effect has at least one exception. Whether that something is "the universe" or "God" or whatever does not affect what the propositionis in the slightest.
and/or
2. The actual functioning of time is nothing like what we think it is. Thus either once again, cause and effect have at least one exception, or the linear flow of time from cause to effect can flow in quite different directions from that which we perceive.
Any combination of those propositions seems equally ridiculous and equally unprovable to me. However, just because I refuse to commit to the "God" explanation as the only possible true one doesn't mean I fail to recognize the sound advice and proposed rules for people to live together in peace the Bible contains, either. And in pretty much the same way, the fact that I am unwilling to cite 'the God hypothesis' as the only possible true answer doesn't lessen the truth of my assessment that "it passeth my understanding".
Time, space, and physical objects coming into existence from nothingness basically leads to two options:
1. The law of cause and effect did not hold true for some reason.
2. The law of cause and effect did hold true. In this case, the cause would have had to be eternal (outside of time, where beginning or end have no meaning) and non-physical. The fine tuning issue also suggests that a non-intelligent cause is unlikely.
The fine tuning issue also suggests that a non-intelligent cause is unlikely.
Why? That's the part I don't get. "It couldn't just have happened" and "God did it" seem to me to be equivalent statements. Why couldn't it just "have happened"? Why is intelligence a prerequisite?
And where did the intelligence come from in the first place? All you've done is moved back the question of origin one notch.
"And where did the intelligence come from in the first place? All you've done is moved back the question of origin one notch."
Nah, by asserting that God did it, all that is done is explain the origin of the Universe. The nature of God is a different kettle of metaphysical fish. "Why is intelligence a prerequisite?" It's not. Otherwise it would be proof of God's existence. Intelligence is a prerequisite to God, though, and to understanding the universe.
And intelligence suggests that we are more than just matter, and the Universe has a wholeness that transcends its parts, otherwise dumb matter would be a lost in a sea of ever changing states of quanta and never know it.
*grabs popcorn* Why is intelligence a prerequisite? – Delete – Edit – Moderate
...otherwise dumb matter would be a lost in a sea of ever changing states of quanta and never know it.
Are you saying the designer must be intelligent because the universe does not exhibit the shoddiness, hypocrisy and internal contradictions of a Michael Moore movie? If so, how do you account for the existence of Michael Moore?
Okay, UJ grabbed me by the scruff in IRC and told me to fetch some antihistamines and caffeine. I had other plans this evening so I'll get to specifics as I can, but to make sure this discussion only remains extremely messy and not truly godawful, may I ask for some ground rules?
1. I'm not remotely interested in arguing about the existence of God or the authorship of natural law by God. I regard theism and materialism as competing cosmologies, not necessities to understanding evolutionary theory. I can quite easily imagine natural law and evolutionary theory as currently exists to be the work of a particularly brilliant designer- just not the literal account of Genesis. (Actually I think the God of literal Genesis comes off as a much poorer and less impressive God than a God that designed natural law as I understand it.) When it comes to the existence of a creator God I'm actually agnostic; I'm atheistic with respect to fundamentalist Christianity, not any non-wholly-materialist worldview.
2. Just evolutionary theory. I do not want to get into one of those multi-tentacled physics-and-geology-and-everything-that-conflicts-with-Genesis black holes. My sole interest is in explaining evolutionary theory.
Before I finish reading everything line by line and preparing to reply, by the way, the fact that Ed and Sarah are both using the term "Darwinism" explains rather a lot about the gulf between our experience of the science. GoF is quite correct in comparing Darwin's role in evolutionary theory to Newton's role in physics; referring to all of evolutionary theory as "Darwinism" is very much like referring to quantum mechanics as "Newtonism". Darwin contributed the central mechanism, but being a Victorian naturalist and not himself a deity he was wrong in many specifics. Modern evolutionary theory belongs to Mayr, Dobzhansky, Wilson, Hamilton, Kimura, Gould, Dawkins, Margulies, Roughgarden, and many, many more as much as it belongs to Darwin. They didn't and don't just go around saying "Darwin was right, hurf durf", the body of theory has expanded far, far beyond.
To the extent "Darwinism" is used in actual discussions of evolutionary theory among scientists, it's in a very specific context, "neo-Darwinism", and it describes specific schools of thought and approaches. Saying people have sucessfully attacked neo-Darwinism and therefore evolution is wrong is kinda like saying disagreeing with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum discredits all of physics.
1. I'm not remotely interested in arguing about the existence of God or the authorship of natural law by God.
Nor am I and nor is that how this argument started, which is why I stated above that "my objection to [Darwinism] has nothing to do with my religious beliefs (there is nothing in Darwinism that is at odds with my beliefs), but everything to do with science."
Saying people have sucessfully attacked neo-Darwinism and therefore evolution is wrong is kinda like saying disagreeing with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum discredits all of physics.
No, it isn't, unless all of biology is evolution. It's more like saying that disagreeing with the Copenhagen interpretation discredits all of quantum physics. Moreover, since evolution forms the backbone of biology, a more apt comparison would be: it's like saying disagreeing with ΛCDM cosmology discredits the big bang.
"No, it isn't, unless all of biology is evolution"
Evolution is the wheel on which the rest of biology turns, as atomic theory is the wheel upon which chemistry turns. Remove atoms and their bonding, and chemistry ceases to be a coherent whole and becomes a mere collection of observations.
That you do not understand this is, again, evidence that you have very little understanding and familiarity of biology itself. Dobzhansky: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." His career and that quote date back to the modern synthesis, which was the integration of genetics and evolution. Evolution became central to biology, and the field began advancing much more quickly then, not with Darwin.
" Moreover, since evolution forms the backbone of biology, a more apt comparison would be: it's like saying disagreeing with ΛCDM cosmology discredits the big bang."
Too recent, too side, and too insular. I do not know how to tell you this more clearly than I did above: evolution is absolutely and fundamentally central to biology. It is much moreso than the big bang is even to physics.
This is, within the working field, basic knowledge. You say "evolutionists" are snotty but this is simple reality in the biological sciences: evolution is the background force that affects absolutely EVERYTHING and shows itself in everything.
Labrat, I'm not certain I can see how this can be true. Maybe it's the engineer in me, but why is it necissary to have an understanding about where the system came from to understand the system? Why do you see evolution as central to biology? I can see claiming the 2nd Law as that, in fact it was proposed by a biologist to my recolleciton, but I don't see evolution as central to it. Can you explain?
(BTW, thank you for sharing knowledge here.)
A number of reasons, most of them having to do with the way in which evolution differs from design. As I see it these are the two most important.
a)Evolution must always work with what it has, many kinds of direct innovations are limited by this constraint. In a short and glib way, this is why there are no animals with wheels instead of legs. In a longer way, this underwrites a great deal of anatomy and biochemistry- "survival of the fittest" can imply a process of perfection, but in practice it works out to "survival of the good-enough". To an engineer or programmer's eye, I suppose it would be "evolution is vital to understanding why DNA is such nightmarish spaghetti code".
b)Evolution also provides the context to learning about life based on the multiple surprising and sometimes puzzling forms and patterns it produces. If something appears to be contrary to evolution, then something must be going on that we don't understand and requires investigation- like something appearing to fall up would require immediate investigation by physicists.
"Evolution is the context" is the upshot, basically. Otherwise biology is a lot of unrelated observations, often ones that don't really make sense without it.
I guess I can see it in that context. Thank you. Not sure what type of "something contrary to evolution" you would be looking for though. Non-optimal ways of doing things are often seen, aren't they? And then just said to be "good enough" as you said in another thread? (I have to laugh, it's VHS/Betamax in the biological world!) For that reason I would suggest that it would get along just fine by looking harder at things that didn't "fit the pattern" the same way.
Well, a good example of apparently contrary to evolution that underwrote some of the most interesting work of the last thirty years would be eusocial insects in which most of the population are infertile and exist to serve the reproductive output of a single fertile female.
Where it gets much MORE interesting is this form in mammals, naked mole rats...
Naked mole rats? I thought there was a "reason" they are naked. (Too much booze? :) ) Share please?
More seriously, don't these examples show that scientists are capable of noting and ivestigating things "out of the pattern"? For instance, if the mindset was "the Creator creates species that best fit their environment" wouldn't these "counterexamples" be furiously investigated?
You're also referring to the Bible, so what age do you think the Bible claims the age is?
I don't believe the Bible is specific about that. So there is not a literal truth (i.e. a number) to be had there - it is a matter of interpretation. I would challenge anyone who says that the Bible is literal truth and derives an age of the Earth less than ~4 billion years from that as a sole source. There isn't an unquestionable age, and if there were and it was less than the geo-physics indicates (by several orders of magnitude) it would be wrong. That people have different interpretations of the Earth's age based on Biblical interpretation is another matter.
As I understand it, Intelligent Design only requires a Creator, not specifically the Abrahamic God, and what I suggested was equation to "creation science" which tends to be a fundamentalist Christian construct (which would be one subset of ID possibility). Similarly, one might believe in any number of climate theories, whereas AGW is a particular instance that serves a particular purpose for various enviro-weens.
Personally I think the most interesting question raised out of all of climate research is that it appears from the paleo-climate record that humans came into our modern existence in an unusually stable era. Are we a fluke of that or are we adaptable enough to survive the climate changes that appear to be fairly common (and severe) in geologic time? Of course that means stepping back from the anthropocentric universe, or as an earlier age might have put it - man at the center of creation.
Would you want your work judged by the theories and hypothesis of Galileo, Kepler, etc? That is, tossing out anything we've found since then, and judging all new discoveries based on what they thought and said?
I know enough about evolution theory to know that this outcome was totally unanticipated by Darwin or any of his followers. I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this.
Considering they were still using crude understandings of what a "gene" actually *was*, well, of course they weren't anticipating that. DNA wasn't going to be "discovered" for 30 years, and it was well more than 100 before the concept of "replacing genes" was even science-fictionable.
So of *course* they didn't "anticipate" it.
I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty.
Think of Markadelphia questioning everything you've ever done. Daily. For years. And years. And years. You might get a little irate and tired.
That's pretty much what they've got to put up with. I'll allow 'em a lot of annoyance that their science is the one that's always being derided.
So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record.
Like that.
I'm hardly in LabRat's league here, but this sort of thing would annoy the hell out of me.
Yes, there's a postulate there, because there's no evidence (yet). There might not ever be. The Fossil Record is handy, but it's less complete than the notes on Clinton Admin meetings about terrorism that Sandy Berger was allowed to "review."
So you'd prefer they do, what, exactly, in the absence of hard(er) evidence? And you'd want this exact same rigor applied to your science? Unless you can prove it, it's not valid as a theory or a postulate?
Again, LR can correct me, but that postulate, which I've understood to be postulated, is the best guess based on a number of assumptions and guesses. Much as many other "gaps" have been postulated, and as more of the fossil record is discovered, many are getting filled in with a lot of accuracy.
And no, current evolutionary theory doesn't _depend_ on it any more than your astrophysics _depends_ on string theory or dark matter. (Apologies if there's been big changes since I stuck my layman nose into those areas.... You know, unless those changes then mean you're going to be as skeptical of physics as you are biology.)
Would you want your work judged by the theories and hypothesis of Galileo, Kepler, etc? That is, tossing out anything we've found since then, and judging all new discoveries based on what they thought and said?
Why wouldn't I want my work judged by still-valid laws and theories? I am not suggesting that anything be judged in the absence of refinements and new theories. The whole point of this argument is whether the basics of an existing theory are still considered valid by biologists.
Your example is a bit confusing since Kepler formulated laws, not theories. Furthermore, Kepler's laws are still valid. Instead of Galileo, you should've referred to Newton, as he is the true 'father' of physics in the same sense that Darwin could be regarded as the father of biology. Despite what we know about relativity, none of Newton's laws have been proven false; rather they have been shown to be valid within certain limits. Newtonian gravity was found to be wrong on one count (the speed at which it propagates); but gravity is still known to be universal and Newton's laws of motion are still sufficiently useful to do a lot of impressive mechanical things, like sending people to the Moon.
I know enough about evolution theory to know that this outcome was totally unanticipated by Darwin or any of his followers. I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this.
Considering they were still using crude understandings of what a "gene" actually *was*, well, of course they weren't anticipating that. DNA wasn't going to be "discovered" for 30 years, and it was well more than 100 before the concept of "replacing genes" was even science-fictionable.
So of *course* they didn't "anticipate" it.
That's not why it wasn't anticipated. Way back in the fossil record you had all these different forms (phyla) in the animal kingdom (I'm ignoring plants). The theory was that each of these different animals developed independently of each other on their own course through chance/unguided mutations and natural selection. This is mathematically untenable, but it's what everybody believed back then. So what is now known is that there is no tree of life -- all of these animal forms are connected to the toolbox genes. If the Evo Devo people were honest they would be attacking Darwin and saying natural selection had no opportunity to create the Cambrian Explosion, but they're not saying that. Something was genetically preprogrammed to give rise to all these different animals, which is 180 degrees different than what Darwin said. It is a complete break with Darwin's theory.
I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty.
Think of Markadelphia questioning everything you've ever done. Daily. For years. And years. And years. You might get a little irate and tired.
That's pretty much what they've got to put up with. I'll allow 'em a lot of annoyance that their science is the one that's always being derided.
I've entertained countless astrophysics challenges and questions from laymen that range from the mildly uninformed to the blazingly ignorant. Never have I treated the worst of these with the hostility and contempt LabRat has shown Ed, and to a lesser extent, me. This is fairly characteristic of most biologists I've encountered. Why do people deride biology? Perhaps it's because many biologists behave as though they're the ordained priests of science who intercede between nature and the unwashed masses or that they're not as forthcoming about the limitations of their science or that they're inept at communicating their big ideas to the public. Or perhaps it's that they have a history of misusing their science to make unwarranted theological pronouncements. I think it's all of those things. LabRat has acknowledged that Dawkins has poisoned the debate with his attacks on religion, but they seem to expect that people should nevertheless trust biologists and be delighted to learn all about a subject that's ostensibly the enemy of faith. Remember, the attacks started with biologists, not with Christians. Right from the beginning guys like Thomas Huxley, aka Darwin's Bulldog, were using Darwin to attack Christians, and it's continued all the way to Dawkins. They don't expect Christians to fight back, and when they do they are somehow deserving of contempt.
I think a good question to ask yourselves is why physics isn't similarly derided. Physics has always had a ton of theological implications, and never more than now, but people mostly respect and are fascinated by physics. Why is that?
So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record.
Like that.
I made a statement of fact. And you do realize that you're quoting me quoting Sean Carroll, a foremost expert in the field. How does this constitute derision?
