Teacher's Pet Peeve: "The first thing that people think of is that man came from monkeys. That's not what evolution says, that's a big misconception," says Jennifer Miller, a biology teacher at Dover Area Senior High School.
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As the 2005 school year got underway, a new requirement in a Pennsylvania public school district mandated that all 9th-grade biology students listen to a statement questioning the validity of evolutionary theory and promoting intelligent design. Eleven parents of students in the Dover Area School District sued the local school board in protest. Four months later a Republican judge in a Pennsylvania federal court ruled in favor of the parents, issuing an eloquent defense of evolutionary theory—and a scathing rebuke to those who support intelligent design (ID) as a scientific alternative.
Judge John E. Jones III wrote in the 139-page decision for Tammy Kitzmiller v. Dover Area School District, named for one of the parents who brought the suit, that ID was not only unscientific but was also a front used by those on the school board with a religiously motivated, pro-creationist agenda.
"ID's backers have sought to avoid the scientific scrutiny, which we have now determined that it cannot withstand by advocating that the controversy, but not ID itself, should be taught in science class," Jones wrote. "This tactic is at best disingenuous, and at worst a canard. The goal of the ID movement is not to encourage critical thought, but to foment a revolution which would supplant evolutionary theory with ID."
Kitzmiller v. Dover was neither the first nor would it be the last time that challenges to evolution education would have their day in a U.S. court. In the five years since the decision in Pennsylvania several states have seen their own legal clashes over the issue, with each new battle spawning fresh sets of anti-evolution buzzwords as part of efforts to sidestep previous court rulings.
Jennifer Miller was one of the Dover biology teachers who refused to read the contentious ID statement in her class and testified in support of the parents during the 2005 hearings. Miller still works in the area's school district, teaching honors biology to ninth graders and anatomy and physiology to 10th through 12th graders at Dover Area Senior High School. For the past four years she has also chaired the school's science department. Scientific American spoke with Miller about the changes she has seen since the Kitzmiller v. Dover decision was handed down five years ago.
[An edited transcript of the interview follows.]
How has teaching evolution in your classroom changed in the five years since Kitzmiller v. Dover?
Since Kitzmiller v. Dover I've definitely changed how I teach. The biggest thing is probably that evolution used to be the last thing we got to in the semester. Sometimes we maybe had one week or two weeks to cover it. Now I put evolution first, and I refer back to it to show how important it is to all topics of biology.
The other thing that I really think has changed is how I cover evolution. I'm no longer afraid to cover it in depth and to have in-depth conversations about evolution. I make sure I hit [the concept of] what is science and what is not, and how a scientific theory is very different from a "theory" that we use in everyday conversation.
A lot of teachers are wary of teaching evolution because of the controversy, and I was in that group—I didn't know if I could cover it, what I could say or couldn't say. Now I do cover intelligent design, why it is not science, and why it should not be taught in a science classroom.
Are your current students aware of (or do they care about) the controversy and court battles that erupted over teaching evolution? Do you address the controversy in class?
I don't know how much they're aware. I do address it. I show them segments of the [2007] NOVA documentary [about it]. I make sure that I explain what happened. I make sure that I reiterate that I'm not trying to go against their religious beliefs [but] that religion should not be part of the science curriculum. I try to explain why the controversy is out there and try to explain why the science is taught in my classroom.
The students don't really ask pointed questions. I've never in my years of teaching—and that's 18 years—had a student come to me and say that they were hurt by something I taught in class. We have some good discussions. There are a lot of misconceptions out there about what evolution is. But once they get [those] out of their heads, it's pretty common sense to see how evolution occurred, and they don't have a problem with it.
Instead of pushing for ID as a scientific alternative to evolution, as they did in the past, creationists are now flying the banner of "academic freedom" and presentation of evolutionary theory's "strengths and weaknesses". Have you seen this trend in your school district?
I haven't heard much about evolution since 2005, at least in my district. I try to follow what's out there so I know there's been this push. I think if you explain to the kids, there is no "controversy" in the science—and I'm teaching science—it doesn't have to be a controversy. The saddest thing is when they make you pick one way or the other: If you believe in evolution then you can't be religious. There are a lot of scientists who are religious—they're able to marry both of those things.
What do you think of the recent survey published in Science that showed that only 28 percent of biology teachers taught evolution effectively, 13 percent explicitly advocated for creationism, and the rest endorsed neither?
It's slightly surprising. But probably that large percentage of undecided are those who are afraid to decide one way or the other. It all has to do with their not being sure one way or the other. It's troubling to read that. It does concern me.
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100 Comments
Add CommentNo one is arguing for "complete" inflexibility. But an astronomy course shouldn't have to include the theory that the sun revolves around the earth, and a geography course shouldn't have to include the theory that the Earth is flat. The theory of evolution is as strong a theory as the theory of heliocentrism and the theory of the Round Earth.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ human ape
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCan you please tell me what a singularity is? Also, I would like to know how the theory of relativity and quantum mechanics are relatable and how they explain one another. While we're at it, I would also like to know where the electrons of an atom go when they disappear. One more thing; I'd like to know what formed first, the super massive black hole or the galaxy. It just sounds like you have it all figured out.
Before you place everyone who believes in God or a higher power into your own little box to make yourself feel better, you might want to consider the fact that just because one has spiritual beliefs doesn't necessarily mean that they are a lesser human being.
While many scientists don't subscribe to a certain [organized] religion, there are many who believe that the universe is much more complex than we could ever imagine and the possibility of a God is not too far-fetched for the ego-lite ones who understand that they don't know it all.
The biggest questions in science today aren't even close to being answered. Some of the biggest names in science believe in God (Michio Kaku for example). And when I hear people like Stephen Hawking say that at the quantum level, "existence itself is uncertain" I can't help but think that we humans have a long way to go before we can boast our knowledge of our origins and the universe.
Lastly, I do not wish to discount your 'beliefs' and I am not making any statements with regard to how you have reached your 'beliefs'. I would just say that before you label a whole (very large) segment of the population as fools, remember you are a part of it all too and that there is much more to the universe than our simple little lives here on this tiny little oasis we call earth.
@frgough, I realize that people with an agenda want the idea of proof to be flexible so as to include their B.S. without question. The strength of a theory is based on the strength of the evidence. In the case of evolution the evidence is overwhelming. In the case of ID there is no evidence what-so-ever. So I guess it is unfortunate for you and your political agenda that science isn't flexible enough to accept primitive superstition on the basis of your personal opinion only but it is fortunate for the rest of us that arbitrary self serving B.S. doesn't become the law of the land just because religious fascists say so.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyone with 2.5 brain cells can tell that evolution (in the sense that things change and adapt over time) happens. It's just the extent to which this occurs that is the major question.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf one traces both ID or evolution all the way back to it's absolute beginning, one reaches the same conclusion. That is, at a certain time, life began.
Believing that complex DNA just materializd out of nowhere is a ridiculous idea to many.
DO NOT LET SCIENCE BE SACRIFICED LIKE A SHEEP,GOAT,COW,CHICKEN OR YOUR SONS AND DAUGHTERS.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"just because one has spiritual beliefs doesn't necessarily mean that they are a lesser human being."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRight. It just means they're superstitious cowards. They invoke magic for everything because they're afraid of reality. Their logic is "I don't understand. I don't want to understand. I'm too lazy to understand. Therefore the magic god fairy did it."
Maybe you can describe your fairy's magic wand.
http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/
"Believing that complex DNA just materializd out of nowhere is a ridiculous idea to many."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisComplexity, complexity, complexity, therefore a god fairy waved its magic wand.
Some people will never grow up.