Yes, there's a postulate there, because there's no evidence (yet). There might not ever be. The Fossil Record is handy, but it's less complete than the notes on Clinton Admin meetings about terrorism that Sandy Berger was allowed to "review."
I will again quote Sean Carroll who said, "This is an inference because the fossil record ... before the Cambrian is very scanty." and "It does not appear that scarcity is a fault of the fossil record."
So you'd prefer they do, what, exactly, in the absence of hard(er) evidence? And you'd want this exact same rigor applied to your science? Unless you can prove it, it's not valid as a theory or a postulate?
What I'd like them to do is first of all is to be somewhat humble and admit the current deficiencies in evolutionary theory.
Again, LR can correct me, but that postulate, which I've understood to be postulated, is the best guess based on a number of assumptions and guesses. Much as many other "gaps" have been postulated, and as more of the fossil record is discovered, many are getting filled in with a lot of accuracy.
That's a myth. It's not being filled in. Structures show up in the fossil record fully formed -- that has not changed.
BTW, a postulate is something that's assumed to be true without proof, i.e. an axiom. Is that what you really meant?
And no, current evolutionary theory doesn't _depend_ on it any more than your astrophysics _depends_ on string theory or dark matter. (Apologies if there's been big changes since I stuck my layman nose into those areas.... You know, unless those changes then mean you're going to be as skeptical of physics as you are biology.)
Current evolutionary theory doesn't depend on what? What's "it"?
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
Since you brought it up, the current paradigm for the big bang (ΛCDM) actually does depend on dark matter -- that's what the DM stands for. The evidence for dark matter is strong, but if it turns out to be bogus this will represent a significant failure on the part of both Newtonian physics and general relativity. As for string theory, it's not actually a theory. Its many detractors in the physics community refer to it as a philosophy, because, as they legitimately point out, there is currently no known way to test its predictions. However, if string theory eventually achieves the rank of bonafide theory it will be HUGE, as it will have successfully united two key fields governing astrophysics: quantum mechanics and general relativity.
I am not suggesting that anything be judged in the absence of refinements and new theories.
You sure could [have?] fool[ed] me.
BTW, one of the most popular physics search terms on Google is "the big bang is a lie." We have our deriders, too.
Yep, and ID proponents have a special hate-on for the laws of thermodynamics, as well.
the current paradigm for the big bang (ΛCDM) actually does depend on dark matter -- that's what the DM stands for.
Yep.
Now, _using your standards you're using with LabRat_, can you say that? Where's the proof? No extrapolations, no assumptions. Where's the Dark Matter?
At least there _is_ a fossil record.
And if you physicists would hurry the hell up and build a time machine already, we *could go back and find all those missing lifeforms who weren't considerate enough to die in exactly the right place to be preserved, and later discovered by us in the last 200 years!
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
And the difference therein is?
And how does Copernicus or Newton explain Dark Matter?
Now, _using your standards you're using with LabRat_, can you say that? Where's the proof? No extrapolations, no assumptions. Where's the Dark Matter?
Can I say what exactly? That the current big bang paradigm depends on dark matter? Yes, I can. Your wording was a bit confusing, so I'm wondering if you meant, "can I say that dark matter absolutely exists" or "can I say that the ΛCDM model is true given the current evidence"? The answer to both of those is no, I can't. Be careful to distinguish between fact and theory. I can't prove any theory in physics to you anymore than LabRat can prove anything about biology. The best we can do in science is to either disprove a theory or to say it's valid because there's sufficient evidence pro and no evidence con. As far as dark matter is concerned, there are no two ways about it: either dark matter exists or we don't understand gravity at all. That's it, those are your two choices. Do you accept our current understanding of gravity? If yes, then you must accept the existence of dark matter.
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
And the difference therein is?
That life on Earth began some billions of years ago and has changed over time is virtually an indisputable fact. What I doubt is the claimed mechanism for that change.
And how does Copernicus or Newton explain Dark Matter?
Copernicus is irrelevant to dark matter. Kepler and Newton, however, are precisely why dark matter was hypothesized in the first place. The truth is, acceptance of dark matter requires faith in the laws of physics. But if Newton* was correct in his formulation of the laws of gravity and motion, then we must accept that dark matter exists.
The first observational support for dark matter came in the form of rotation curves of galaxies. A rotation curve is a graph showing the speed of rotation of gas and stars as a function of distance from the center of the galaxy. According to Kepler (and later Newton), the further away something is from a mass, the slower it will rotate around the mass. Kepler discovered this when he observed that the further away a planet is from the sun, the slower it moves in its orbit, and Newton later explained it in terms of his laws of gravity and motion. Most of the visible mass in a galaxy is in its center, where the population of stars is highly concentrated. We therefore expected that stars and gas clouds further away from the galactic center would rotate slower than those close to the center. Everyone was astonished when we observed that the speed of stars and gas does not change with distance from the galactic center, for this implies that there is much more mass in the galaxy than could be accounted for by all the visible matter. The same was observed for every galaxy measured, including our own Milky Way.
The same phenomenon is observed in galaxy clusters, enormous collections of galaxies that are gravitationally bound to one another and orbit around a common center of mass. We observe galaxies in the outer part of a cluster orbiting faster than they should if the cluster contains only visible matter. For Kepler/Newton* to be correct, there must be invisible, or dark, mass throughout every galaxy and galaxy cluster. It's possible that our understanding of gravity is flawed, which is why a few astrophysicists have proposed alternatives to dark matter. However, these alternatives have serious flaws that have not been resolved.
* Einstein has to be correct, as well, since general relativistic tests also strongly support the existence of dark matter. But you only asked about Newton, so I left this out of the discussion.
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
Alright, now I am puzzled. You accept the validity of biology - including evolution. What is the exact thing you object to that exists in "Darwinism" but not biology?
". Never have I treated the worst of these with the hostility and contempt LabRat has shown Ed, and to a lesser extent, me."
I have apologized to you. As for Ed, he is being blatantly dishonest and he is doing so in a way he has in the past to the point where much of my response to him was nearly word for word response to our previous debate. He may have had some kind of excuse then for repeating creationist talking points in lack of exposure, but he certainly doesn't now. He is betraying his principles, yours, and mine in order to advance an intellectually bankrupt argument, and to what end? You don't find that angering?
"This is fairly characteristic of most biologists I've encountered."
Ed is entirely typical of Christians I've encountered who make statements like "Darwinism is wrong". You would actually be the first exception.
" Perhaps it's because many biologists behave as though they're the ordained priests of science who intercede between nature and the unwashed masses or that they're not as forthcoming about the limitations of their science or that they're inept at communicating their big ideas to the public."
Maybe because advanced scientific theory is inherently difficult to distill in bite-sized format for the layman? The explanations most often given to schoolchildren for why airplane wings work and why rainbows happen are wrong in their particulars but we accept the need to simplify concepts for children and then continue their education when they have more knowledge. Do the same thing for genetics and evolution and people publish books claiming your discipline is a fraudulent conspiracy.
" Or perhaps it's that they have a history of misusing their science to make unwarranted theological pronouncements."
It would be equally as accurate to point out that Christianity has a history of using their religion to make unwarranted scientific pronouncements, particularly about biology. I don't defend this tit-for-tat instinct and in fact I spend a fair amount of my blogging time attacking it, but the antagonism between religion and biology in particular is far from one-sided and claiming that it originated in biologists is disingenuous.
" Right from the beginning guys like Thomas Huxley, aka Darwin's Bulldog, were using Darwin to attack Christians, and it's continued all the way to Dawkins."
Christians were attacking Darwin and Huxley right back. The reason Darwin has a greater position in the popular imagination than Kepler is that what he was asserting was heretical to the intellectual foundation of the world at the time. Or do you propose Huxley was arguing with thin air rather than Bishop Wilberforce?
We have already agreed on common descent- which one of them was right about that? Was it healthy for Christianity to be resting on an assumption that the natural world inherently proved it right and it need not expend effort to attract and maintain faith?
" Physics has always had a ton of theological implications, and never more than now, but people mostly respect and are fascinated by physics. Why is that?"
Because people are a great deal more emotionally invested in their identity as a unique creation than they are in the idea that the sun goes around the earth?
"I will again quote Sean Carroll who said, "This is an inference because the fossil record ... before the Cambrian is very scanty." and "It does not appear that scarcity is a fault of the fossil record." "
These are not contradictory statements. It is geological fact that fossilizing soft-bodied animals and preserving those fossils for millions of years requires very special conditions. It is also almost certain to be true that the Cambrian forms represented a burst of adaptive radiation that really did represent an exponential increase in diversity over previous forms- much as later bursts of adaptive raditation with extensive fossil records do.
"What I'd like them to do is first of all is to be somewhat humble and admit the current deficiencies in evolutionary theory."
Where is your humility in assuming you've correctly identified severe deficiencies in evolutionary theory that biology as a discipline is simply too arrogant to admit? (Hint: there are some, just as there are areas of physics that are still very murky. Evolutionary biologists argue over these areas hammer and tongs. Natural selection as a mechanism isn't one of them.)
I know just enough to know as an absolute, inarguable certainty that I'm fighting way out of my weight class in this discussion, but:
1. I wonder if the discussion of "random mutation" would become more clear if you replaced "random" with "chaotic".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
2. As I understand it, all the fossils ever found up until 30 years or so ago, every single one, would pack into a fairly small Uhaul truck. Has the pace of discovery exploded to such a degree in the last 30 years, or should we just admit that we're missing huge swathes of this jigsaw puzzle, and may not even have a corner yet?
3. I've heard of the Cambrian explosion, but I won't even begin to call myself educated on the subject. However, I've heard the argument put forth that the Cambrian explosion wasn't an increase in the presence of life, but rather an increase in the presence of life that had evolved hard parts likely to become fossilized. Since you guys are the experts here, I figure you can point me to the flaws in that line of argument, if any.
"Wow. I'm glad I went with engineering for a career."
I resemble that remark, proudly so.
On the one hand, we seldom ever have to defend what our profession is and how it works from attack by people who don't understand it. On the other hand, we are often treated as being abnormal, strange, and sometimes even repulsive just because we practice it.
What about a career in chemistry? Nobody seems to give a rat's fart what chemists do. Probably because they're not out there creating Earth-devouring black holes or killing God for a living. :-P
I am so out of my league I shouldn't even play, but here goes nothing.
LabRat: ""Micro-evolution" and "Macro-evolution" are not separate concepts anywhere but creationist/intelligent design literature. They are the exact same process and differ only in degree"
I'm confused here, mostly I suspect due to my ignorance. Didn't Rensch, Ernst Mayr, and EO Wiley all use the terms micro evolution and macro evolution? I know the ID people like those terms, but as far I remember and researched, there are number of European biologists that also use those terms.
And now I'm really going to show how much I don't know, since I'm only dabbling in this field, but didn't Brooks and Wiley in their work" Evolution and Entropy: Toward A Unified Theory of Biology" define the difference between the two on the basis of reversibility?
That is, micro changes are reversible, like the bill sizes and moth colors, while the sift to a new species is not?
If I understand what they were saying and that these biologists aren't barking mad, then it seems to me that these concepts aren't only in the ID literature.
You are right and I do seem to have just been caught out being pretty much wrong.
I suppose I could get away with weak accuracy in saying that currently they tend to be regarded as one in the same, and most of my education came after for one it became clearer that they are not particularly distinct, and very likely for two after that became the fashion for creationists once things like antibiotic resistant bacteria started appearing.
When I went and looked it up it appears that originally they were distinguished for the purposes of discussing reproductive isolation and defining species concept, which was some of Mayr's most important work. Nowadays it's understood that species aren't nearly as distinct as he or anyone else at the time thought and the terms are rather artificial, but you are absolutely right in that the terms and distinctions did in fact originate with working biology.
Thank you both Russell and LabRat both. I had problems with the original statement, because from a systems point of view there would seem to be a place for the distinction. Things often work differently small scale vs large. It would be seem to be more correct to acknowledge the difference, but also acknowlege that the distinction between the two is fuzzy at best. Is it one change? Two? Three? N?
At least that is what I see as the synthesis of the two points of view. Feel free to correct me if I missinterpreted something.
It's succint enough. One of the perennial hot topics in evolutionary biology is the definition of species and the conditions of speciation; this is where Mayr in particular made his career.
To give you an idea why "micro" and "macro" evolution are being steadily left behind as useful concepts, there's Ring Species, as well as genome sequencing revealing a heretofore unexpected amount of natural hybridization.
I've seen that before. While an excelent example of speciation, I find it less then convincing as an example of 'macro" evolution, or as a couter example to the "macro" existing. The reason is, the fact the end species _don't_ breed doesn't mean they _couldn't_. The fact they can means the species are not really distinct, genetically speaking, in my opinion. If they had evolved to the point their chromosomes weren't compatible anymore (or even better, had new ones or has lost one) that would be stronger evidence don't you think?
In fact, you could almost point to this as evidence in favor of the theory that "micro" evolution does not provide enough power to generate "macro" evolution. Given the time scale we are talking, in my opinion it does not rise to that level either. Just pointing out the evidence can be interpreted both ways.
I wasn't providing it for proof of "macroevolution" so much as I was one clear demonstration of why thinking of the two as distinct, or inevitably leading to speciation or of speciation as preventing gene flow, can be extremely problematic.
Coyotes and wolves have multiple large zones of natural hybridization in America. They aren't an example of incomplete speciation- their last common ancestor existed in the Miocene. Grey wolves evolved in Eurasia and migrated to North America across the Bering bridge around the same time humans did; coyotes evolved in North America. And yet they still interbreed and there's serious conservation debate as to how much to consider which species which and how many species are actually being represented; it's a dilemma produced by nothing working the way the old models of speciation and reproductive isolation said they should.
Got it. I agree with you, especially the point of "species" being broken.
However, my original point was there *is* a point where they can't interbreed anymore. Wolves and coyotes can interbreed. Heck, domestic _dogs_ and coyotes and wolves can interbeed. But you can't cross a dog and a cat. (Not sure, does anyone know if you can cross a domestic cat with a lion?) So the point where the genes can't travel anymore (barring outside intervention like viruses) would seem to be the real speciation point. And maybe the point to draw the line for "macro" evolution?
I don't know the proper jargon to precisely describe what I'm seeing, so maybe you high forehead types can correct my terminology.
The whole discussion of micro v. macro evolution resembles what I've always thought of as a "rainbow gradient". The obvious example I can think of off the top of my head is heat. At the subatomic scale, heat isn't heat at all, is it? It's motion. And in a lot of ways, the farther toward the "macro" end of the scale you move, the more "heat" takes on the properties of heat and the less it's described by its properties of motion, until at the macro level it's not motion at all, it's just heat.
Does that make sense, or am I making it worse?
*DONT_KNOW*
Note:
All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost;
references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>
JS-Kit/Echo comments for article at http://smallestminority.blogspot.com/2010/10/this-is-not-science-other-forces-are-at.html (93 comments)
Tentative mapping of comments to original article, corrections solicited.
The Believers will still believe. And try to force their "solutions" on the world.
Idiots, gullible to the teeth and without the capability to reason, plus greedy dishonest "scientists" have brought us to this point. Want to bet most of the idiots vote Democrap? Sucker bet for sure...
I guess I should be surprised that the believers continue to believe in the scam, despite the evidence that its wrong. But then, they never believed the evidence in the first place.
Exactly Matt B - they DO believe in the scam, in the control of millions - the supposed "evidence" is just made-up window dressing.
Trust me, Dr. Lewis has PLENTY of balls... As head of the Jasons, they made some pretty unpopular recommendations, all of which were backed with facts!
As a member of the physics community, I've watched with mounting alarm over the last 10 years as the community became increasingly politicized. I had no idea how bad it had gotten nor to what extent it was driven simply by dollar signs. It's appalling. For a group of people who, to a large extent, don't believe in God and instead believe that the reward for a lifetime of work is to be remembered, this is one hell of an embarrassing legacy to leave behind.
Oh, they'll be remembered all right!
Exactly my point, Ed. They'll be remembered as frauds and charlatans, not as scientists who made valuable contributions to human knowledge. If they had any thought to what they were doing and how they will be remembered, I wonder if they would think it was worth it.
Climate science is merely the left's answer to creation science. And about as valid.
Apparently you don't know anything about intelligent design or the massive problems with Darwinism evolutionary theory.
I would argue that AGW and macro-evolutionary theory have far more in common.
Just this once - how old is the Earth Ed?
Oh, boy, here we go. :)
From what I have read, Ed is correct. I don't know anything about ID, but I do know that Darwinism is deader than a doornail. Unlike AGW, Darwinism failed honestly; it was an excellent idea that ultimately did not stand up to the scientific test. When Darwinism continued to be publicly supported, it was clear that this was for ideological, not scientific, reasons. Just like AGW.
juris, I know you asked Ed, but I'll throw in my $0.02 anyway since I'm also a devoted Christian. I take Genesis literally and I believe the evidence that strongly indicates the Earth is about 4.5 billion years old.
Cue LabRat.
I'm not sure how you define "Darwinism," but evolution through natural selection is definitely the touchstone of molecular biology, and has been proven definitively.
Darwin never said where life came from, he merely explained how it changes over time.
Absence of a causal agent is not evidence of a causal agent.
Kevin, I've been reading a lot about Darwinism lately and would be interested in what LabRat has to say. For the record, I think Darwin's idea was genius, and my objection to it has nothing to do with my religious beliefs (there is nothing in Darwinism that is at odds with my beliefs), but everything to do with science. Here's what I've learned so far:
Darwin’s evolution hypothesis was constructed of four parts that are related to each other the way the four parts of a stool fit together. Darwinism is based on three core ideas:
- The common descent of all life
- Random mutations (very small changes in life forms occurring completely by chance and for no purpose)
- A continuous process of natural selection in which all species compete for survival
The fourth part of Darwin’s hypothesis is the concept of 'gradualism' which connects and rests on the three legs like the seat of a stool. For Darwinism to work, all four components must be scientifically valid -- not a single one can be false. The problem, as far as I can tell, is that the second and third legs have been knocked out along with the seat.
Gradualism is not at all supported by the evidence, and the argument for random mutations has been so thoroughly disproved mathematically that I don't think it's necessary to belabor it.
As for natural selection -- presumably you know about the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance, about 530 million years ago, of new species representing all the basic animal life forms. Ironically, natural selection is problematic not only because of the Cambrian explosion, but because of common descent. The following is a quote from Professor Sean Carroll, who, according to his Wikepedia entry "is at the forefront of evolutionary developmental biology" aka "Evo Devo." In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom he says: "The surprising message from Evo Devo is that all of the genes for building large, complex animal bodies long predated the appearance of those bodies in the Cambrian Explosion. The genetic potential was in place for at least 50 million years, and probably a fair bit longer, before large, complex forms emerged." So the genes necessary for the formation of many complex structures must have predated the Cambrian explosion by at least 50 million years, yet during the Cambrian all of these things are first observed in the fossil record. If all life on Earth has a common ancestor (which could be true) that means some very primitive, as yet undiscovered, animal form must have possessed all of the genes necessary for the Cambrian explosion even though it didn’t have the complex structures itself. In other words, it had these genes even though no advantage had been gained from them and, therefore, natural selection had no chance to work.
I'll get to Ed later, if it's even necessary... dinner looms and my evening is committed.
"Darwin’s evolution hypothesis was constructed of four parts that are related to each other the way the four parts of a stool fit together. Darwinism is based on three core ideas:
- The common descent of all life"
Confirmed by molecular analysis. It actually gets so "common" that one of the problems in bacterial evolution is deciphering the degree to which the oldest roots of the "tree of life" are so molecularly tangled because of linear descent and how much is due to horizontal transfer, gene exchange among bacteria. Making that an even bigger issue is that it's looking as though some of the things we now think of as organelles in eukaryotes turn out to be the descendants of groups of free-living bacteria, stripped down to their most basic components and serving as cellular engines. Single-celled organisms didn't just answer the question of sexual vs asexual reproduction with "yes!", they apparently performed full takeovers at a few points.
Vertebrates, which I suspect you are more interested in, have much cleaner phylogenetic trees. It's really quite easy to construct phylogenies from molecular data that match the previously constructed ones, though there have been interesting results there. But I'll leave it at "the evidence overwhelmingly supports common descent".
"- Random mutations (very small changes in life forms occurring completely by chance and for no purpose)"
What an odd way to construct the concept. Mutations don't occur "completely by chance", they occur due to copying errors, which DNA is much more prone to than RNA (one of the reasons an RNA origin of life is currently one of the strongest schools of thought in theories about the earliest origins), and damage to DNA that is repaired incompletely. Mutagens both very mild and severe occur in nature, but can we at least come to an agreement about "background rate of copying errors"? (Which is itself not even consistent, some regions are much more highly conserved than others by necessity- errors that happen there result in a nonviable organism.) You're right in that mutation occurs for no purpose, but a very large part of any organism's genome is basically epigentic contingency programming; environmental pressures don't affect mutation but they absolutely affect a great deal of which genes are turned on and which off. I've seen epigenetics reported as "challenge to Darwinism" in pop science reporting but it's a long-recognized phenomenon that is nothing of the sort- you just need to have had at least a college-level education in biology to have likely even heard of it.
"A continuous process of natural selection in which all species compete for survival"
Another odd way to put it. selection occurs at multiple levels, the strongest of which is the individual, and by far the weakest one "species". The idea that species-level selection occurs at all is a controversial one, though no doubt if you asked island species who have come into recent contact with mainland ones they'd disagree.
"The fourth part of Darwin’s hypothesis is the concept of 'gradualism' which connects and rests on the three legs like the seat of a stool."
We HAVE advanced rather beyond Darwin and Lyell, you know.
" For Darwinism to work, all four components must be scientifically valid -- not a single one can be false."
For Darwin to have been absolutely right you'd be right. But the core of natural selection as the engine of evolution- change over time- doesn't rely on Darwin. Natural selection requires variation and differential selective pressures. That's it. That's all. It doesn't have to be variation generated purely by completely random mutation (otherwise what purpose meiosis, or sex?), it doesn't have to strictly happen at one speed (pressures are not constant and there is no reason they should be), and there doesn't even necessarily need to be selective pressure on every single trait at all times. Motoo Kimura's big contribution to the field was demonstrating that mutations aren't necessarily bad/good but often entirely neutral in their impact.
"presumably you know about the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance, about 530 million years ago, of new species representing all the basic animal life forms."
Yes, and astoundingly enough, so do evolutionary biologists, who think the Cambrian period is a source of fascination rather than a dark secret. Hence all the discussion of it.
Part 2.
"The following is a quote from Professor Sean Carroll, who, according to his Wikepedia entry "is at the forefront of evolutionary developmental biology" aka "Evo Devo." In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom he says: "The surprising message from Evo Devo is that all of the genes for building large, complex animal bodies long predated the appearance of those bodies in the Cambrian Explosion. The genetic potential was in place for at least 50 million years, and probably a fair bit longer, before large, complex forms emerged.""
Have you read it yet? It's on my shelf but I'm currently occupied with a Boyd work about art as an active human adaptation. According to friends it's quite good. I know you wouldn't just cherrypick quotes in order to demonstrate that respected experts in a field must be dishonest or deluded in believing their field actually exists. That would be careless at best and dishonest at worst.
"So the genes necessary for the formation of many complex structures must have predated the Cambrian explosion by at least 50 million years, yet during the Cambrian all of these things are first observed in the fossil record. If all life on Earth has a common ancestor (which could be true) that means some very primitive, as yet undiscovered, animal form must have possessed all of the genes necessary for the Cambrian explosion even though it didn’t have the complex structures itself. In other words, it had these genes even though no advantage had been gained from them and, therefore, natural selection had no chance to work."
This is only true if you think that each and every gene must be "for" something, or to remain entirely the same in structure and function over time, an attitude which I understand to be common in intelligent design circles. One of the few characterizations you made about natural selection I agreed with is that mutation, and for that matter recombination and sexual reproduction, aren't purpose-directed. It's certainly Behe's model, but as pretty much every single molecular evolutionary biologist (a field Behe claimed did not exist, which either required deliberate dishonesty or a deliberate failure to check on the truth of a statement before saying it- both practices I understand the Bible has a great deal more to say about than it does the origin of life) has pointed out, variations of genes that function in entirely different ways are common. It would be an extrordinary thing to discover that sponges have "genes for synapses", which sponges do not have, to pick on one interesting recent example- but what the sponge has is genes that code for proteins that in creatures with advanced nervous systems are critical in making synapses. It's useful in talking about the science to refer to the "(feature) gene", but genes code for PROTEINS, not features. Sponges don't have genes only useful in the nervous system they don't have, they use the same protein complex to do something else, in this case a much less organized form of cellular communication. Saying that vertebrates have synapse genes found in sponges that don't have synapses is like saying clay has statue molecules despite not always being found in statues.
Seriously Sarah, please do some reading that isn't apologetics and is above high school biology level. I promise you it is fascinating and may give you even more awe in your faith. May I recommend Cohen and Stewart, The Collapse of Chaos? You will probably not agree with everything they assert but it is written agnostically with respect to materialism vs theism and gives one of the best explanations of the actual nature of DNA and genomes, and how evolution operates as a dynamical system, that I have ever read. Dawkins is one of the clearest writers on evolutionary theory, but his often very ignorant ranting about religion poisons him.
Part I
[For clarity: my previous comments in bold; LabRat's comments in italics.]
As a scientist and as a Christian, I have no argument with common descent. I believe it has been more or less proven, and it does not contradict anything in the Bible.
I have heard of epigenetics even without a college level education in biology. It is my understanding that environmental pressures cause some genes to be turned on or off and these genetic changes can be passed on to at least one or two generations. This would then be an example of change within a species not caused by a random mutation, would it not? It is slightly reminiscent of Lamarckism to the layman’s eye.
Random mutations (very small changes in life forms occurring completely by chance and for no purpose) ...
What an odd way to construct the concept. Mutations don't occur "completely by chance", they occur due to copying errors, which DNA is much more prone to than RNA ...
As an astrophysicist, I am convinced it would be good if we scientists could learn to talk in two different ways. One way to their colleagues using all of the latest terminology that captures the intricacies and shades of meaning required in a complicated body of ever-increasing knowledge. But scientists should also be able to convey their knowledge (at least the basics) in everyday language so they can share it with the general public. By random, we scientists of course mean that something is undirected and can only be dealt with as a probability. However, the public generally understands that anything that has to be expressed as a probability involves the notion of chance. I was directing my comment to a non-scientist (albeit engineer) which is why I used a term that you as a biologist find 'odd.'
A continuous process of natural selection in which all species compete for survival ...
Another odd way to put it. selection occurs at multiple levels, the strongest of which is the individual, and by far the weakest one "species". The idea that species-level selection occurs at all is a controversial one, though no doubt if you asked island species who have come into recent contact with mainland ones they'd disagree.
Natural selection as Darwin presented it was a continuous process based on competition for survival. Darwin was inspired in his work by the writings of Thomas Malthus who argued that too many offspring are born within any group of animals. With limited resources available, some of the young will die while others will survive. The more 'fit' will be those that have some advantage due to the variability (which Darwinists now believe comes from random genetic mutations) that occurs within any animal population. Thus each individual animal is from birth forced by nature into the inevitable competition for survival. If this is somehow odd to you, your argument is with Darwin and Malthus, not me.
The fourth part of Darwin’s hypothesis is the concept of 'gradualism' which connects and rests on the three legs like the seat of a stool.
We HAVE advanced rather beyond Darwin and Lyell, you know.
I am very much interested in this statement, but it is too vague to be of any use. Do you mean that Darwin's hypothesis about evolution was inadequate or wrong? Was he wrong about "natura non facit saltum," common descent, random mutation, or natural selection? The public would be very interested to have biologists admit this. Or are you merely observing that Darwin didn't know about Mendel's work or genetics at the time he wrote On the Origin of Species ... ? My understanding of neo-Darwinism is that it was a synthesis of Darwin's notions and Mendel's work which rather seamlessly incorporated the findings of modern genetic studies as they occurred. If that is true, my statement that the basic hypothesis of evolution still rests on four fundamental ideas is still correct. If this is wrong, please specify which of Darwin's four basic ideas is no longer included in modern evolutionary theory.
[cont'd below]
Part II
For Darwinism to work, all four components must be scientifically valid -- not a single one can be false.
For Darwin to have been absolutely right you'd be right. But the core of natural selection as the engine of evolution- change over time- doesn't rely on Darwin. Natural selection requires variation and differential selective pressures. That's it. That's all. It doesn't have to be variation generated purely by completely random mutation (otherwise what purpose meiosis, or sex?), it doesn't have to strictly happen at one speed (pressures are not constant and there is no reason they should be), and there doesn't even necessarily need to be selective pressure on every single trait at all times. Motoo Kimura's big contribution to the field was demonstrating that mutations aren't necessarily bad/good but often entirely neutral in their impact.