@ leuken
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis comment you made
"Believing that complex DNA just materializd out of nowhere is a ridiculous idea to many"
sums up the average person's misunderstanding of evolution quite well. No working biologist thinks "complex DNA materialized out of nowhere" any more than they think modern humans evolved from chimps. Hell, my freshman-level college students know better than that. In fact, the origin of DNA took some time and was almost certainly NOT the original molecule used for information storage by early life. Please consult any introductory biology textbook for more information.
Okay. Well, your logic calls a segment of the scientific community "superstitious cowards". Your hubris and your Ad Hominem approach completely negates and discounts any rational discussion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis sounds like something a close-minded religious zealot would say (with a different message).
The idea that the word 'Evolution' brings to mind the 'monkey' is indeed an issue. Controlling the 'framing' of science (or any issue) is powerful. My vote would be to equate 'Evolution' with something more immediate - 'antibiotics'. Because antibiotics don't work right if 'Evolution' isn't taken into account. That's because bacteria that have generations every 20 minutes show 'Evolution' happening on a time scale approximately 525,960 times faster than, for example, human evolution. So if we got lactose tolerance 7,000 years ago, one wonders what bacteria got in the past five days. And of course, should antibiotics be withheld from those who don't believe in them?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOh yeah, that's right, molecules appeared and gathered in a 'primordial soup' where conditions were 'just right' and over time random 'mutations' were made that inexorably lead from nothing to something. Yes, we all know the story.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisleuken, your "a segment of the scientific community" who are religious virtually doesn't exist. Like I already wrote, the members of the National Academy of Sciences are 93% atheist. There's something seriously wrong with the other 7%, but most certainly they are not fundamentalists, and of course they don't have one shred of evidence for any supernatural fantasies they might have.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnd that's what every religious belief is, a childish fantasy.
leuken, describe your fairy's magic wand. If you can't do that, you have nothing to add here.
http://darwinkilledgod.blogspot.com/
Another liar for Jeebus wrote "I have no religion and I have completely studied all the science and biology, on "evolution" and there is no evolution."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have no religion but you deny the foundation of biology anyway.
You have "completely studied all the science" but you're still a science denier.
What you are mister is a pathological liar. No religion? You studied all the science? Do you really expect anyone to believe you? What's the point of being dishonest if everyone already knows you're a liar?
@GoodScienceForYou, "I have no religion and I have completely studied all the science and biology, on "evolution" and there is no evolution." yet another case of Dunning-Kruger. Not only have you not studied all of the science and biology, you haven't studied any, as is clear from your idiotic statements. You are another individual who is so ignorant of the facts that he is completely unaware of how little he knows and as a result has deluded himself into thinking he is an expert.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"When 70% of all mutations are bad, negative, show reduced gene function, I would say that evolution is fraud." first, please show us where you came up with 70%. Second, you are ignoring changes to gene regulation instead of just changes to genes, or changes to duplicate copies of genes or changes to genetic material inserted by viruses or changes to non-coding regions all of which would not affect existing gene function. Now if you had actually studied genetics you would have known about those things, which have been proven by the way. Now I don't mind people being ignorant. We are all ignorant about something. What I take exception to is that instead of educating yourself you decided to come here and lie and spread your ignorance to advance your anti-evolution agenda. That demonstrates that not only are you ignorant and irrational but also a person of low moral character. Just what we come to expect from the creationist lobby.
Firstly, rational and scientific minded people need to accept that it will never be able to convert 100% of people to those principles. There will always be people with prejudiced thinking and ideas in their heads that cannot be removed. Also as long as religion dominates the life of America, and religion values 'faith' among all else, there will always be a sizeable number of non rational people.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSecondly, the way to combat non rational thinking is through education alone. It is tragic and heart breaking to read that only twenty something percent of science teachers can teach evolution ... ? I am constantly shocked by this. It is an indictment of the whole professional of teaching in America and should be a source of shame and humiliation to them.
Evolution, like any science, should be taught not by assertion. Ms Miller says "I think if you explain to the kids, there is no "controversy" in the science—and I'm teaching science—it doesn't have to be a controversy." She is wrong.
Evolution must be taught by focussing on the evidence from the start. Let the evidence speak for itself. The trouble with issues that are wholly accepted by rational people and supported by proven evidence is that many become lazy and forget to teach the evidence in detail where necessary. Let the evidence do the speaking.
I am personally irritated that some elements in Science are dragging anthropogenic global warming (AGW) into the evolution controversy and vice versa. This strategy is very damaging for Science.
These theories are totally and wholly different. One is supported by more than 100 years of thoroughly tested and duplicated evidence, while the other (AGW) is brand new and full of uncertainty and controversy. Linking them only drags the debate down to the lowest common denominator and insults the intelligence of the people.
Well, I see that you have evolved into the next great triumph of humanity. You're still not getting what I am saying because you are so busy defending your point of view as it is a contest to see who is right or wrong. Let's stop worrying about who is right.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing supernatural about the concept of God. Anything outside of our narrow view and what we can't explain is, by definition, supernatural. We know that there are places in the universe (black holes) where the 'laws' of physics break down. Would that make black holes into some kind of supernatural thing, no.
I am not suprised by your hatred of any point of view that doesn't conform to yours. It is just discouraging that the whole dialogue is continually wiped away from the failure of people on all sides to put away their childish egos, stop playing ball for a certain team and realize that in the end, hopefully, the truth will be known. "The truth has no agenda."
As you can see, I am no scientist. I am just a person who is curious about my world. I'm interested in the questions science can't answer and I am tired of debating the questions is has answered. I choose to believe that I am MORE than a biological computer simply reacting like a robot to my surroundings. It is unfortunate that your disdain for those like me is so intense. For me, science doesn't fill in all of the gaps. If it does for you, that's great. Our conversation has been quite spirited and it's wonderful that we have the opportunity to do so. Name calling however, really does greatly diminish your credibility, doesn't help your cause, and gives science a bad name.
@HowardB, "I am personally irritated that some elements in Science are dragging anthropogenic global warming (AGW) into the evolution controversy and vice versa." I'm not sure what you mean by "dragging into the controversy" if you mean that some are likening AGW deniers with evolution deniers I would have to disagree with you that this is not warranted. While I agree that the theories are different I disagree that AGW is not tested or duplicated. As you said, one must focus on the evidence and so the relative "newness" of a theory is irrelevant. In that regard AGW is very similar to evolution in not only being supported by a vast amount of evidence but also being supported by evidence from other fields of science such as chemistry and cosmology. Unfortunately the greatest similarity between the Evolution and AGW controversies is ultimately the fact that they are not scientific controversies at all but rather political ones. In both cases, groups with ideological agendas are fomenting dissent using lies, distortions and disinformation campaigns rather than discussing the facts. The underlying reasons are different though both camps tend to contain the same players, specifically right ring fanatics. And these are not the only issues to suffer from the politicization of science. There was a great deal of this type of thing going on during the Bush administration from AIDS research to stem cells. In fact one can say that the US has a long history of struggle between right wing fascist movements and science. Currently, science is losing and along with it the US's lead in science and technology. The US is being dragged into a dark age by those that think reality must be changed to agree with ideology rather than the other way around.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree that the best way to deal with these issues is through education. I think logic should be taught as early as possible, along with arithmetic and literacy (I have called this the ALL curriculum rather than the 3 Rs). But education is not going to change a deeply entrenched ideology. Such people do not use facts or logic when selecting their beliefs. They do so based on their prejudices. In such cases the only thing we can do is marginalize the lunatic fringe and use education to contain their intellectual viruses. The way this is done is by ensuring policy is based on sound science and that the education system is not subverted by those with a political agenda. Pennsylvania has taken steps in the right direction.
@leuken, "There is nothing supernatural about the concept of God." yes there is, there is no way for god to have created the universe from nothing. That violates the laws of the conservation of mass and energy. Therefore that means god must be supernatural.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We know that there are places in the universe (black holes) where the 'laws' of physics break down. Would that make black holes into some kind of supernatural thing, no." No! Black holes are just as subject to the laws of nature as everything else in the universe. The laws of nature clearly indicate that black holes should exist this is how we knew about them before we saw evidence for them in the cosmos. I really wish you people would take the time to understand what you are talking about. It is very hard to respect someone who sounds like an idiot.
"I am just a person who is curious about my world." if you were curious you would follow where science leads you. Instead you have a unalterable world view that denies anything that conflicts with it. That isn't curiosity, it is delusion.
"Name calling however...gives science a bad name." how does name calling give science a bad name? What does name calling have to do with science? If I call you an idiot, that is me, not science. On the other hand, people speaking with the authority of their respective religions call for the murder of civilians to further their cause. That is the fault of religion.
@ Bob
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for making my point for me. Thank you for placing ME as the spokesperson of the history of organized religion and treating me as though I approved of "murder of civilians to further their cause."
By the way, science has given a term for what happens in a black hole. It is called the 'singularity'. The singularity is sciences word. What it really means is, we have no idea or concept what happens in a black hole. Can you tell me what happens in a black hole Bob?
Einstein's theory of relativity mathematically works out into infinity. Can you explain what infinity is?Einstein's "spooky action at a distance" is another one you can clarify for me. Infininty and singularity do not make sense. Am I stupid for not seeing that there are major holes in our understanding of major concepts of reality? I guess to you I am.
@leuken, who is this Bob you are referring to?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Thank you for placing ME as the spokesperson of the history of organized religion and treating me as though I approved of "murder of civilians to further their cause." must have done that in my sleep. Can you show me where I did that?
"By the way, science has given a term for what happens in a black hole. It is called the 'singularity'" actually no, a singularity is what a Black Hole is, not what happens inside. Another type of singularity was the universe at the time of the big bang. What the term singularity implies is that whatever happens inside cannot affect the outside because gravity prevents everything from leaving. The inside of a black hole is still governed by the laws of the universe. We just have no ability to measure them. In a few years, once scientists have had time to study the findings of the LHC we will have a better picture of what happens in black holes as well as big bangs. Keep in mind, there is nothing about black holes or big bangs that violates the laws of nature. In fact they are predicted by the laws of nature. God, on the other hand, does violate the laws of nature. The LHC will not reconcile his existence, only reveal yet another domain in which he cannot exist.
"Einstein's theory of relativity mathematically works out into infinity." what?! You really have no idea what you are talking about. Let's be very clear about this; your lack of understanding does not imply the supernatural, it just demonstrates your ignorance.
"Am I stupid for not seeing that there are major holes in our understanding of major concepts of reality?" I really don't need to answer that. You've answered it yourself. But what you are referring to is the god of the gaps argument. That is the irrational proposition that because there is something we don't know that god must therefore be the answer. Here is the position in as simple terms as I can imagine. The onus of proof is on those that assert the affirmative or the existence of. God is not a default theory that you can invoke whenever you don't understand something. For the proposition that god exists to be accepted it must be proven. It is really that simple. So put up or ...
"Believing that complex DNA just materializd out of nowhere is a ridiculous idea to many."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExactly! And that's why the creationism story doesn't work. Some magical skydaddy just poofing DNA into existence is ridiculous.
Good thing that science never claims that DNA just materialized out of nothing! Only those ignorant about the science involved make those statements.
@Human Ape
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Robert Schmidt
@Primewonk
@bcb24
I must apologize to everyone. My comments don't belong in a scientific forum; they belong in a philosophical one. The vitriolic hatred that bled through the comments to me was unmistakable and I assure you that I was not asking anyone to subscribe to my thoughts. Hell, I'm not even married to my thoughts! They're just thoughts.
The prior exchange has solidified my assertion that many in the scientific community are very close-minded and unable to step outside of conventional methodology. I thought that all of the great scientists throughout history have challenged conventional wisdom and were often ridiculed by their peers.
Good day
The notion that ID supporters avoid scrutiny may well be a charge that looks back at evolutionists:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this“As we know, there is a great divergence of opinion among biologists, not only about the causes of evolution but even about the actual process. This divergence exists because the evidence is unsatisfactory and does not permit any certain conclusion. It is therefore right and proper to draw the attention of the non-scientific public to the disagreements about evolution. But some recent remarks of evolutionists show that they think this unreasonable. This situation, where scientific men rally to the defense of a doctrine they are unable to define scientifically, much less demonstrate with scientific rigour, attempting to maintain its credit with the public by the suppression of criticism and the elimination of difficulties, is abnormal and undesirable in science.”
One may be tempted to ask what creationist wrote that comment. The answer is, no creationist wrote it. Prof. W. R. Thompson, FRS wrote it in the "Introduction" to one of the 1956 Editions of Charles Darwin's "...Origin of Species..." Creationists, however, did have some influence on the issue. The members of the British organization, Evolution Protest Movement, obtained permission to reprint the "Introduction" in booklet form in 1967. The quoted material is on pages 17 and 18.
All,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReligion and the associated spirituality are an accident of the species developing the questions long before the observational knowledge was available to answer those questions. A major portion, but certainly not all, of the relevant knowledge has been acquired. However, this has happened only recently from the geologic viewpoint.
As a species, we seem to have a very strong "Pride of Authorship" that drives strong emotional commitment to our beliefs. In addition, as a species, our perspective of view is quite limited in the sense of time. The time from our species' realization that there was more to life than the hunt just finished, to today's (as in the Present), knowledge of what happened long ago is really only about 5,000 years at best. Out of how many million years hominids have wandered about the planet?? We're looking at .1% at the outside and things like evolution, 150 years; do the math. This is really new information compared to the accumulation of thought related to religion, so it is expected that the older thoughts would fade slowly.
Now the hard part. The rate of acquisition of new information about what I consider to be "existence" and the universe(..(s..(s)..s)..) that may exist within it is developing almost on a daily basis. This has the potential to be overwhelming and all of us regardless of which side of the argument we are on must be tolerant of the others. Finally, science as I have become accustomed, is a process of observation coupled with thought followed by observation. This process is really good at telling us HOW something happened and the mechanics of its process. It is however completely incapable of telling us WHY something is. Now, I can embed a plethora of step by step whys within the construct of a HOW as I explain a system or condition, but I cannot explain WHY at the beginning. The fundamental question that will never be answered by any scientific effort is "Why is there existence?" Again, surely we will get closer to the mechanical circumstances that lead to or support our concept of existence, but I can always reach out one step farther and ask WHY?
Forget about Creationism vs. Evolution. The systemic fraud by most paleontologist is shocking.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisChris McGowan, a zoologist and paleontologist who is the author of five books on the topic of dinosaurs, proved in his book Make Your Own Dinosaur Out Of Chicken Bones: Foolproof Instructions for Budding Paleontologists that animal bones can be reconstructed to become almost anything.
On her July 2010 radio show (WOR 710AM in New York) national talk-host Joan Hamburg spoke about her early career as a paleontologist and confessed “When we dig up something we don’t really know anything. We just make it up.”
Pro-evolutionist, Bill Bryson in his best-seller “A Short History of Nearly Everything” wrote “If you correlate [fossil] tool discovery with the species of creature most found nearby, you would have to conclude that early hand tools were mostly made by antelopes…” On almost every other page he writes about the chicanery, dishonesty, fraud—even murder in paleontology and archaeology. READ HIS BOOK AND FIND OUT FOR YOURSELF.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you on one point. Biology does not subject itself to proper scrutiny. The main reason that ID has so much public support is a glaring hole in the "scientific" explanation of the evolutionary mechanism.