Your statement again seems to imply that Darwin was somehow inadequate or just wrong. Or perhaps what you are saying is that Darwin is no longer central to evolutionary thought. Is that what you are saying? Also, if you are saying that biologists now believe that some mutation occurs in nature non-randomly, that is a very important new finding that has not been communicated in the popular literature about evolution. Why would biologists withhold this important new information from the general public? The only non-random variation in species I am aware of is the use of selective breeding by farmers and others who have certain predetermined goals in mind for livestock, dogs, cats, etc. Much of your response does not seem relevant to my point.
... presumably you know about the Cambrian explosion, the sudden appearance, about 530 million years ago, of new species representing all the basic animal life forms.
Yes, and astoundingly enough, so do evolutionary biologists, who think the Cambrian period is a source of fascination rather than a dark secret. Hence all the discussion of it.
I have followed the discussion of the Cambrian Explosion in the works of Carroll, Zimmer, Dawkins, Gould, and others. What I have found is some discussion but no explanation. Perhaps you could explain how such an amazing variety of animal forms could emerge in such an improbably short time with no plausible evolutionary antecedents in the fossil record? I am particularly distressed by Dawkins response to questions about the Cambrian. In his latest book, he sets up a straw man that he conjures from his biased interpretation of Christian scriptures and then triumphantly knocks it over. That is not the scientific response I would expect from one of the world’s foremost biologists to one of the great mysteries of nature.
[cont'd below]
Part III
The following is a quote from Professor Sean Carroll, who, according to his Wikepedia entry "is at the forefront of evolutionary developmental biology" aka "Evo Devo." In his book, Endless Forms Most Beautiful: The New Science of Evo Devo and the Making of the Animal Kingdom he says: "The surprising message from Evo Devo is that all of the genes for building large, complex animal bodies long predated the appearance of those bodies in the Cambrian Explosion. The genetic potential was in place for at least 50 million years, and probably a fair bit longer, before large, complex forms emerged."
Have you read it yet? It's on my shelf but I'm currently occupied with a Boyd work about art as an active human adaptation. According to friends it's quite good. I know you wouldn't just cherrypick quotes in order to demonstrate that respected experts in a field must be dishonest or deluded in believing their field actually exists. That would be careless at best and dishonest at worst.
The quote from Carroll's book is unambiguous and does not seem open to more than one interpretation. But just so you know that I am not being careless or dishonest I will provide some additional direct quotes about the Cambrian. I hope these will interest you enough to read his book.
Despite the scarcity of the earlier fossil record, Evo Devo allows us to peer even deeper into animal history, before the Cambrian, to ponder the complexity and forms of the ancestors of the Cambrian animals – especially the mysterious last common ancestor or all bilateral animals, including ourselves. P139
Whatever the Ediacaran oddballs were, during this time the ancestors of the animals of the Cambrian must have existed. We don’t know what they looked like but new insights from Evo Devo allow us to imagine what to look for…To think about our ancestors we have to make some inferences based upon the structure of the animal evolutionary tree. P141
The first appearance of clearly recognizable members of many…groups is in the Cambrian period…we deduce that the common ancestors of various groups must predate the Cambrian by some chunk of time. This is an inference because the fossil record…before the Cambrian is very scanty. P142
It does not appear that scarcity is a fault of the fossil record.
Without confirmed body fossils, paleontology is reluctant to conjure up more than a vague image of a featureless, wormlike creature for the last common ancestor ... (Emphasis added)
If we can’t say much for certain from the fossil record, what can we say about the animal ancestors based on other kinds of evidence? We can make inferences based on what is shared among descendants. This is the critical logic used in Evo Devo to peer into the distant past.
... the common ancestor of bilaterians ... ( ... Urbilateria ... )…had a tool kit of at least six or seven Hox genes, Pax-6, Distal-less, tinman, and a few hundred more body-building genes. It is intriguing to ponder just what so many genes were doing in Urbilateria.
So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record. Worse yet for Darwin, this featureless worm had all kinds of genes that weren’t expressed as actual physical forms for another 50 million years. In other words it had just the right mix of genes to pass on to its descendents to produce the incredible explosion of life forms witnessed in the fossil record even though it accumulated those genes without the help of natural selection.
Do you disagree with these findings of Evo Devo? If you don't, are you willing to admit that the notion of natural selection is inadequate to explain how the Cambrian Explosion took place? Please give some help to an earnest layman who in the face of what a leading biologist has written has no alternative to the belief that if 'Urbilateria' did exist, it must have been genetically preprogrammed somehow – that would certainly be an interesting and mysterious case of your not-completely-random mutation.
[cont'd below]
Part IV
So the genes necessary for the formation of many complex structures must have predated the Cambrian explosion by at least 50 million years, yet during the Cambrian all of these things are first observed in the fossil record. If all life on Earth has a common ancestor (which could be true) that means some very primitive, as yet undiscovered, animal form must have possessed all of the genes necessary for the Cambrian explosion even though it didn’t have the complex structures itself. In other words, it had these genes even though no advantage had been gained from them and, therefore, natural selection had no chance to work.
This is only true if you think that each and every gene must be "for" something, or to remain entirely the same in structure and function over time, an attitude which I understand to be common in intelligent design circles. One of the few characterizations you made about natural selection I agreed with is that mutation, and for that matter recombination and sexual reproduction, aren't purpose-directed. It's certainly Behe's model, but as pretty much every single molecular evolutionary biologist (a field Behe claimed did not exist, which either required deliberate dishonesty or a deliberate failure to check on the truth of a statement before saying it- both practices I understand the Bible has a great deal more to say about than it does the origin of life) has pointed out, variations of genes that function in entirely different ways are common. It would be an extrordinary thing to discover that sponges have "genes for synapses", which sponges do not have, to pick on one interesting recent example- but what the sponge has is genes that code for proteins that in creatures with advanced nervous systems are critical in making synapses. It's useful in talking about the science to refer to the "(feature) gene", but genes code for PROTEINS, not features. Sponges don't have genes only useful in the nervous system they don't have, they use the same protein complex to do something else, in this case a much less organized form of cellular communication. Saying that vertebrates have synapse genes found in sponges that don't have synapses is like saying clay has statue molecules despite not always being found in statues.
Again, your response does not give a clear answer to my question, which was essentially, "How can genes accumulate if natural selection is not at work?" Also, if you look at the last quote from Carroll's book, he refers to 'tool kit' genes that are what he calls "body-building genes." He says that his and other research in evolutionary development shows that there are genes such as the Pax-6 gene for eye formation, Distal-less gene for limb formation, and the tinman gene for heart formation. So there are genes that form features.
But the really amazing finding of Evo Devo is that you can put a gene, such as the Pax-6 gene, from a mouse into an insect and it will function correctly for that other species. The following is from the book Evolution by Carl Zimmer who is an enthusiastic supporter of Darwin:
Joy turned to shock when biologists began to find Hox genes in other animals – in frogs, mice, and humans; in velvet worms, barnacles, and starfish. In every case, parts of their Hox genes were almost identical, regardless of the animal that carried them ...
Biologists discovered that the Hox genes did the same job in all of these animals: specifying different sections of the head-to-tail axis just as they do in insects. Hox genes in these different animals are so similar that scientists can replace a defective Hox gene in a fruit fly with the corresponding Hox gene from a mouse, and the fly will still grow its proper body parts. P140
I know enough about evolution theory to know that this outcome was totally unanticipated by Darwin or any of his followers. I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this.
Seriously Sarah, please do some reading that isn't apologetics and is above high school biology level ...
Seriously?? I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty.
"Again, your response does not give a clear answer to my question, which was essentially, "How can genes accumulate if natural selection is not at work?""
Okay, I think I understand what you were really asking now. The short answer is found in my comment about the randomness of mutation: the most common copying error in DNA, and DNA's proneness to copying errors is hugely important, is gene duplication. Duplicate genes can mutate without necessarily causing direct selective impact; a mutant duplicate that isn't functional is a neutral mutation as long as there's a functional duplicate that can be read and processed correctly. A mutant duplicate that IS functional in some way can be harmful, but it can also function in ways that are slightly different but still, for the purposes of the organism with the gene, work. The ultimate outcome of this, especially when combined with gene transfer, recombination, and sex, is a constant supply of minor variation that is well insulated from catastrophic consequences but sometimes functions in new ways that may provide advantage. There are multiple genes in humans that vary slightly from each other but seem to perform the same general function- just slightly differently, sometimes in ways that seem to cause pathological consequences, sometimes in ways that seem to give advantage, and sometimes even both at once. The same variant that seems to be associated with very accurate memory for a young human also seems to be associated with Alzheimer's later in life, for example.
A variant that is not very important may- if it turns out to allow a new and highly advantageous function- later become indispensable to further organisms and thereafter become ubiquitous, with variants that don't function that way going extinct except in surviving ancestral populations.
"He says that his and other research in evolutionary development shows that there are genes such as the Pax-6 gene for eye formation, Distal-less gene for limb formation, and the tinman gene for heart formation. So there are genes that form features."
Right. That is what they now. That doesn't *necessarily* mean that is what they- or more accurately their earliest recognizable forms- always did. A developmental gene wasn't necessarily always a developmental gene any more than a horse is necessarily a lungfish. Awkward clunky example, I know, and I've probably beaten my point into the ground if I've managed to make it at all.
"But the really amazing finding of Evo Devo is that you can put a gene, such as the Pax-6 gene, from a mouse into an insect and it will function correctly for that other species."
Pretty neat, isn't it? The genes themselves are highly conserved, and other regions of a given creature's genome provide instructions on how to use them. Sort of like a bucket of legos that may contain instructions on how to turn them into a castle and may contain instructions on how to turn them into a spaceship. Genomes aren't just instructions on how to build a creature, they're also instructions about how to read the instructions. Something that becomes increasingly necessary the more duplicate genes and broken copies and epigenetic contingencies are accumulated.
" I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this."
Is it clear now or should I try again? I really must reiterate my recommendation for "Collapse of Chaos", I think it has a lot of the explanation you're looking for.
"Seriously?? I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty."
I do owe you an apology and I offer it in full. I was wrong to take that tone and I was wrong to assume I knew where you were coming from.
The explanation, which is not an excuse, is sheer frustration. It is infuriating to be constantly told that one of the organizing principles of your intellectual world is nonsense based on reasons given that reveal the speaker both lacks even basic knowledge and has no intention of gaining it- as Ed below.
I imagine the tone of this reply is different from my first and middle ones. Please consider the apology to cover any further snarkiness.
I will caveat though that it really IS rather provocative to claim that the central organizing principle around which the last hundred years of progress in a fied has been based is wrong- but I gather now you didn't realize that it IS that central to biology.
"So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record."
Depends how? Does this invalidate "natural selection is differential selective pressure on variability over time"? You've already agreed that common descent is established fact. Evolutionary theory describes how evolution works and puts the diversity of life into a coherent theoretical context, it doesn't exist to say "life started here and looked like this". One application is to use logical inference as best we can to make accurate speculations about it, but the lack of a fossil record for a billion-year-old soft-bodied theoretical creature doesn't validate or invalidate evolutionary theory; it's merely missing information. We may even have made or be making wrong inferences- but that's how science works, we study the evidence actually available to us and try to make accurate conclusions about it. When we fail that doesn't invalidate science.
" Worse yet for Darwin, this featureless worm had all kinds of genes that weren’t expressed as actual physical forms for another 50 million years."
Again I'm not sure what point you think you're making. The HOX set does the same thing in all descendants and that's why it's interesting to the study of developmental evolution, but that doesn't mean that's what they did in any given ancestor. All of us have lots of genes (or descendants of genes, really) that don't do the same thing for us that they did for a very distant ancestor. We sometimes get the chance to find out what they do instead when an ancestral group is still extant, like the sponges and their genes that are now synapse genes in all creatures with nervous systems but faciliate a different form of cellular communication for the sponge.
Genes code for proteins. Not features. We see the traces of evolution when they DO do consistent things- and of particularly paradigm-changing innovations when they do the same thing in all descendants. Development is of special interest precisely because it is extremely conserved that way.
"In other words it had just the right mix of genes to pass on to its descendents to produce the incredible explosion of life forms witnessed in the fossil record even though it accumulated those genes without the help of natural selection."
What on earth makes you think this? To pick a more physical example, I've got a skeleton that equips me to run around on land, but that's certainly not what the earliest vertebrates were using it for.
A theoretical ancestor had genes that were working very well for it, or it would have been selected out of existence. Later descendants elaborated on those genes in ways that were sometimes surprising and in some cases proved to open up wide new spaces of possibility, and those particular descendants then had a great deal more descendants.
"Please give some help to an earnest layman who in the face of what a leading biologist has written has no alternative to the belief that if 'Urbilateria' did exist, it must have been genetically preprogrammed somehow – that would certainly be an interesting and mysterious case of your not-completely-random mutation."
I am honestly not completely sure where the source of our evident complete disconnect is. To me the transition of genes that now organize the symmetrical development found in nearly all organisms from an ancestral form is to me no different than the transition of an ancestral globin gene into the hemoglobin family of genes found in both organisms that don't need oxygen and those that do; they are putting the same basic substrate to different purpose, but as it turned out being able to safely use oxygen as an energy source is massively advantageous. This family of genes is even older than the developmental genes that Carroll is concerned with, but they are visibly related.
To me this, the panda's thumb, the vertebrate's skeleton, the sponge's "synapse" gene that isn't, and the theoretical ancestor with the HOX genes are all examples of the same underlying principle.
III
"Or perhaps what you are saying is that Darwin is no longer central to evolutionary thought. Is that what you are saying?"
Yes. Natural selection as I have outlined it is, but Darwin has no more relevance to current work than Kepler has to astrophysics.
"Also, if you are saying that biologists now believe that some mutation occurs in nature non-randomly"
It doesn't occur completely and totally randomly, no. Some things reliably induce mutation. Some regions of the genome will contain many more mutations than others, and this is one of the things used to construct phylogenetic trees, since more conserved regions with fewer mutations can be used to roughly estimate time of divergence. Some forms of mutation are much more common than others. Some of these differences underly important mechanisms of evolution- like gene duplication being the most common form of DNA copying error.
" that is a very important new finding that has not been communicated in the popular literature about evolution."
Is what I just said what you thought, or something different? From my point of view non-random aspects of mutation are important and allow evolution to behave in certain ways, but you may have actually meant "mutations are purpose-directed".
"The only non-random variation in species I am aware of is the use of selective breeding by farmers and others who have certain predetermined goals in mind for livestock, dogs, cats, etc. Much of your response does not seem relevant to my point."
Yet you said earlier you are aware of epigenetic phenomena, and sex is often not random; sexual selection is still a hot and often very contested topic in biology. If my response isn't relevant to you it may be because I don't understand what point you think you're making. The commenter below who suggested substituting "chaotic" for "random" may have provided an important clarification.
" What I have found is some discussion but no explanation. Perhaps you could explain how such an amazing variety of animal forms could emerge in such an improbably short time with no plausible evolutionary antecedents in the fossil record?"
As the commenter below pointed out, one of the innovations of the Cambrian was hard body parts. The Burgess shale is remarkable because it was a very rare sort of fossilization event; preserving soft-bodied animals for 500 million years requires extremely specific conditions and then requires that nothing destroys it and then requires that we find it. There probably was rapid adaptive radiation simply because more varied life created more niches, much as we have much more complete records of rapid adaptive radiation when vertebrates colonized land, grasses became prevalaent, and the dinosaurs departed and left a massive quantity of empty niches to inhabit- but far less rapid than *instant*. You say "with no antecedent", but the record we have of pre-Cambrian life is extremely thin for reasons of pure geology.
"I am particularly distressed by Dawkins response to questions about the Cambrian. In his latest book, he sets up a straw man that he conjures from his biased interpretation of Christian scriptures and then triumphantly knocks it over. That is not the scientific response I would expect from one of the world’s foremost biologists to one of the great mysteries of nature."
I'm going to take a moment to enjoy warm common ground. Dawkins's ignorant, blinkered, and spiteful attitude to religion in general and Christians in particular is a profound tragedy for science education, and while I love his earlier work and earlier writings explaining evolution I dearly wish he had stopped there. I'm also going to recommend Cohen and Stewart again; they have a very interesting take on the Cambrian explosion contra Gould's and don't poison their writing by railing against religion.
Speaking of Malthus, I dread unchecked geometric growth of this discussion. We'll see how long it can be sustained. Part one.
"As a scientist and as a Christian, I have no argument with common descent. I believe it has been more or less proven, and it does not contradict anything in the Bible."
Fair enough. That I am arguing with Ed below who is denying the entire possibility does not mean I therefore argue it with you just because you're both Christians. I apologize.
" It is my understanding that environmental pressures cause some genes to be turned on or off and these genetic changes can be passed on to at least one or two generations. This would then be an example of change within a species not caused by a random mutation, would it not? It is slightly reminiscent of Lamarckism to the layman’s eye."
Change to the phenotype, not change to the genotype. What genetic information is passed on to the next generation is the same result of meiosis and sex as it would be otherwise- but which bits are turned on and which off are indeed partly dependent on parental imprinting. Mammals are even wholly dependent on it, which is why parthenogenesis appears in fish and reptiles but never mammals. Without the epigenetic information from the other parent, development fails.
It may look like Lamarckism, but it isn't quite. It's all still based on heritable variation, it's just that, as you may be seeing, mutation is the least of the sources of variation that selective pressures act on in practice. It's just the only one that brings in wholly and entirely novel variation.
"As an astrophysicist, I am convinced it would be good if we scientists could learn to talk in two different ways. One way to their colleagues using all of the latest terminology that captures the intricacies and shades of meaning required in a complicated body of ever-increasing knowledge. But scientists should also be able to convey their knowledge (at least the basics) in everyday language so they can share it with the general public."
I just deleted a fairly lengthy bit because I now think it was an overreaction. Condensed: I keep picking on your phrasing because it's not quite accurate in ways that I think generate and enhance misunderstanding. I actually do spend a lot of time blogging about evolution and my hope and my goal is to make it comprehensible to a layman; I do it because it's fascinating and beautiful and I'm passionate about it and want to share that with the curious. I'm irritable because I have the sense that you are not actually curious but rather seeking to deny without working to gain understanding- which may not even be true and in which case I would be being unfair.
"The more 'fit' will be those that have some advantage due to the variability (which Darwinists now believe comes from random genetic mutations) that occurs within any animal population. Thus each individual animal is from birth forced by nature into the inevitable competition for survival. If this is somehow odd to you, your argument is with Darwin and Malthus, not me."
Please stop referring to modern evolutionary theory as "Darwinism" or I will be forced to do something childish and begin referring to astrophysics as Ptolemyism.
Again, not exactly accurate- Darwin had no mechanism to pin heritability on and he knew it, and his proposed theoretical one was entirely wrong. We now know about genes, and evolutionary theory did not achieve the central status in biology it has now until the Modern Synthesis merged what naturalists knew and understood with what geneticists did. We now understand genetic variability to be constantly generated- yes, by mutation, but primarily by gene transfer, recombination through meiosis, and sexual reproduction.
II
"Do you mean that Darwin's hypothesis about evolution was inadequate or wrong? Was he wrong about "natura non facit saltum," common descent, random mutation, or natural selection?"
I mean it was wrong in many of the details of his writing, but a correct broad observation of how nature works. We can probably dispense with common descent as an argument between you and me at this point. "Natura non facit saltum", for example- it is now understood that evolution doesn't proceed at the same pace and that pace can at times be quite uneven, the Cambrian explosion being a classic case in point. You don't get a bird from lizard parents- but when some natural innovation or event opens up a new space of possibilities for life, the speed of adaptive radiation picks up dramatically. When selective pressures change dramatically, so does the pace of evolution. Punctuated equilibrium, however, is not news. If the public has not heard it is because the public is not listening.
" If that is true, my statement that the basic hypothesis of evolution still rests on four fundamental ideas is still correct. If this is wrong, please specify which of Darwin's four basic ideas is no longer included in modern evolutionary theory."
I was under the impression that I had just done that. You seem to think that periods like the Cambrian are unusual because they are not as gradual as other periods; periods of rapid adaptive radiation fit seamlessly into modern theory even if they might have surprised Darwin. Natural selection does involve differential selective pressures, which is not actually always the same thing as direct competition- modern evolutionary theory also involves a great deal of work on the selective advantages afforded by cooperation, and also the high degree to which many mutations turn out to be neutral in effect, as well as the contribution that plain old genetic drift can make. You put mutation as one of your "legs", but the primary sources of variation on which selection acts in effect are only indirectly due to mutation.
They key idea as I put it is: natural selection is differential selective pressures acting on natural variation. You may not see a difference between this and your own phrasing, and it is not how Darwin would have put it, but it is the fundamental mechanism of both Darwin's hypothesis and modern theory.
To pick an example from astrophysics, epicycles were wrong in every particular but regular predictable planetary orbits exist. Correct observation, wrong explanation. This is a much more extreme example than the difference between Darwin's writing and modern evolutionary theory, but is my point taken?
LabRat, I very much appreciate the apology, and am looking forward to continuing this discussion. However, please give me a day or two, as I'm quite busy, and I'll respond to your comments.
BTW, I take rather a harsh position against biologists in a response to UJ below; but understand that this is largely directed at the biology community and not you personally, as I know you are not an anti-theist.
Fair enough. I managed to acquire a thumping headache due to something that has nothing to do with you or this discussion, so I am grateful for the break.
I did respond to that, but detente between the two of us for the purposes of productivity seems to be the best idea by far.
LabRat,
(Part I)
Thank you for your response. I hope you're feeling better. As far as your detailed answers to my comments and questions go, I've gotten what I need and would now like to steer this conversation in a specific direction.
First, a confession. When I first converted from atheism to Christianity a few years ago I was pre-inclined to dismiss the biological sciences. You experienced my prejudice on this blog a few years ago. It was just an instinctive reaction. Since then, I decided it was time to really learn about evolution, and when I actually started studying it in earnest -- not from apologetics, but from the experts -- I realized that not only is biology utterly fascinating but totally supportive of the biblical view of life. So I want to say that I now understand how biologists could feel constantly under assault given the current climate of distrust caused by the ongoing dispute over evolution. I feel great sympathy for the earnest biologists enduring a cloud of suspicion as they toil according to the scientific method. I appreciate the biologists such as yourself who recognize that it isn’t right for people like Richard Dawkins to enlist the full weight of the science of biology to make philosophical/ theological points. Ultimately, it is vitally important for all people in our modern society to vigorously support the biological sciences as they continue to make important breakthroughs in knowledge that will serve humankind in positive ways. But part of supporting biology is ensuring that the integrity of the science is relentlessly protected so that all segments of society can feel total trust in the work that is being done.
So, I also hope earnest biologists can understand the perspective of those who are devoutly religious and are upset when some biologists misuse science to promote atheistic views that are not in the realm of science. Here’s a very recent example, an article in the Vancouver Sun entitled "Scientist sheds new light on free will." It reported that Prof. Patrick Haggard of the Institute for Cognitive Neuroscience in London had done research on "transcranial magnetic stimulation." The research used magnetic coils to affect the human brain from outside the skull and "then to control the body." With the help of a research assistant, the professor demonstrated how holding a device next to his head could stimulate part of his brain and "If we get it right it might cause something." When the professor’s hand twitched, he responded, "It’s not me doing that, it’s her." The article goes on to report that, although "the machinery can’t force Haggard to do anything really complicated ... The mechanical nature of it is unsettling."
What is being reported is an interesting advance in biological technology. Everyone knows that the brain controls muscle contractions, except in the case of a reflex. Everyone knows that the brain can be stimulated by electrodes implanted in it, which can cause all kinds of reactions and sensations. This experiment takes this understanding one step further. It is interesting and possibly very useful, but that is as far as the science can go. The professor goes too far when he states the following:
"I’m not doing it, [my assistant] is. I’m just a machine, and she is operating me."
"We certainly don't have free will."
"We don't have free will in the spiritual sense. What you're seeing is the last output stage of a machine ... there's no ghost in the machine."
The reporter goes on to write:
"This, Haggard says, has profound implications: philosophically, morally, and – most worryingly – legally."
[cont'd below]
Part II
If a Christian physicist did something similar, if for instance s/he were to say that the big bang proves that God exists, I guarantee that two groups of people would respond with vigorous indignation: atheists and the vast majority of physicists, including most of those physicists who are Christian. The big bang certainly demonstrates that our universe was created in the truest sense of the word 'create,' meaning something out of nothing; but science can go no further; it can make no statement about the creative force behind the existence of our universe.
Professor Haggard is declaring that he has proved that humans have no soul or spirit. This is ludicrous and a destructive misuse of science. He is deliberately picking a fight with all people of faith and in doing so has done a terrible disserve to biological science. By claiming more than science can ever accomplish, by indulging his atheistic views, he has corrupted and tarnished the science of biology. Individuals make mistakes, but what concerns me most about all this is that when individuals such as Haggard, Dawkins, and other atheist biologists misuse biology, there is no public outcry from their fellow biologists and no meaningful attempt by any professional group or body to protect the integrity of the biological sciences. It appears, and I hope with all my heart that it is just an appearance and not a reality, that biology is being turned away from a pure search for truth and increasingly being recruited to provide support for atheistic views. This would be a great tragedy for all humankind. Until Christians see some formal and public outcry from a significant body of biologists against the misuse of science from people like Thomas Huxley all the way to Dawkins, they're going to be mistrustful of all biologists.
Going back to the overall science, I was puzzled when both you and Unix mentioned Kepler as an example of outdated physics. Kepler did not produce any theories, but rather physical laws, and these laws have not been overturned. In fact, in my own work we describe a particular type of orbital motion around black holes as "Keplerian rotation" and Newton's generalization of Kepler's third law is still used to calculate masses of binary systems including double-stars and exo-planets. NASA even named a recent mission to discover exo-planets after Kepler.
However, Kepler was never the full story. Newton went on to make a huge breakthrough with gravity and his laws of motion, but he turned out to be fundamentally wrong about at least one thing (the speed of gravity) and we now know that even his work was not the full story. Regardless, Kepler's and Newton's laws are still very much valid in a particular limit. In fact, one of the first things students learn in modern physics is that virtually all observed non-classical phenomena, whether relativistic or quantum mechanical, converge to the classical (i.e. Newtonian) description in the limit of the large and the slow. OTOH, as you have rightly pointed out, Ptolemy was completely wrong even though he had a workable model. So this leads to my final question for you. What I want to know is what Darwin is to biology. Is he regarded as the Kepler/Newton of biology or is he the Ptolemy of biology?
Sarah, this sort of crap outrages me as well, although maybe not as much as it probably should just because it's annoying background noise to me much of the time, although when I run across it in the news I usually make tearing it to bits my blog priority of the day. You might get a kick out of this one- http://www.atomicnerds.com/?p=2696 Your point made I will take it more seriously from here on out; if it's any comfort this kind of shit only seems to play to the press and not the field itself.
In any case, my faulty comparisons were in part due to what I think is part of our disconnect that caused this entire discussion, which is that physics and biology are two fields that require very different mindsets to approach productively, and I think often physicists and biologists misunderstand each other a great deal just because of this fact, all history aside. So, I have trouble drawing completely accurate analogies just because of that. A deeply important difference is that biology has very, very few laws in the sense of Newton or Kepler's laws; even when we produce fundamental equations, like the Hardy-Weinberg equilibrium, it's recognized that they illustrate principles but don't actually describe any living population of animals. Too many variables, and most importantly variables that all constantly affect each other at the same time.
The short answer is that Darwin is still respected for the contribution of the fundamental mechanism of natural selection, but recognized to have been wrong in many of the details, some of which seem obscure to an outsider but still have very important implications. If you really want to see a professional evolutionary biologist going after Darwin hammer and tongs, read Joan Roughgarden's "Genial Genes". It's quite dense since she's writing for colleagues rather than for a popular audience, but the entire thing is basically a critical deconstruction of his second book on sexual selection and the theoretical heritage it's accumulated since. Quite an effective one if you ask me, too- she's bristled a lot of beards but in my opinion most of her assault is well earned.
To put it in a way that may be more directly clear: modern debates, efforts in career advancement to expand current theory, and points of contention are all based on the theory contributions (and calculations) of thinkers of the last forty years or so. Roughgarden's book on the theoretical heritage of one of Darwin's theories is unusual *because* it calls him back as the source of underlying assumptions modern theory is often based that she believes (and arguably demonstrates) are fallacious.
Sarah, this sort of crap outrages me as well, although maybe not as much as it probably should just because it's annoying background noise to me much of the time, although when I run across it in the news I usually make tearing it to bits my blog priority of the day.
I sympathize with the difficulty scientists have understanding public perception of the work we do. I'm more aware of it than the average scientist who is busily focused on his/her work, because I do a ton of public outreach. You might be surprised by how the general public translates what they read in the scientific news -- and also how one loud, annoying voice becomes the voice of the entire community to them. I am having to deal with this with Hawking's latest pronouncements.
Anyway, this was quite interesting. Thank you, sincerely, for the discussion.
"how old is the Earth Ed?"
Obviously Sarah responded before I could. She also has a better handle on the exact number than I do. My answer was going to be "I'm not sure. I think it's somewhere in the neighborhood of 4 billion years." You're also referring to the Bible, so what age do you think the Bible claims the age is?