That hole is the inability of Natural Selection to explain how species become so closely adapted to the conditions in which they live. That hole was created by Darwin's decision that external conditions have no direct effect on species change. Instead, Natural Selection makes the driver of change internal qualities that favour individuals in a struggle that involves competition for scarce resources.
Having excluded external conditions, Darwin was left with no mechanism to explain how species adapted to the conditions. In Ch. 3 he argued that adaptation did not come from the effect of external conditions. Species were favoured in a struggle in those conditions. Different species dominated in different conditions because different species were favoured in different conditions. Follow that argument and you realise that Natural Selection relies on magic, just like ID. Results of public surveys tell us that ID magic is more credible than "science" magic.
Darwin's explanation came from the cultural beliefs of the society in which Darwin grew up, that the qualities of the individual were innate. The upper classes were upper because they were innately superior, the poor were poor because they were innately inferior. Success resulted from internal qualities, not from the social or other context.
Reverence for Darwin's contribution, the idea of evolutionary change, has led the biological sciences to accept without question Darwin's dubious explanation of the mechanism. They do not treat Natural Selection as an hypothesis to be tested, but as a Law that they defend and on which they have based the rules and assumptions of the science.
One of the silliest rules is that there is no purpose or direction to evolution. Of course, individuals cannot develop purpose or work out a direction, but external conditions can certainly direct a species, and give purpose, which is always survival. External conditions do not select the individuals who survive, they eliminate individuals unable to survive. Adaption is a process of Natural Deselection.
The biological sciences could cut the ground out from under ID by acknowledging that yes, there is an Intelligent Designer, but it is not some metaphysical source. It is a natural process that "designs" species for their conditions by eliminating individuals unable to survive.
hoamingin...and again I have to ask why someone who does not believe in the process of science posts in a scientific blog...please go back to your faith based ones...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisouch...just reread your post and I take mine back...sorry...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis issue is not a matter of agreeing with me. It’s a matter of either agreeing or disagreeing with Prof. Thompson. He it is who wrote the critique. My only part was quoting him. He also had a general criticism of Darwin’s alleged evidence for evolution:
“Darwin himself considered that the idea of evolution is unsatisfactory unless its mechanism can be explained. I agree, but since no one has explained to my satisfaction how evolution could happen I do not feel impelled to say that it has happened. I prefer to say that on this matter our information is inadequate....Darwin considered that the doctrine of the origin of living forms by descent with modification. even if well founded, would be unsatisfactory unless the causes at work, were correctly identified, so his theory of modification by natural selection was for him, of absolutely major importance. Since he had at the time the Origin was published no body of experimental evidence to support his theory, he fell back on speculative arguments.” [Ibid. pp. 12, 20]
Wayne,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThanks for the retraction. Unfortunately, persistent attacks from Creationists and IDers has created knee jerk responses to criticism. No doubt you realised that I am saying that the reverential attachment of biologists to Darwin's explanation of the evolutionary mechanism creates the large gap into which Intelligent Design stepped.
I explain the errors by Darwin (and the biological sciences) in more detail on
http://ideasintuitionandthinking.com/blog
Some high school teachers, showing some reticence about teaching evolution in the classroom, are also members of churches that are radically anti-evolutionist. Those teachers might fear to fall into disfavor in or even ex-communicated from their churches if they openly teach something that goes against what is being taught there. For those teachers,that could represent a strong psychological handicap not so easy to get over.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere have been many criticisms of Darwin's theories based on logic and science (which excludes Creationists and IDers). I found references to the work you mention and Thompson did not reject evolution, he outlined conflicting opinions among scientists about how it happened and questioned whether Darwin's explanation was scientific. I agree with Thompson that Darwin's explanation was NOT scientific. I describe it as a cultural artefact, a reflection of the beliefs of the society in which Darwin grew up, evidenced in the writings of Malthus, Spencer and Galton (as well as in Darwin's Origin) That does not argue against evolution, it argues for a different explanation of the mechanism of evolution.
The first person to express reservations in writing was Thomas Huxley in a letter to Darwin the day before publication of Origin. From his first reading of the book, Huxley realised that Darwin's thesis had two parts. The main part, which Huxley believed that Darwin had proven beyond question was that all species evolved through branching evolution from common origins over long periods of time. He became an outspoken champion of that idea.
The second part was Darwin's explanation of the mechanism of change and that was the part that Huxley questioned, that most other serious critics have questioned and that I question.
From that first reading in 1859 to his nth reading in 1887, when he was attempting to unravel Darwin's argument, Huxley maintained that Darwin had made a mistake in rejecting the effect of external conditions.
Even in the Obituary for Darwin that Huxley wrote in 1888 he held open the possibility that future generations would work out the true driver of evolution. Instead, scientists have reverently preserved Darwin's error and incorporated that error into the basic rules and assumptions of the biological sciences.
In 1880 Huxley wrote: "it is the customary fate of new truths to begin as heresies and to end as superstitions". Unfortunately, scientists have made Natural Selection a superstition and the errors in that explanation create opportunities for Creationists and IDers to keep treating it as heresy.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe previous reply did not deal with your comment about an explanation of evolution. If you are genuinely interested, here goes.
Fossil records dating back millions of years show that early species differ from present species, and most present species do not show up among the old bones, showing that species change over time.
Until DNA was understood, noone really knew why, when two horses mated, they produced another horse and not a camel, and why that horse retained characteristics of the parents, as well as subtle differences. Genetics has shown that genes of offspring are a mix of genes of both parents, with slight variations that happen at a rate that, over time, is consistent within a species, but differs between species.
Darwin recognised that individuals within species differ and that a mechanism operated on those differences to create change. He assumed that change resulted directly from emergence of a variation. Having rejected the effect of external conditions, he decided that the improved internal quality favoured the individual in competitive struggle for resources, mainly against others of the same species which competed for the same resources. Competition was continuous, so change must be continuous and incremental. The more variations, the more change.
Darwin's assumptions did not fit the fossil record that showed that species remained unchanged for long periods, then changed suddenly, or disappeared. Geneticists have also found the opposite. Variations do not produce change. They accumulate as genetic diversity. What creates change is pressure from external conditions that eliminates some of that diversity. More variations are sign of a lack of evolution. A reduction in genetic diversity is a sign of past evolutionary pressure that eliminated some of the diversity.
Gorillas have not changed much in the millions of years during which humans have evolved from apes in Africa. There is far less difference between the genes of two humans living on opposite sides of the planet than between two gorillas sitting side by side in an African forest.
So the drivers of evolution are not, as Darwin assumed, internal qualities of individuals. External pressures do not care how high quality an individual is. They work out the probabilities, eliminating individuals unable to survive in the prevailing conditions and evolve the species towards the survivors. Survival pressures from external conditions shape the species and make it look like it has been designed for the conditions.
leuken wrote, "My comments don't belong in a scientific forum,"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is true. You have admitted you lack any standing as a professional scientist, and your remarks demonstrated a total lack of understanding expected even from an informed amateur. And yet, you have pretended that your uninformed opinions are to be carefully considered. They were considered, and were found to be a wasted effort. To you this assessment is "vitriolic hatred," to which I can only congratulate you for a remarkably sheltered life. In my personal experience, "vitriolic hatred" is grave bodily injury inflicted by thugs, rather than some minor Internet chatroom disagreements.
Remember that they didn't laugh at Galileo- they were going to kill him. They did not laugh at Darwin, they damned him to Hell. Fortunately, he was independently wealthy, lived in a rather isolated estate, and there were fewer "righteous" religious murders in the 19th century than in the preceding 7 thousand years. In spite of a recent upswing, we can hope that the trend continues.
Editor:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAs I read the article for the first time, I find that the first three comments are replies to comments which have been deleted. There are more that follow. I think that these comments should not be deleted without very good reason because it's impossible to make sense of the replies without them. (I may regret having requested this.)