"evolution through natural selection is definitely the touchstone of molecular biology, and has been proven definitively."
Micro-evolution (variation within limits and within a species) has been definitely proven. For example, microevolution accounts for a wide variety of breed within dogs (chihuahua through great dane), but they're still dogs. Where's your evidence of macro-evolution?
The most commonly cited "proofs" cited today are things like Haeckel's embryo drawings (exposed as frauds more than 100 years ago!), peppered moths (which don't land on trunks and were glued there for the photos), Darwin's finches (their beaks changed back as conditions changed), and four winged fruit flies (which don't have the musculature and skeletal structure to support the extra wings, making them less likely to survive). There's also the Miller-Urey experiment which showed that some of the necessary amino acids could be produced if a certain kind of atmosphere existed; an atmosphere which has since been proven to have been impossible. And of course you probably remember Piltdown Man, though I don't think it's seriously quoted as evidence anymore. All of these are the same quality of science as that used to support AGW.
Another thing that's well established by microbiologists is that proteins read DNA to build proteins needed by the cell. You may not be aware that microbiologists have been working to figure out the absolute minimum number of proteins needed for a cell to function. As of a few years ago, they had narrowed the range down to between 185 and about 230 proteins. How do you explain the formation of exactly the right proteins and the DNA to define those same proteins essentially simultaneously?
That the universe had a beginning has also been definitively proven; as has the fact that time and space itself are part of the universe and could not have existed prior to the universe. How does materialism explain the universe coming into existence out of literally nothing without a cause? (Cause and effect is the foundation of science.) Furthermore, how does strict materialism explain that the universe was formed with exactly the right constants (gravitational force, weak nuclear force, strong nuclear force, speed of light, etc.) to permit life to exist? The odds against these constants all being right vastly exceeds the total number of atoms in the entire universe.
In fact, Stephen Hawking's latest book actually acknowledges the validity of this Fine Tuning argument. He just tries to defeat it using claims that even other atheist scientists strongly dispute, especially specialists in quantum mechanics, which is not Hawking's field. I should also point out that Hawking's partner in developing the black hole theory, Roger Penrose, has already pointed out massive flaws in Hawking's Multiple Universes theory.
Well, my evening plans got pushed back, so.
"Micro-evolution (variation within limits and within a species) has been definitely proven. For example, microevolution accounts for a wide variety of breed within dogs (chihuahua through great dane), but they're still dogs. Where's your evidence of macro-evolution?"
"Micro-evolution" and "Macro-evolution" are not separate concepts anywhere but creationist/intelligent design literature. They are the exact same process and differ only in degree. It is one of several reasons why biology has found it impossible to nail down a truly concrete definition of species rather than working off a combination of several- but seeing as how we're talking about the same organisms, I note apologetics has had no more convincing lucks with "kinds".
"The most commonly cited "proofs" cited today are things like Haeckel's embryo drawings (exposed as frauds more than 100 years ago!)"
OH MY GOD, YOU MEAN EMBRYLOGY 100 YEARS AGO WAS INACCURATE? THE FOUNDATIONS OF MY WORLDVIEW ARE CRUMBLING.
"peppered moths (which don't land on trunks and were glued there for the photos)"
Clearly Kettlewell should have waited as long as it took for small insects to land in a good composition and stay there until he had the shot set up. Regardless, work on Biston betularia has proceeded ever since; there's reams of journal literature about them, all with better methodology than Kettlewell. Merely because work has not entered your consciousness does not mean it does not exist and the field is dishonest/deluded.
"Darwin's finches (their beaks changed back as conditions changed)"
I know the study you're talking about, and did you SERIOUSLY just assert traits changing over time in response to changing environmental pressure as evidence that evolution doesn't happen?
"and four winged fruit flies (which don't have the musculature and skeletal structure to support the extra wings, making them less likely to survive)"
Oh for heaven's sake. Those files aren't "proof of macroevolution", they're one example out of many of how multiple different traits during development, including where limbs grow and how many, are controlled by a small number of genes in certain regions. They only exist in laboratories becauset the genomes of wild-type organisms are heavily canalised- resistant to change that extreme. Because, as you have brilliantly observed (no professional biologist could make this observation!), mutations that affect the organism's development that dramatically render it inviable. It takes geneticists ages of breeding to develop laboratory strains that lack the protections in their genome wild ones have and will do things like that and tell them about how development is organized- development is a highly conserved process for excellent reason. No one serious has EVER asserted that the HOX genes drive evolution by doing things like that, because it is patently absurd.
"There's also the Miller-Urey experiment which showed that some of the necessary amino acids could be produced if a certain kind of atmosphere existed; an atmosphere which has since been proven to have been impossible."
Miller-Urey is, in terms of the pace of progress, nearly as ancient as the Haeckel drawings. Please do try to keep up if you're going to make assertions like this. I seriously have never seen you make any assertion about serious scientific claims about the possible origin of life that were any more recent than 25 years ago. And no, I am not any more willing to do your homework for you than the last time we had this argument. For- well, the love of God, I know He is reputed to love truth- GO OUT AND DO SOME REAL RESEARCH THAT ISN'T APOLOGETICS.
"And of course you probably remember Piltdown Man, though I don't think it's seriously quoted as evidence anymore."
One of the most flagrant hoaxes in scientific history is no longer seriously quoted as evidence? NO. You're pulling my leg. It was no longer seriously quoted as evidence about ten minutes after primatologists pointed out the file marks and the fact that the jawbone and skull were from two different known species.
"All of these are the same quality of science as that used to support AGW."
At least AGW has something like a body of literature. The fact that I can easily tell that every single one of your examples is from the SAME BOOK by a man who has admitted the Reverend Moon sent him to get his second degree in order to "destroy Darwinism" is really, really damning.
"Another thing that's well established by microbiologists is that proteins read DNA to build proteins needed by the cell. You may not be aware that microbiologists have been working to figure out the absolute minimum number of proteins needed for a cell to function."
No, because it's only slightly less of a silly and diverting question scientifically as "how many angels can dance on the head of a pin" is theologically.
"As of a few years ago, they had narrowed the range down to between 185 and about 230 proteins. How do you explain the formation of exactly the right proteins and the DNA to define those same proteins essentially simultaneously?"
I don't, because again NO ONE SERIOUS HAS EVER ACTUALLY ASSERTED THAT THIS IS WHAT HAPPENED. Calling this a strawman fails in its sheer lack of scope. It's a straw giant with a straw family living in a straw castle. The whole point of life from nonlife is that its predecessors were not alive, i.e. not complete cells that satisfy the definition of life as we know it. Every serious theory relating to the ultimate origin of life starts from organic molecules and then self-replicating molecules, not cells, and discusses the formation of those and of the phospholipid structures that make up cell walls and only many, many steps down the line about cells. This would be less gobsmacking if self-replicating molecules that "evolve" very similarly to the way live organisms do but don't satisfy our definition of life- viruses- weren't FUCKING EVERYWHERE AND RIDICULOUSLY COMMON AND VARIED. Not even all of them use DNA for their core self-replication process! Hell, the best theory for why CELLS DO has to do with VIRUSES. Which you would know if you had done ANY RESEARCH AT ALL OTHER THAN THAT REQUIRED TO SOUND CONVINCING TO PEOPLE AS IGNORANT ON THE SUBJECT AS YOU ARE.
What's really riling me up and preventing me from treating you as civilly as I feel obligated to treat Sarah is that I distinctly recall having had this EXACT argument with you at least a year if not more ago, and you can only be making these arguments again because you made no effort whatsoever to honestly learn what scientists actually think and believe and study about evolution. Do you have even the slightest fathom of an idea how doing this makes Christians and Christianity look to people who HAVE? You are claiming the moral authority of God himself- and you are notly being flagrantly dishonest, you're using it as a weapon to attack people who ARE being honest and claim THEY are deceptive and therefore immoral. TO ADVANCE THE MORAL AUTHORITY OF GOD.
It should not be a mystery why the moral authority of Christianity has increasingly little standing in academic circles, and it's not "because they enjoy being immoral". They're holding you to the same standard you claim and you are failing.
And Markadelphia thinks he's the only commenter here who is disagreed with! Imagine that! ;)
Calling this a strawman fails in its sheer lack of scope. It's a straw giant with a straw family living in a straw castle.
I'ma swiping dis.
It should not be a mystery why the moral authority of Christianity has increasingly little standing in academic circles, and it's not "because they enjoy being immoral". They're holding you to the same standard you claim and you are failing.
I don't think that's the reason Christian moral authority has little standing in academic circles, since the continual raging hatred of Christianity by elites dates all the way back to the time of Christ. However, I will admit that it's an endless source of distress to many Christians that we often discredit ourselves with our behavior; but public failure and humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to an explicit moral standard.
So, as an atheist, what is the explicit moral standard to which you should be held by everyone else? Lest you undermine your standing in Christian circles...
I don't think that's the reason Christian moral authority has little standing in academic circles
Here, I'll agree, mostly, with Sarah, and disagree, mostly, with LabRat.
But that being said...
So, as an atheist, what is the explicit moral standard to which you should be held by everyone else? Lest you undermine your standing in Christian circles...
I've yet to ever meet a Christian who'd ever give me standing, knowing of my lack of belief - if that's the first they knew of me. Many have been confused _later_ finding out about my lack of belief, but if that's the first thing they've known, or what they've identified me as, or making sweeping declarations, I've seen a 100% track record.
I think it's unfair of LabRat to malign all of Christianity with the ID movement. But the ID movement is fundamentally dishonest, it's a deliberate attempt to subvert science - just like AGW proponents. That doesn't mean there's not real discoveries to be made there, just like there's real study to be made of how much Man has contributed to the changing/warming of the environment.
And using religion as a moral authority and trying to hide that, but yet still claim the moral authority is probably a mite wearying. Go argue physics with a IDer for a while. There's plenty in modern physics they disagree with as well.
"So, as an atheist, what is the explicit moral standard to which you should be held by everyone else? Lest you undermine your standing in Christian circles..."
I'm actually pretty comfortable with the Judeo-Christian standard, at least those bits of it that don't claim I need to accept the supernatural in order to have any moral standing at all. As a member of a Western society I AM held to them whether I choose to be or not- but I would choose to be.
Unlike Dawkins, my position on religion- as well as non-religious ethical standards, such as held by the Greeks and Japanese- is that it's a beneficial human adaptation, and besides that it's of a piece along with that Greek philosophy that has founded our intellectual tradition of ethics.
I actually don't think all of Christianity can be identified with the ID movement. I think they're as theologically bankrupt as they are intellectually. BUT their assault on intellectual standards in the name of morality does get attention, and it supports the Dawkins/Meyers breed of toxic atheism as much as Dawkins and Meyers support them. Enemy of my enemy and all that.
"... public failure and humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to an explicit moral standard. public failure and humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to an explicit moral standard."
Sarah, I don't intend to jump into this fray (which is fascinating, to say the least), but I will point out that we've had this discussion before. It has been my observation that failure and public humiliation is the risk you take when you openly subscribe to dogma, a very great deal of which has nothing to do with any moral standard. While the moral standard in which it is submerged, and the open subscription to it, both have great merit, it is the silliness in which it is submerged that I find risible, and that is what underlies much of my reaction to it.
I won't claim to have done the study to know, but...
It sounds to me that "Darwin's theory" has been "disproven" in much the same way that Newton's theory of gravitation was "disproven" by Einstein.
Is Newton's math 100% correct? No, it isn't. But it's a remarkably good working approximation, plenty good enough for, for example, the aerospace industry.
To whatever extent I'm off the mark, feel free to educate me. I hardly ever turn down free education.
;)
That the universe had a beginning has also been definitively proven; as has the fact that time and space itself are part of the universe and could not have existed prior to the universe. How does materialism explain the universe coming into existence out of literally nothing without a cause?
That right there is my problem with all the arguments on all sides.
Ultimately it appears to me to boil down to two propositions:
1. Something can spontaneously spring from nothing, thus cause and effect has at least one exception. Whether that something is "the universe" or "God" or whatever does not affect what the proposition is in the slightest.
and/or
2. The actual functioning of time is nothing like what we think it is. Thus either once again, cause and effect have at least one exception, or the linear flow of time from cause to effect can flow in quite different directions from that which we perceive.
Any combination of those propositions seems equally ridiculous and equally unprovable to me. However, just because I refuse to commit to the "God" explanation as the only possible true one doesn't mean I fail to recognize the sound advice and proposed rules for people to live together in peace the Bible contains, either. And in pretty much the same way, the fact that I am unwilling to cite 'the God hypothesis' as the only possible true answer doesn't lessen the truth of my assessment that "it passeth my understanding".
Time, space, and physical objects coming into existence from nothingness basically leads to two options:
1. The law of cause and effect did not hold true for some reason.
2. The law of cause and effect did hold true. In this case, the cause would have had to be eternal (outside of time, where beginning or end have no meaning) and non-physical. The fine tuning issue also suggests that a non-intelligent cause is unlikely.
The fine tuning issue also suggests that a non-intelligent cause is unlikely.
Why? That's the part I don't get. "It couldn't just have happened" and "God did it" seem to me to be equivalent statements. Why couldn't it just "have happened"? Why is intelligence a prerequisite?
And where did the intelligence come from in the first place? All you've done is moved back the question of origin one notch.
"And where did the intelligence come from in the first place? All you've done is moved back the question of origin one notch."
Nah, by asserting that God did it, all that is done is explain the origin of the Universe. The nature of God is a different kettle of metaphysical fish.
"Why is intelligence a prerequisite?" It's not. Otherwise it would be proof of God's existence. Intelligence is a prerequisite to God, though, and to understanding the universe.
And intelligence suggests that we are more than just matter, and the Universe has a wholeness that transcends its parts, otherwise dumb matter would be a lost in a sea of ever changing states of quanta and never know it.
*grabs popcorn*
Why is intelligence a prerequisite? – Delete – Edit – Moderate
...otherwise dumb matter would be a lost in a sea of ever changing states of quanta and never know it.
Are you saying the designer must be intelligent because the universe does not exhibit the shoddiness, hypocrisy and internal contradictions of a Michael Moore movie? If so, how do you account for the existence of Michael Moore?
8-)
"If so, how do you account for the existence of Michael Moore? "
Hey, I didn't create the system, that's way above my pay grade ;)
When I think about it, the existence of Michael Moore is more of an argument for unintelligent design.
I mean, do you think such wilful stupidity just happens all by itself?
;)
Free will sucks. We should fix that!
How about getting the Right People in Charge to tell us what to do and how to think?