W. R. Thompson (1887-1972), and his remarks 55 years ago are irrelevant, except to creationists. Indeed, they have quoted him incessantly since his death.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBut, the opinions of an elderly entomologist who died before the genetic basis for evolution was actively explored, let alone understood, are frankly of little interest to any living scientist.
hoamingin, it becomes glaringly obvious that you have not understood Darwin's position at all. When you blather on about how he decided,"that external conditions have no direct effect on species change," you are exposed as incompetent (at best).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLacking a well founded mechanism of heredity, Darwin in fact relied on the very Lamarckian notion of transmission of features developed through "habit," and "environment," and even the loss of features due to "disuse."
leuken, you have offered to stop posting your anti-science nonsense, but regarding the origin of life, I would direct you to my "Short Outline of the Origin of Life." It will clear up some of your misunderstandings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thishttp://stonesnbones.blogspot.com/2008/12/origin-of-life-outline.html
I need to up-date it, particularly on the origin and evolution of genes. But you are no-where near that level of study anyway.
Vendicar Decarian (comment 31),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt doesn't occur to me how Prof. Thompson's mechanical typewriter has any relevance to this exchange. However, here's another quote that may also have been originally produced on a mechanical typewriter:
...[I]t is manifestly impossible to reproduce in the laboratory the evolution of man from the australopithecine, or of the modern horse from an Eohippus, or of a land vertebrate from a fish-like ancestor. These evolutionary happenings are unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible. It is as impossible to turn a land vertebrate into a fish as it is to effect the reverse transformation. The applicability of the experimental method to the study of such unique historical processes is severely restricted before all else by the time intervals involved, which far exceed the lifetime of any human experimenter.
[Theodosius Dobzhansky. 1957. ON METHODS OF EVOLUTIONARY BIOLOGY AND ANTHROPOLOGY. Part I. Biology. AMERICAN SCIENTIST, December, p. 388]
Please provide an example of an observation of evolution in the lab.
Gary Hurd (comment 41),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPerhaps you will find the following quote relevant:
Our willingness to accept scientific claims that are against common sense is the key to an understanding of the real struggle between science and the supernatural. We take the side of science in spite of the patent absurdity of some of its constructs, in spite of its failure to fulfill many of its extravagant promises of health and life, in spite of the tolerance of the scientific community for unsubstantiated just-so stories, because we have a prior commitment, a commitment to materialism. It is not that the methods and institutions of science somehow compel us to accept a material explanation of the phenomenal world, but, on the contrary, that we are forced by our a priori adherence to material causes to create an apparatus of investigation and a set of concepts that produce material explanations, no matter how counter-intuitive, no matter how mystifying to the uninitiated. Moreover, that materialism is absolute, for we cannot allow a Divine Foot in the door. The eminent Kant scholar Lewis Beck used to say that anyone who could believe in God could believe in anything. To appeal to an omnipotent deity is to allow that at any moment the regularities of nature may be ruptured, that miracles may happen.
[Richard Lewontin. 1997. Billions and Billions of Demons. NY Times Book Reviews: The Demon-Haunted World: Science as a Candle in the Dark by Carl Sagan, Random House, January 9, http://www.drjbloom.com/Public%20files/Lewontin_Review.htm]
hoamingin (comments 37, 38),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt was not my intention to imply that Prof. Thompson rejected evolution, only that he provided a severe critique and honest assessment of the alleged process. The very fact that he was asked to write the "Introduction" to an issue of "...Origin of Species..." is an obvious indication. He did, however, admit that his views would be considered heretical
(p. 5), yet he closed with a more conciliatory statement: "...[T]o understand our own thinking, to see what fallacies we must eradicate in order to establish general biology on a scientific basis, we can still return with profit to the source-book which is The Origin of Species."
Regarding T. H. Huxley, it's my understanding his only concern with Darwin was the latter's adherence to uniformitarianism.
It's my further understanding that the experiments of Fr. Gregor Mendel provided the understanding for what would later be termed genetics. It seems to me the synthetic theory of evolution developed as a synthesis of Mendelian genetics and Darwinism.
You seem to have applied anthropocentric descriptions to what you've termed "the drivers of evolution." What are those drivers?
Gary,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSince you are clearly well read about Darwin, you would know that Huxley wrote in a letter to Darwin the day before publication of Origin that “it is not clear to me why, if continual physical conditions are of so little moment as you suppose, variation should occur at all”. Two days later Darwin replied “You have most cleverly hit on one point, which has greatly troubled me; if, as I must think, external conditions produce little direct effect, what the devil determines each particular variation?”
Read chapters 1-3 and Darwin thought that the effect of external conditions was indirect, by causing variations. The above comments show that Huxley agreed with that.
In ch.5, describing the effects of a variation, Darwin wrote "we cannot tell how much of it to attribute to the accumulative action of natural selection, and how much to the conditions of life". In ch.6 he described external conditions (climate, food, etc.) as just one of several “quite secondary causes” that acted “independently of natural selection”. How many more references do you need?
If you do read Origin, always remember that he did not include external conditions in Natural Selection. The arguments he gives often seem to point to external conditions, but he redirects his conclusions to Natural Selection that excludes external conditions. Even Huxley was confused. When trying to work through the arguments in 1888, he described Origin as the hardest book to understand thoroughly that he knew of. To understand why, in ch 3 Darwin describes different species living in different climates..."the change of climate being conspicuous, we are tempted to attribute the whole effect to its direct action. But this is a very false view". His explanation was that species dominated in conditions because they were favoured in struggle in those conditions. Different species dominated in different conditions because different species were favoured in different conditions. But external conditions still had no direct effect. No wonder Huxley had trouble working through the arguments.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGenetics had been pretty much established before Mendel's work was rediscovered just after 1900, though it was the 1950s before the structure of DNA began to be understood.
Darwin's commitment to the Linnean idea that nature does not make leaps was one objection, the other was rejection of the effect of external conditions. They both interlink, because change driven by variations that favoured individuals in competition (Natural Selection) must be continuous and incremental.
The synthesis accepted that genetics explained the mechanism of change, but the driver was Natural Selection, built around competition in which survivors survived because they had qualities that improved their fitness.
Geneticists have shown that the attributes of survivors existed in the species long before, without creating evolutionary change, so when conditions change, survivors do not have to do anything except keep doing their normal behaviours. External conditions determine which behaviours are needed to survive, and others in the species that lack those behaviours are eliminated. The change in the species is defined by the individuals who were eliminated. It is not selection, it is deselection.
So the driver of evolutionary change is the effect of external conditions on individuals within a species, who all vary to some degree.
If all variants are able to survive in the prevailing conditions, there is no change in the species. If no variants are able to survive a change in conditions, the species becomes extinct. Evolution happens between those extremes.
Darwin, and biologists whose assumptions are based on Natural Selection, treat evolution as a positive process driven by superior fitness of survivors. According to Darwin, their actions were required to exterminate the others, otherwise no change happened. So really, the main difference between the two approaches is whether the demise of non-survivors was caused by the actions of survivors or by pressure from external conditions.
Vendicar Decarian,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: comment 47
The authors began their experiment with E. coli bacteria. They made the claim that those bacteria “…have since evolved in a glucose-limited medium…” Yet, at the conclusion of their experiment they still had E. coli bacteria. Where is the evolution?
Re: comment 53
If there’s no modern relevance to a 54-year-old statement, what does that imply about the 150-year-old document in which the quote is contained?
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: comments 48 and 49
Could Prof. Dobzhansky have been unaware that there was no australopithecine available for experimentation? Could he have been unaware of the existence of whales and dolphins? Why did he make no such disclaimer in his paper?
Re: comment 50
You’ve lost me on this one. Are you insinuating that evolution is driven by the integration of random errors in order to eliminate them?