Okay, UJ grabbed me by the scruff in IRC and told me to fetch some antihistamines and caffeine. I had other plans this evening so I'll get to specifics as I can, but to make sure this discussion only remains extremely messy and not truly godawful, may I ask for some ground rules?
1. I'm not remotely interested in arguing about the existence of God or the authorship of natural law by God. I regard theism and materialism as competing cosmologies, not necessities to understanding evolutionary theory. I can quite easily imagine natural law and evolutionary theory as currently exists to be the work of a particularly brilliant designer- just not the literal account of Genesis. (Actually I think the God of literal Genesis comes off as a much poorer and less impressive God than a God that designed natural law as I understand it.) When it comes to the existence of a creator God I'm actually agnostic; I'm atheistic with respect to fundamentalist Christianity, not any non-wholly-materialist worldview.
2. Just evolutionary theory. I do not want to get into one of those multi-tentacled physics-and-geology-and-everything-that-conflicts-with-Genesis black holes. My sole interest is in explaining evolutionary theory.
Before I finish reading everything line by line and preparing to reply, by the way, the fact that Ed and Sarah are both using the term "Darwinism" explains rather a lot about the gulf between our experience of the science. GoF is quite correct in comparing Darwin's role in evolutionary theory to Newton's role in physics; referring to all of evolutionary theory as "Darwinism" is very much like referring to quantum mechanics as "Newtonism". Darwin contributed the central mechanism, but being a Victorian naturalist and not himself a deity he was wrong in many specifics. Modern evolutionary theory belongs to Mayr, Dobzhansky, Wilson, Hamilton, Kimura, Gould, Dawkins, Margulies, Roughgarden, and many, many more as much as it belongs to Darwin. They didn't and don't just go around saying "Darwin was right, hurf durf", the body of theory has expanded far, far beyond.
To the extent "Darwinism" is used in actual discussions of evolutionary theory among scientists, it's in a very specific context, "neo-Darwinism", and it describes specific schools of thought and approaches. Saying people have sucessfully attacked neo-Darwinism and therefore evolution is wrong is kinda like saying disagreeing with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum discredits all of physics.
This promises to be FASCINATING.
I have the smartest readers! (With one obvious exception.)
1. I'm not remotely interested in arguing about the existence of God or the authorship of natural law by God.
Nor am I and nor is that how this argument started, which is why I stated above that "my objection to [Darwinism] has nothing to do with my religious beliefs (there is nothing in Darwinism that is at odds with my beliefs), but everything to do with science."
Saying people have sucessfully attacked neo-Darwinism and therefore evolution is wrong is kinda like saying disagreeing with the Copenhagen interpretation of quantum discredits all of physics.
No, it isn't, unless all of biology is evolution. It's more like saying that disagreeing with the Copenhagen interpretation discredits all of quantum physics. Moreover, since evolution forms the backbone of biology, a more apt comparison would be: it's like saying disagreeing with ΛCDM cosmology discredits the big bang.
Anyway, I've responded to your comments above.
"No, it isn't, unless all of biology is evolution"
Evolution is the wheel on which the rest of biology turns, as atomic theory is the wheel upon which chemistry turns. Remove atoms and their bonding, and chemistry ceases to be a coherent whole and becomes a mere collection of observations.
That you do not understand this is, again, evidence that you have very little understanding and familiarity of biology itself. Dobzhansky: "Nothing in biology makes sense except in light of evolution." His career and that quote date back to the modern synthesis, which was the integration of genetics and evolution. Evolution became central to biology, and the field began advancing much more quickly then, not with Darwin.
" Moreover, since evolution forms the backbone of biology, a more apt comparison would be: it's like saying disagreeing with ΛCDM cosmology discredits the big bang."
Too recent, too side, and too insular. I do not know how to tell you this more clearly than I did above: evolution is absolutely and fundamentally central to biology. It is much moreso than the big bang is even to physics.
This is, within the working field, basic knowledge. You say "evolutionists" are snotty but this is simple reality in the biological sciences: evolution is the background force that affects absolutely EVERYTHING and shows itself in everything.
Labrat, I'm not certain I can see how this can be true. Maybe it's the engineer in me, but why is it necissary to have an understanding about where the system came from to understand the system? Why do you see evolution as central to biology? I can see claiming the 2nd Law as that, in fact it was proposed by a biologist to my recolleciton, but I don't see evolution as central to it. Can you explain?
(BTW, thank you for sharing knowledge here.)
A number of reasons, most of them having to do with the way in which evolution differs from design. As I see it these are the two most important.
a)Evolution must always work with what it has, many kinds of direct innovations are limited by this constraint. In a short and glib way, this is why there are no animals with wheels instead of legs. In a longer way, this underwrites a great deal of anatomy and biochemistry- "survival of the fittest" can imply a process of perfection, but in practice it works out to "survival of the good-enough". To an engineer or programmer's eye, I suppose it would be "evolution is vital to understanding why DNA is such nightmarish spaghetti code".
b)Evolution also provides the context to learning about life based on the multiple surprising and sometimes puzzling forms and patterns it produces. If something appears to be contrary to evolution, then something must be going on that we don't understand and requires investigation- like something appearing to fall up would require immediate investigation by physicists.
"Evolution is the context" is the upshot, basically. Otherwise biology is a lot of unrelated observations, often ones that don't really make sense without it.
I guess I can see it in that context. Thank you. Not sure what type of "something contrary to evolution" you would be looking for though. Non-optimal ways of doing things are often seen, aren't they? And then just said to be "good enough" as you said in another thread? (I have to laugh, it's VHS/Betamax in the biological world!) For that reason I would suggest that it would get along just fine by looking harder at things that didn't "fit the pattern" the same way.
Well, a good example of apparently contrary to evolution that underwrote some of the most interesting work of the last thirty years would be eusocial insects in which most of the population are infertile and exist to serve the reproductive output of a single fertile female.
Where it gets much MORE interesting is this form in mammals, naked mole rats...
Naked mole rats? I thought there was a "reason" they are naked. (Too much booze? :) ) Share please?
More seriously, don't these examples show that scientists are capable of noting and ivestigating things "out of the pattern"? For instance, if the mindset was "the Creator creates species that best fit their environment" wouldn't these "counterexamples" be furiously investigated?
You're also referring to the Bible, so what age do you think the Bible claims the age is?
I don't believe the Bible is specific about that. So there is not a literal truth (i.e. a number) to be had there - it is a matter of interpretation. I would challenge anyone who says that the Bible is literal truth and derives an age of the Earth less than ~4 billion years from that as a sole source. There isn't an unquestionable age, and if there were and it was less than the geo-physics indicates (by several orders of magnitude) it would be wrong. That people have different interpretations of the Earth's age based on Biblical interpretation is another matter.
As I understand it, Intelligent Design only requires a Creator, not specifically the Abrahamic God, and what I suggested was equation to "creation science" which tends to be a fundamentalist Christian construct (which would be one subset of ID possibility). Similarly, one might believe in any number of climate theories, whereas AGW is a particular instance that serves a particular purpose for various enviro-weens.
Personally I think the most interesting question raised out of all of climate research is that it appears from the paleo-climate record that humans came into our modern existence in an unusually stable era. Are we a fluke of that or are we adaptable enough to survive the climate changes that appear to be fairly common (and severe) in geologic time? Of course that means stepping back from the anthropocentric universe, or as an earlier age might have put it - man at the center of creation.
Are we a fluke of that or are we adaptable enough to survive the climate changes that appear to be fairly common (and severe) in geologic time?
Maybe that's the experiment...
...I shall consult the mice. ;)
The mice want to buy the brain and replace it with a computer programmed to say "What?" and ask "Where's the tea?"
Sarah:
As an astrophysicist
Would you want your work judged by the theories and hypothesis of Galileo, Kepler, etc? That is, tossing out anything we've found since then, and judging all new discoveries based on what they thought and said?
I know enough about evolution theory to know that this outcome was totally unanticipated by Darwin or any of his followers. I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this.
Considering they were still using crude understandings of what a "gene" actually *was*, well, of course they weren't anticipating that. DNA wasn't going to be "discovered" for 30 years, and it was well more than 100 before the concept of "replacing genes" was even science-fictionable.
So of *course* they didn't "anticipate" it.
I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty.
Think of Markadelphia questioning everything you've ever done. Daily. For years. And years. And years. You might get a little irate and tired.
That's pretty much what they've got to put up with. I'll allow 'em a lot of annoyance that their science is the one that's always being derided.
So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record.
Like that.
I'm hardly in LabRat's league here, but this sort of thing would annoy the hell out of me.
Yes, there's a postulate there, because there's no evidence (yet). There might not ever be. The Fossil Record is handy, but it's less complete than the notes on Clinton Admin meetings about terrorism that Sandy Berger was allowed to "review."
So you'd prefer they do, what, exactly, in the absence of hard(er) evidence? And you'd want this exact same rigor applied to your science? Unless you can prove it, it's not valid as a theory or a postulate?
Again, LR can correct me, but that postulate, which I've understood to be postulated, is the best guess based on a number of assumptions and guesses. Much as many other "gaps" have been postulated, and as more of the fossil record is discovered, many are getting filled in with a lot of accuracy.
And no, current evolutionary theory doesn't _depend_ on it any more than your astrophysics _depends_ on string theory or dark matter. (Apologies if there's been big changes since I stuck my layman nose into those areas.... You know, unless those changes then mean you're going to be as skeptical of physics as you are biology.)
Part I
Would you want your work judged by the theories and hypothesis of Galileo, Kepler, etc? That is, tossing out anything we've found since then, and judging all new discoveries based on what they thought and said?
Why wouldn't I want my work judged by still-valid laws and theories? I am not suggesting that anything be judged in the absence of refinements and new theories. The whole point of this argument is whether the basics of an existing theory are still considered valid by biologists.
Your example is a bit confusing since Kepler formulated laws, not theories. Furthermore, Kepler's laws are still valid. Instead of Galileo, you should've referred to Newton, as he is the true 'father' of physics in the same sense that Darwin could be regarded as the father of biology. Despite what we know about relativity, none of Newton's laws have been proven false; rather they have been shown to be valid within certain limits. Newtonian gravity was found to be wrong on one count (the speed at which it propagates); but gravity is still known to be universal and Newton's laws of motion are still sufficiently useful to do a lot of impressive mechanical things, like sending people to the Moon.
I know enough about evolution theory to know that this outcome was totally unanticipated by Darwin or any of his followers. I don’t think that you, Dawkins, Darwin or any other evolutionist has an explanation for this.
Considering they were still using crude understandings of what a "gene" actually *was*, well, of course they weren't anticipating that. DNA wasn't going to be "discovered" for 30 years, and it was well more than 100 before the concept of "replacing genes" was even science-fictionable.
So of *course* they didn't "anticipate" it.
That's not why it wasn't anticipated. Way back in the fossil record you had all these different forms (phyla) in the animal kingdom (I'm ignoring plants). The theory was that each of these different animals developed independently of each other on their own course through chance/unguided mutations and natural selection. This is mathematically untenable, but it's what everybody believed back then. So what is now known is that there is no tree of life -- all of these animal forms are connected to the toolbox genes. If the Evo Devo people were honest they would be attacking Darwin and saying natural selection had no opportunity to create the Cambrian Explosion, but they're not saying that. Something was genetically preprogrammed to give rise to all these different animals, which is 180 degrees different than what Darwin said. It is a complete break with Darwin's theory.
[cont'd below]
Part II
I think you biologists are long on condescension, insults, and jargon but short on real answers and intellectual honesty.
Think of Markadelphia questioning everything you've ever done. Daily. For years. And years. And years. You might get a little irate and tired.
That's pretty much what they've got to put up with. I'll allow 'em a lot of annoyance that their science is the one that's always being derided.
I've entertained countless astrophysics challenges and questions from laymen that range from the mildly uninformed to the blazingly ignorant. Never have I treated the worst of these with the hostility and contempt LabRat has shown Ed, and to a lesser extent, me. This is fairly characteristic of most biologists I've encountered. Why do people deride biology? Perhaps it's because many biologists behave as though they're the ordained priests of science who intercede between nature and the unwashed masses or that they're not as forthcoming about the limitations of their science or that they're inept at communicating their big ideas to the public. Or perhaps it's that they have a history of misusing their science to make unwarranted theological pronouncements. I think it's all of those things. LabRat has acknowledged that Dawkins has poisoned the debate with his attacks on religion, but they seem to expect that people should nevertheless trust biologists and be delighted to learn all about a subject that's ostensibly the enemy of faith. Remember, the attacks started with biologists, not with Christians. Right from the beginning guys like Thomas Huxley, aka Darwin's Bulldog, were using Darwin to attack Christians, and it's continued all the way to Dawkins. They don't expect Christians to fight back, and when they do they are somehow deserving of contempt.
I think a good question to ask yourselves is why physics isn't similarly derided. Physics has always had a ton of theological implications, and never more than now, but people mostly respect and are fascinated by physics. Why is that?
So the best evidence available is that current evolutionary theory now depends on the supposed existence of a "featureless, wormlike creature" that has never appeared in the fossil record.
Like that.
I made a statement of fact. And you do realize that you're quoting me quoting Sean Carroll, a foremost expert in the field. How does this constitute derision?
Yes, there's a postulate there, because there's no evidence (yet). There might not ever be. The Fossil Record is handy, but it's less complete than the notes on Clinton Admin meetings about terrorism that Sandy Berger was allowed to "review."
I will again quote Sean Carroll who said, "This is an inference because the fossil record ... before the Cambrian is very scanty." and "It does not appear that scarcity is a fault of the fossil record."
So you'd prefer they do, what, exactly, in the absence of hard(er) evidence? And you'd want this exact same rigor applied to your science? Unless you can prove it, it's not valid as a theory or a postulate?
What I'd like them to do is first of all is to be somewhat humble and admit the current deficiencies in evolutionary theory.
Again, LR can correct me, but that postulate, which I've understood to be postulated, is the best guess based on a number of assumptions and guesses. Much as many other "gaps" have been postulated, and as more of the fossil record is discovered, many are getting filled in with a lot of accuracy.
That's a myth. It's not being filled in. Structures show up in the fossil record fully formed -- that has not changed.
BTW, a postulate is something that's assumed to be true without proof, i.e. an axiom. Is that what you really meant?
[cont'd below]
Part III
And no, current evolutionary theory doesn't _depend_ on it any more than your astrophysics _depends_ on string theory or dark matter. (Apologies if there's been big changes since I stuck my layman nose into those areas.... You know, unless those changes then mean you're going to be as skeptical of physics as you are biology.)
Current evolutionary theory doesn't depend on what? What's "it"?