Re: comment 52
The reference to deselection is interesting. Is it not the case that natural selection simply eliminates traits that are not useful or, even detrimental to an organism? How does natural selection, allegedly acting on mutations, produce the information necessary to “evolve” an organism from a less complex to a more complex state?
"How does natural selection, allegedly acting on mutations, produce the information necessary to evolve an organism from a less complex to a more complex state?"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans are not on top of some complexity ladder.
"Early estimates of the number of human genes that used expressed sequence tag data put it at 50 000–100 000.[16] Following the sequencing of the human genome and other genomes, it has been found that rather few genes (~20 000 in human, mouse and fly, ~13 000 in roundworm, >46 000 in rice) encode all the proteins in an organism.[17] These protein-coding sequences make up 1–2% of the human genome.[18] A large part of the genome is transcribed however, to introns, retrotransposons and seemingly a large array of noncoding RNAs.[17][18] Total number of proteins (the Earth's proteome) is estimated to be 5 million sequences.[19]" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gene#Number_of_genes
Humans are not on top of some complexity ladder; we have less genes than a worm (see above quote). What you see as "complexity" is merely evolution of a species to adapt to conditions around it. Those genes happen to be compatible with its conditions. As the genes mutate and change the beneficial genes are preserved in that species. Slowly, as genes and environment interact, the species changes eventually leading to its present form. This picture might illustrate it better: http://i.imgur.com/oAnfA.jpg
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have your threads crossed. Comments 48, 49 and 50 were not from me. You are still determined to misinterpret, but I will take advantage of your confusion to give you more comment and let's see if you can misinterpret this.
Geneticists have found that mutations happen so regularly that they can calculate the rate of change. Each species has a rate that is consistent over time, but different species have different rates. I previously commented that gorillas have far more genetic diversity than humans. Their mutation rate is also 2-3 times greater. Despite this, gorillas have had a far lower level of evolution than humans.
The gene pool of a species is changing by addition over time, but this is not evolutionary change. Mutations do not happen for any reason. They are random and accumulate as greater variance around the mean. That genetic diversity expands the range of capabilities of individuals with those variants and hence the range of external conditions in which those individuals are able to survive.
Evolutionary change happens when change in the conditions for which the species was previously adapted puts pressure on the species, skewing the mean by eliminating variants that lack qualities that become essential for survival. That is why geneticists recognise a lack of diversity as a sign of past evolution.
I agree with you when you say that it is about time that biologists cut themselves loose from Darwin's 150 year old explanation. Darwin's explanation was that the driver of change was competition for scarce resources in which some individuals were favoured by variations that gave them improved qualities. If that were so, there would be continuous change and no build up in genetic diversity, the opposite to what geneticists have found.
I disagree with your comment that Darwin had no experimental evidence and his theory relied on speculation. Firstly, evolution happens on such long timescales that the most effective approach is observation, rather than experiment. Darwin assembled an impressive range of observations and backed those up with experiments where possible. An important group of experiments were his dissections of plants, animals and in particular, barnacles.
What Darwin proved beyond reasonable doubt was that species evolved from common origins through a mechanism that worked on variants within a species. His mistake was to reject the effect of external conditions as that mechanism, in favour of internal qualities whose mechanism has been disproved by genetics.
No thanks, Gary. I see that by reading a few lines of rhetoric you can successfully analyse a person's life and know everything about them. You must know that I live in a cave and see that bright thing in the sky and wonder "what is that thing, I'm ascared"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo thanks to your 'answer' to the origin of existience.
skybluskyblue (comment 56),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumans may or may not be at the apex of a complexity ladder. What is the purpose of the darwinian "tree of life?"
Hoamingin (comment 57),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease accept my apology for the crossed threads.
It’s my understanding that one will seek in vain for a beneficial mutation.
Please provide an example of an addition to a gene pool. What is the source of the alleged addition?
Whatever importance is placed by geneticists on “…a lack of diversity…” lack does not seem to be what is observed in the real world.
Your disagreement with my comment on Darwin’s lack of experimental evidence is not my comment; it’s Prof. Thompson’s comment.
You’ve lost me on your mechanism argument. Since natural selection is not the mechanism, what is?
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are right about beneficial variations. Varaiations are happening all the time, but it is impossible to determine in advance which of those variations will assure an individual's survival.
That is why the term Survival of the Fittest was such nonsense. It is only after the event that we can see which individuals are fit. Fitness does not determine survival, survival determines fitness. A number of biologists I have communicated with have commented that they disagree with the concept of Survival of the Fittest.
When Darwin adopted that term in his 5th edition, he used it interchangeably with Natural Selection. Comparing the two terms, Darwin wrote "the expression often used by Mr. Herbert Spencer, of the Survival of the Fittest, is more accurate". So any biologists who disagrees with Survival of the Fittest must, by Darwin's own words, disagree with Natural Selection.
I am going to pretend that you did not write that nonsense suggesting that variations do not happen. Walk down the street and look at other humans. Do they all look the same? Do they all have the same coloured hair, eyes and skin? The same height and shape? You are looking at a gene pool, in which individuals vary because variations have evolved in the human gene pool over millions of years and each individual has a unique mix of those genes.
One of Darwin's great insights was that all individuals in a species vary to some degree, and that change in the species happened by a mechanism that operated on those individual differences.
Bill, I understand that you have difficulty coming to terms with concepts, particularly ones that do not agree with your preconceptions, but if you go back to the previous post and read it slowly a few times I am sure that you can understand that I say that natural selection is not the mechanism that drives evolution. Evolution is driven by survival pressure that eliminates individuals unable to survive, usually a change in conditions, evolving the species towards the survivors. Read it again, slowly.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: “I am going to pretend that you did not write that nonsense suggesting that variations do not happen.”
You need not pretend concerning my statement on variations. Rather, read it again. Unless my perception is nonexistent, we are in agreement on this issue.
My difficulty is coming to terms with unwarranted claims regarding evolution. My “preconceptions” have been formed, over a period of 30+ years, by reading (usually word for word) peer reviewed papers published in scientific journals. The typical evolutionist, in my experience, does a far better job of refuting evolutionary claims (usually his or her own) than any creationist. There does not seem to me to be a need to reread a statement on which we are in agreement; re: “beneficial mutations” and natural selection.
Interestingly, Paul Nelson and Jonathan Wells, two of the movers and shakers in the ID movement, have publicly stated that natural selection is a real process. They simply insist, as a process, it is highly demanding; incapable of accomplishing what Darwin thought it could.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGlad we seem to be hoaming in on some form of agreement. I am not sure what that agreement is, so I will recap.
You agree that mutations just happen. I agree that mutations are not innately beneficial. What makes a mutation beneficial is how it interacts with pressures from external conditions. That interaction is through the behaviours that it enables individuals to develop. What makes its effect even more indirect is that one variation is unlikely to produce major change. However some mutations can be pivotal, such as a mutation in the MYH Myosin Heavy Chain gene that coded for the large teeth, heavy chewing muscles and thick skull to anchor them that had been required for the ape lifestyle.
Hominids who developed the omnivore hunter gatherer lifestyle had not needed them for a long time, but were locked in until released by the MYH mutation, which opened the way for other variations to work out a thinner skull that was able to grow to accommodate a larger brain. The need for a larger range and flexibility of behaviours in a tool-using hunter gatherer lifestyle drove the growth in brain size by elimination of individuals lacking the range and flexibility of behaviours.
Another major mutation was the FOXP2 gene mutation that enabled humans to manipulate face and throat muscles to produce precise sounds. Other variations produced the chin and shape of tongue and throat that led to speech about 200Kya. What drove evolution of speech were survival pressures from external conditions that eliminated individuals unable to communicate in order to better co-ordinate the activities of the group they lived in.