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
Since you brought it up, the current paradigm for the big bang (ΛCDM) actually does depend on dark matter -- that's what the DM stands for. The evidence for dark matter is strong, but if it turns out to be bogus this will represent a significant failure on the part of both Newtonian physics and general relativity. As for string theory, it's not actually a theory. Its many detractors in the physics community refer to it as a philosophy, because, as they legitimately point out, there is currently no known way to test its predictions. However, if string theory eventually achieves the rank of bonafide theory it will be HUGE, as it will have successfully united two key fields governing astrophysics: quantum mechanics and general relativity.
BTW, one of the most popular physics search terms on Google is "the big bang is a lie." We have our deriders, too. :)
I am not suggesting that anything be judged in the absence of refinements and new theories.
You sure could [have?] fool[ed] me.
BTW, one of the most popular physics search terms on Google is "the big bang is a lie." We have our deriders, too.
Yep, and ID proponents have a special hate-on for the laws of thermodynamics, as well.
the current paradigm for the big bang (ΛCDM) actually does depend on dark matter -- that's what the DM stands for.
Yep.
Now, _using your standards you're using with LabRat_, can you say that? Where's the proof? No extrapolations, no assumptions. Where's the Dark Matter?
At least there _is_ a fossil record.
And if you physicists would hurry the hell up and build a time machine already, we *could go back and find all those missing lifeforms who weren't considerate enough to die in exactly the right place to be preserved, and later discovered by us in the last 200 years!
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
And the difference therein is?
And how does Copernicus or Newton explain Dark Matter?
Now, _using your standards you're using with LabRat_, can you say that? Where's the proof? No extrapolations, no assumptions. Where's the Dark Matter?
Can I say what exactly? That the current big bang paradigm depends on dark matter? Yes, I can. Your wording was a bit confusing, so I'm wondering if you meant, "can I say that dark matter absolutely exists" or "can I say that the ΛCDM model is true given the current evidence"? The answer to both of those is no, I can't. Be careful to distinguish between fact and theory. I can't prove any theory in physics to you anymore than LabRat can prove anything about biology. The best we can do in science is to either disprove a theory or to say it's valid because there's sufficient evidence pro and no evidence con. As far as dark matter is concerned, there are no two ways about it: either dark matter exists or we don't understand gravity at all. That's it, those are your two choices. Do you accept our current understanding of gravity? If yes, then you must accept the existence of dark matter.
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
And the difference therein is?
That life on Earth began some billions of years ago and has changed over time is virtually an indisputable fact. What I doubt is the claimed mechanism for that change.
And how does Copernicus or Newton explain Dark Matter?
Copernicus is irrelevant to dark matter. Kepler and Newton, however, are precisely why dark matter was hypothesized in the first place. The truth is, acceptance of dark matter requires faith in the laws of physics. But if Newton* was correct in his formulation of the laws of gravity and motion, then we must accept that dark matter exists.
The first observational support for dark matter came in the form of rotation curves of galaxies. A rotation curve is a graph showing the speed of rotation of gas and stars as a function of distance from the center of the galaxy. According to Kepler (and later Newton), the further away something is from a mass, the slower it will rotate around the mass. Kepler discovered this when he observed that the further away a planet is from the sun, the slower it moves in its orbit, and Newton later explained it in terms of his laws of gravity and motion. Most of the visible mass in a galaxy is in its center, where the population of stars is highly concentrated. We therefore expected that stars and gas clouds further away from the galactic center would rotate slower than those close to the center. Everyone was astonished when we observed that the speed of stars and gas does not change with distance from the galactic center, for this implies that there is much more mass in the galaxy than could be accounted for by all the visible matter. The same was observed for every galaxy measured, including our own Milky Way.
The same phenomenon is observed in galaxy clusters, enormous collections of galaxies that are gravitationally bound to one another and orbit around a common center of mass. We observe galaxies in the outer part of a cluster orbiting faster than they should if the cluster contains only visible matter. For Kepler/Newton* to be correct, there must be invisible, or dark, mass throughout every galaxy and galaxy cluster. It's possible that our understanding of gravity is flawed, which is why a few astrophysicists have proposed alternatives to dark matter. However, these alternatives have serious flaws that have not been resolved.
* Einstein has to be correct, as well, since general relativistic tests also strongly support the existence of dark matter. But you only asked about Newton, so I left this out of the discussion.
I'm not skeptical of biology; I'm skeptical of Darwinism.
Alright, now I am puzzled. You accept the validity of biology - including evolution. What is the exact thing you object to that exists in "Darwinism" but not biology?
juris, I discuss this with LabRat above at length.
". Never have I treated the worst of these with the hostility and contempt LabRat has shown Ed, and to a lesser extent, me."
I have apologized to you. As for Ed, he is being blatantly dishonest and he is doing so in a way he has in the past to the point where much of my response to him was nearly word for word response to our previous debate. He may have had some kind of excuse then for repeating creationist talking points in lack of exposure, but he certainly doesn't now. He is betraying his principles, yours, and mine in order to advance an intellectually bankrupt argument, and to what end? You don't find that angering?
"This is fairly characteristic of most biologists I've encountered."
Ed is entirely typical of Christians I've encountered who make statements like "Darwinism is wrong". You would actually be the first exception.
" Perhaps it's because many biologists behave as though they're the ordained priests of science who intercede between nature and the unwashed masses or that they're not as forthcoming about the limitations of their science or that they're inept at communicating their big ideas to the public."
Maybe because advanced scientific theory is inherently difficult to distill in bite-sized format for the layman? The explanations most often given to schoolchildren for why airplane wings work and why rainbows happen are wrong in their particulars but we accept the need to simplify concepts for children and then continue their education when they have more knowledge. Do the same thing for genetics and evolution and people publish books claiming your discipline is a fraudulent conspiracy.
" Or perhaps it's that they have a history of misusing their science to make unwarranted theological pronouncements."
It would be equally as accurate to point out that Christianity has a history of using their religion to make unwarranted scientific pronouncements, particularly about biology. I don't defend this tit-for-tat instinct and in fact I spend a fair amount of my blogging time attacking it, but the antagonism between religion and biology in particular is far from one-sided and claiming that it originated in biologists is disingenuous.
" Right from the beginning guys like Thomas Huxley, aka Darwin's Bulldog, were using Darwin to attack Christians, and it's continued all the way to Dawkins."
Christians were attacking Darwin and Huxley right back. The reason Darwin has a greater position in the popular imagination than Kepler is that what he was asserting was heretical to the intellectual foundation of the world at the time. Or do you propose Huxley was arguing with thin air rather than Bishop Wilberforce?
We have already agreed on common descent- which one of them was right about that? Was it healthy for Christianity to be resting on an assumption that the natural world inherently proved it right and it need not expend effort to attract and maintain faith?
" Physics has always had a ton of theological implications, and never more than now, but people mostly respect and are fascinated by physics. Why is that?"
Because people are a great deal more emotionally invested in their identity as a unique creation than they are in the idea that the sun goes around the earth?
"I will again quote Sean Carroll who said, "This is an inference because the fossil record ... before the Cambrian is very scanty." and "It does not appear that scarcity is a fault of the fossil record." "
These are not contradictory statements. It is geological fact that fossilizing soft-bodied animals and preserving those fossils for millions of years requires very special conditions. It is also almost certain to be true that the Cambrian forms represented a burst of adaptive radiation that really did represent an exponential increase in diversity over previous forms- much as later bursts of adaptive raditation with extensive fossil records do.
"What I'd like them to do is first of all is to be somewhat humble and admit the current deficiencies in evolutionary theory."
Where is your humility in assuming you've correctly identified severe deficiencies in evolutionary theory that biology as a discipline is simply too arrogant to admit? (Hint: there are some, just as there are areas of physics that are still very murky. Evolutionary biologists argue over these areas hammer and tongs. Natural selection as a mechanism isn't one of them.)
I know just enough to know as an absolute, inarguable certainty that I'm fighting way out of my weight class in this discussion, but:
1. I wonder if the discussion of "random mutation" would become more clear if you replaced "random" with "chaotic".
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chaos_theory
2. As I understand it, all the fossils ever found up until 30 years or so ago, every single one, would pack into a fairly small Uhaul truck. Has the pace of discovery exploded to such a degree in the last 30 years, or should we just admit that we're missing huge swathes of this jigsaw puzzle, and may not even have a corner yet?
3. I've heard of the Cambrian explosion, but I won't even begin to call myself educated on the subject. However, I've heard the argument put forth that the Cambrian explosion wasn't an increase in the presence of life, but rather an increase in the presence of life that had evolved hard parts likely to become fossilized. Since you guys are the experts here, I figure you can point me to the flaws in that line of argument, if any.
Incidentally....
Under what circumstances could the ID hypothesis be falsified?
God shows up and says "Nope. Try again." :)
If Markadelphia were to say it was completely correct?
I'd find it hard to argue against that.
Under what circumstances could the ID hypothesis be falsified?
Al Gore claiming to have invented it?
Wow. I'm glad I went with engineering for a career. :)
"Wow. I'm glad I went with engineering for a career."
I resemble that remark, proudly so.
On the one hand, we seldom ever have to defend what our profession is and how it works from attack by people who don't understand it. On the other hand, we are often treated as being abnormal, strange, and sometimes even repulsive just because we practice it.
On the other hand, we are often treated as being abnormal, strange, and sometimes even repulsive just because we practice it.
This presents a mental image of Christine O'Donnell explaining that she "dabbled in engineering" when she was young.
What about a career in chemistry? Nobody seems to give a rat's fart what chemists do. Probably because they're not out there creating Earth-devouring black holes or killing God for a living. :-P
"What about a career in chemistry? Nobody seems to give a rat's fart what chemists do."
Well, I do. Better living through chemistry!
But when's the last time a chemist riled anyone up? I think Lavoisier was the only one, poor guy, and that wasn't even for being a chemist.
I am so out of my league I shouldn't even play, but here goes nothing.
LabRat: ""Micro-evolution" and "Macro-evolution" are not separate concepts anywhere but creationist/intelligent design literature. They are the exact same process and differ only in degree"
I'm confused here, mostly I suspect due to my ignorance. Didn't Rensch, Ernst Mayr, and EO Wiley all use the terms micro evolution and macro evolution? I know the ID people like those terms, but as far I remember and researched, there are number of European biologists that also use those terms.
And now I'm really going to show how much I don't know, since I'm only dabbling in this field, but didn't Brooks and Wiley in their work" Evolution and Entropy: Toward A Unified Theory of Biology" define the difference between the two on the basis of reversibility?
That is, micro changes are reversible, like the bill sizes and moth colors, while the sift to a new species is not?
If I understand what they were saying and that these biologists aren't barking mad, then it seems to me that these concepts aren't only in the ID literature.
You are right and I do seem to have just been caught out being pretty much wrong.
I suppose I could get away with weak accuracy in saying that currently they tend to be regarded as one in the same, and most of my education came after for one it became clearer that they are not particularly distinct, and very likely for two after that became the fashion for creationists once things like antibiotic resistant bacteria started appearing.
When I went and looked it up it appears that originally they were distinguished for the purposes of discussing reproductive isolation and defining species concept, which was some of Mayr's most important work. Nowadays it's understood that species aren't nearly as distinct as he or anyone else at the time thought and the terms are rather artificial, but you are absolutely right in that the terms and distinctions did in fact originate with working biology.
Mea MAXIMA culpa.
Ed's still wrong though. :)
Thank you for clearing that up, LabRat.
Thank you both Russell and LabRat both. I had problems with the original statement, because from a systems point of view there would seem to be a place for the distinction. Things often work differently small scale vs large. It would be seem to be more correct to acknowledge the difference, but also acknowlege that the distinction between the two is fuzzy at best. Is it one change? Two? Three? N?
At least that is what I see as the synthesis of the two points of view. Feel free to correct me if I missinterpreted something.
It's succint enough. One of the perennial hot topics in evolutionary biology is the definition of species and the conditions of speciation; this is where Mayr in particular made his career.
To give you an idea why "micro" and "macro" evolution are being steadily left behind as useful concepts, there's Ring Species, as well as genome sequencing revealing a heretofore unexpected amount of natural hybridization.
I've seen that before. While an excelent example of speciation, I find it less then convincing as an example of 'macro" evolution, or as a couter example to the "macro" existing. The reason is, the fact the end species _don't_ breed doesn't mean they _couldn't_. The fact they can means the species are not really distinct, genetically speaking, in my opinion. If they had evolved to the point their chromosomes weren't compatible anymore (or even better, had new ones or has lost one) that would be stronger evidence don't you think?
In fact, you could almost point to this as evidence in favor of the theory that "micro" evolution does not provide enough power to generate "macro" evolution. Given the time scale we are talking, in my opinion it does not rise to that level either. Just pointing out the evidence can be interpreted both ways.
I wasn't providing it for proof of "macroevolution" so much as I was one clear demonstration of why thinking of the two as distinct, or inevitably leading to speciation or of speciation as preventing gene flow, can be extremely problematic.
Coyotes and wolves have multiple large zones of natural hybridization in America. They aren't an example of incomplete speciation- their last common ancestor existed in the Miocene. Grey wolves evolved in Eurasia and migrated to North America across the Bering bridge around the same time humans did; coyotes evolved in North America. And yet they still interbreed and there's serious conservation debate as to how much to consider which species which and how many species are actually being represented; it's a dilemma produced by nothing working the way the old models of speciation and reproductive isolation said they should.
Got it. I agree with you, especially the point of "species" being broken.
However, my original point was there *is* a point where they can't interbreed anymore. Wolves and coyotes can interbreed. Heck, domestic _dogs_ and coyotes and wolves can interbeed. But you can't cross a dog and a cat. (Not sure, does anyone know if you can cross a domestic cat with a lion?) So the point where the genes can't travel anymore (barring outside intervention like viruses) would seem to be the real speciation point. And maybe the point to draw the line for "macro" evolution?
I don't know the proper jargon to precisely describe what I'm seeing, so maybe you high forehead types can correct my terminology.
The whole discussion of micro v. macro evolution resembles what I've always thought of as a "rainbow gradient". The obvious example I can think of off the top of my head is heat. At the subatomic scale, heat isn't heat at all, is it? It's motion. And in a lot of ways, the farther toward the "macro" end of the scale you move, the more "heat" takes on the properties of heat and the less it's described by its properties of motion, until at the macro level it's not motion at all, it's just heat.
Does that make sense, or am I making it worse?
*DONT_KNOW*
Note: All avatars and any images or other media embedded in comments were hosted on the JS-Kit website and have been lost; references to haloscan comments have been partially automatically remapped, but accuracy is not guaranteed and corrections are solicited.
If you notice any problems with this page or wish to have your home page link updated, please contact John Hardin <jhardin@impsec.org>