So some variations enable, or facilitate certain behaviours, and external conditions work out which behaviours enable individuals to survive. Evolution results from elimination of individuals unable to survive. Given that species are adapted to the conditions they exist in, the evolutionary mechanism happens when there is a change of conditions in which some individuals are able to survive and others are not.
Natural Selection ignores external conditions and attributes change to some magical innate ability of a variation to impart favouredness to an individual.
This focus on beneficial attributes of the individual rather than the external conditions that determine which attributes are beneficial creates a large credibility gap in Natural Selection's ability to describe natural phenomona.
As you point out, errors in the scientific explanation prepared the territory into which promoters of ID planted their ideas.
hoamingin (comment 63),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy inquiry on the mutation issue was merely to ask for an example of one that is beneficial. If my understanding is correct, you've presented FOXP2 as a beneficial mutation. Please confirm that understanding. That will give me the basis for some research. If you already have a source (or sources) for FOXP2 research you may wish to share it with me.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe FOXP2 mutation certainly turned out to be beneficial, but my point was that noone can tell whether a mutation is beneficial until their beneficial effects show up in interactions with external conditions. This mutation gave greater control over facial and throat muscles, which is why humans can laugh and show emotion and monkeys cannot (or at least not very convincingly).
The reference I used in my book was "G Marcus & S Fisher, ‘FOXP2 in focus: what can genes tell us about speech and language?’, TRENDS in Cognitive Sciences, vol. 7 no. 6, 2003, pp. 257–262." Google FOXP2 and you will get plenty more.
The story behind it is that some families had difficulty with speech. Studies identified that they shared what looked like a detrimental mutation in FOXP2. On further research it was recognised as these individuals lacking a beneficial mutation that has been dated around 240,000ya. They retain the original gene that humans had before the mutation and which other primates still have.
www.ideasintuitionandthinking.com
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy understanding is there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation. Let me do some internet research on FOXP2. It's a shame the paper in NATURE is so costly.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am puzzled that you are still hanging onto this issue of variations being beneficial (or not).
I agree with you at one level. No variation is innately beneficial. We can only know whether a variation is beneficial after we know how it interacts with external conditions.
One of Darwin's great insights was that every individual in a species varies to some degree. Change is the result of a mechanism that acts on those differences. Darwin's error was to pick the wrong mechanism. He rejected the effect of external conditions and decided instead on variations that gave individuals superior internal qualities that favoured them in struggle...etc, etc.
But what favoured them? Having rejected external conditions, Darwin's explanation, Natural Selection, relied on personal attributes having an innate, metaphysical quality of "favouredness". I still feel a bit stunned that Darwin and generations of biologists since have not realised that Natural Selection relies on variations having a magical ability to favour individuals in the conditions in which they have to survive, independent of the effects of those conditions. I do not believe in magic, so I do not believe in Natural Selection.
I will use the other example that I gave, mutation of the MYH Myosin Heavy Chain gene that has been dated around 2.4mya. The reference I used in my book was "Myosin gene mutation correlates with anatomical changes in the human lineage, Nature, vol. 428, 2004, pp. 415–418".
If that mutation had happened among apes living an ape lifestyle, it would have been a disaster. The small teeth, weakened jaw and chewing muscles would have made it impossible for those affected to chew the tough fibrous diet of apes, resulting in their elimination. But it happened among hominids who, for millions of years had been evolving a very different diet. The mutation that would have been a disaster in one context was ground breaking in another.
Noone could have anticipated that the smaller teeth, weaker jaws and chewing muscles and thinner skull would lead to a larger brain, or that, more than any other species, humans evolved reliance on software, rather than hardware. Instead of relying on physical capabilities, the success of humans relied on greater range and flexibility of behaviours.
If you feel the need to know more, check out my blog:
http://ideasintuitionandthinking.com/blog
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisLet me try to clear up some of your puzzlement. If any of my commentary contained the espousal that variations are beneficial (or not beneficial), please accept my apology. My position is/has been that there is no such thing as a beneficial mutation.
There's no question that species (a term as yet not rigorously defined in the world of biological science) vary from generation to generation. If the information available to me is correct, that variance is due to genetic recombination in sexual reproduction.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou seem to want to change the science of genetics, which has found that mutations happen so regularly that scientists are able to calculate a rate of mutation for each species that gradually increases genetic diversity over time.
Reproduction spreads mutations and increases the number of combinations of genes within the species. Mutation and recombination expand the range of possibilities for future evolutionary change, but do not, in themselves, create change.
What creates change is pressure from external conditions that eliminates some of the diversity in the genome. Given that they are adapted to the conditions in which they have been living, species will only be under pressure when there is a major change in conditions that eliminates individuals unable to survive the new conditions, evolving the species towards the survivors.
Most species define themselves, but there is unlikely ever to be an absolute rule covering all situations. Most people classify lions and tigers as separate species, even though they can breed and produce fertile offspring. African forest elephants and plains elephants were thought to be the same species until a genetic study showed that forest elephants are more closely related to Indian elephants.
A species is made up of individuals who all differ from the mean, but from generation to generation that mean does not change unless there has been external evolutionary pressure that shifts it. In the absence of evolutionary pressures, diversity increases around the mean, but does not change the mean.
If you choose to ignore the evidence of genetic science, you will join biologists, who ignore evidence from genetics that the assumptions of Natural Selection are wrong. Even geneticists ignore their own evidence. I groan every time I read a genetic study that describes the elimination of genetic diversity that produces evolutionary change in the species as the action of Natural Selection, when it is evidence that Natural Selection is wrong.
Most biologists I have communicated with on these issues accept that external conditions have major impact on evolution, yet they continue to apply rules and assumptions based on the belief that external conditions have no effect. Explanations of evolution that come from those assumptions are the source of a large credibility gap that has been exploited by proponents of Intelligent Design since the 1980s.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is neither my wish nor my intention to change the science of genetics. Following is
my personal assessment of one internet offering on an earlier topic:
Revisiting FOXP2 and the origins of language
by Ed Yong
http://scienceblogs.com/notrocketscience/2009/11/revisiting_foxp2_and_the_origins_of_la
nguage.php
[para. 3]
Thanks to a single genetic mutation, the...result is linguistic chaos. In 2001,
geneticists looking for the root of the problem tracked it down to a mutation in a gene
they named FOXP2.
COMMENT
This mutation of FOXP2 does not seem to have conferred any particular advantage to this
family in this investigation.
[para 5]
...[T]he gene evolved before the dinosaurs and is still found in many animals today:
species from birds to bats to bees have their own versions, many of which are
remarkably similar to ours.
COMMENT
Where is the evidence that the gene evolved (perhaps in the NATURE paper)?
[para 6]
our version (of FOXP2) differs from those of chimpanzees, gorillas and rhesus macaques
by two amino acids out of a total of 715, and from that of mice by three.
COMMENT
There seems to be a tremendous difference in final ability (speech).
[para 9]
There must have been some evolutionary advantage associated with the human form of
FOXP2...[H]ow it may have related to the rise of language, is more difficult to say.
COMMENT
Must have been would seem to be assumptive. More difficult would seem to be an
understatement.
[para 10]
...[S]everal teams (of researchers) have chosen songbirds due to the similarities
between their songs and human language: both build complex sequences from basic
components such as syllables and riffs, and both forms of vocalisation are learned
through imitation and practice during critical windows of development.
COMMENT
The similarities would seem to pale in comparison to final ability.
[para 11]
In the zebra finch, its (FOXP2) protein is 98 per cent identical to ours, differing by
just eight amino acids.
COMMENT
Even 98% similarity does not provide final ability.
[para 12 and 13]
The cacophony produced by these finches (by injecting young finches with a tailored
piece of RNA that inhibited the expression of the FOXP2 gene) bears uncanny
similarities to the distorted speech of the afflicted KE family members...
COMMENT
How similar was the uncanny similarity induced by experimenters compared with a natural
condition? If the information available to me is correct, evolution must be undirected.
[para 15]
...Fisher and his colleagues...engineered mice to carry the same FOXP2 mutation that
affects the KE family...
COMMENT
Anything engineered is directed.
[para 18]
Their squeaks were also subtly transformed.
COMMENT
Subtle transformation that has been engineered is directed.
[para 20]
These circuits could underpin the origins of human speech, creating a biological
platform for the evolution of both vocal learning in animals and spoken language in
humans.
COMMENT
That would seem to be an unsubstianted claim.
[para 21]
Why would bats have such variable forms of FOXP2 when it is normally so unwavering in
other species?
COMMENT
How does the discovery fit the evolutionary paradigm?
[para 22]
...[O]ther mammals that use echolocation, such as whales and dolphins, do not have
special versions of FOXP2...
COMMENT
It seems to me ecolocation requires a separate evolutionary explanation.
[para 23]
...[T]he discovery that this is an ancient gene that has assumed a variety of roles
does nothing to diminish the importance of its latest incarnation in humans.
COMMENT
The incarnational assertion would also seem to be assumed.
[para 24 and 25]
Since its discovery, no other gene has been convincingly implicated in overt language
disorders....Identifying its targets...indicate[s] just what a massive job lies ahead.
COMMENT
Massive would seem to be another understatement.
[para 26]
...[A] slightly overlapping set of 14 targets...evolved particularly rapidly in humans.
COMMENT
That would seem to be another assertion based on preconception; if evolution is
assumed, then evolution happened.
[para 28]
...FOXP2...has been overly hyped, but its true worth lies in opening a door for more
research...
COMMENT
Additional research probably means more grant money.
[para 29]
...Dan Geschwind...found that the two human-specific amino acids within this executive
protein have radically altered the set of genetic minions that it controls.
COMMENT
What set(s) of genetic minions was controlled before the radical alteration? The
statement seems to be another assertion based on assumption.
[para 30]
The genes that are directed by human FOXP2 are a varied cast of players...All those
roles fit with the idea that our version of FOXP2 has been a lynchpin in evolving the
neural circuits and physical structures that are important for speech and language.
COMMENT
Evolution as an idea would not seem to be based on evidence.
[para 31]
The FOXP2 story is far from complete, and every new discovery raises fresh questions
just as it answers old ones. Already, this gene has already taught us important lessons
about evolution and our place in the natural world.
COMMENT
Sentence one is probably a truism; two would seem to be more assumption.
[para 34]
"We believe there were two things that happened in the evolution of human FOXP2," says
(Svante) Pääbo. "The two amino acid changes - which happened before the Neanderthal-
human split - and some other change which we don't know about that caused the selective
sweep more recently."
COMMENT
Belief is a term of religion; we don't know is probably another truism.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am not going to get into a tedious battle of semantics.
Human ancestors, in common with all species you mentioned have always had the FOXP2 gene. It did not evolve 240,000ya, a very small part of that gene mutated. That mutation did not produce speech, it enabled humans to flexibly manipulate the muscles of the face, mouth and throat, without which we would be unable to produce the precise sounds of speech, evidenced by those families found to lack that mutation, who have great difficulty with speech.
You keep trying to mount an argument against variations producing evolutionary change, presumably to disprove Darwin's theory. You do not have to prove it to me. I agree with you.
In fact, you have just given me another argument, that the type of variation that, by itself, would confer advantage on an individual sufficient to favour them in competitive struggle simply does not exist.
Evolutionary change is much more complex than that. The FOXP2 mutation removed a blocker to speech. It improved communication by enabling more precise sounds (grunts, clicks?) and facial expressions. Many other changes were needed to evolve the chin and shape of tongue and throat that made speech as we know it possible. That series of changes could not have happened by chance, as assumed by Natural Selection. It had to be engineered by external pressures that eliminated individuals lacking better communication ability.
The number of FOXP2 variants among bats is a sign of a lack of pressure on bats for a particular behaviour affected by FOXP2, so any mutations were able to survive. Similarly, a recent report on the high level of divergence among humans in the sense of smell is evidence that smell has not been critical to survival for a long time. That is why dogs whose sense of smell is 1,000 times better, sniff each others poops to learn valuable information, while we wrinkle up our noses and prefer the frivolous activity of smelling the roses.
I repeat, mutations do not create change. They accumulate as genetic diversity that expands possibilities for evolution. What creates the intelligence in the design that IDers attribute to a metaphysical designer, is actually the result of a simple, natural process that adapts species to the prevailing conditions by elimination individuals lacking the capabilities needed for survival in those conditions.
Darwin did not have the data to work out the correct mechanism, Intelligent Designers have the data but misinterpret it, and biologists do not check their assumptions.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy alleged semanticality is not based on any attempt on my part to present argumentation against evolution being caused by variations or any other alleged mechanism. My argument is, was, and will continue to be, evolution has not been demonstrated by any mechanism. My input is not necessary to disprove Darwin’s theory; others have already done a masterful job of it.
You, on the other side, have proposed a series of assertions with not a shred of evidence to support them.
What evidence do you (does anyone else) have that: the FOXP2 mutation removed a blocker to speech or improved communication by enabling more precise sounds (grunts, clicks?) and facial expressions?
How many other changes were needed to evolve the chin and shape of tongue and throat that made speech as we know it possible?
The assertion that external pressures eliminated individuals lacking better communication ability cannot be subjected to empirical investigation because eliminated individuals are, by definition, unavailable for study.
Since evolution (in any meaningful sense of the term) cannot be observed, please provide an example of an accumulation of mutations producing genetic diversity.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWho pressed your reset button? You are back where you started.
Evidence of evolution is in bones excavated over centuries. Georges Cuvier has been described as the greatest scientist of the C18th. He developed the principles of comparative anatomy that paleontologists use today to identify fossils. When he examined layers of fossils being excavated, he confirmed that species in lower layers differed from those in upper layers. Despite this evidence of species change, like you, he attributed the changes to a succession of special creations. Cuvier was one of generations of scientists who ignore their own evidence. Centuries of excavation have revealed the links between existing species and now extinct earlier species.
Evidence also exists in DNA. I pointed to the MYH mutation, without which human ancestors were stuck with large ape teeth, heavy jaws, chewing muscles and thick skull to anchor them. MYH did not evolve the large brain, but without a thinner skull, the large skull and brain were impossible.
The evidence for FOXP2 is in present day individuals who lack the mutation and have difficulty manipulating facial muscles to form language and expressions. Similarly, it did not produced speech, but without it speech was impossible.
My assertion that evolution resulted from elimination of individuals lacking capabilities needed for survival is based on the data. Look at the Penile Spikes article. Chimps have far greater genetic diversity than humans, as well as 2-3 times greater rate of current mutation, yet little evolutionary change, while the massive changes in humans are accompanied not by more variations, as assumed by Darwin, but by greater elimination of genetic diversity by another mechanism, external pressure that eliminated individuals lacking the capabilities needed for survival. That article identified 510 deletions of non-coding sections of DNA claimed to define the distinctive capabilities of humans. That supports my contention that, while mutations add to possibilities, evolution derives from eliminations of some possibilities, evolving the species to the capabilities of survivors.
But Bill, you are not interested in evidence. You sit in front of your computer screen up there near Syracuse and act dumb, denying that the evidence proves anything.
Time for a little intellectual honesty from you. What do you believe?
Given the high level of proof that you demand of others, what evidence supports your beliefs?
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy reset button is nonexistent; my starting point remains fixed until revision is forced by observable, repeatable evidence.
An excavated bone is a fact which requires interpretation. If one approaches a fossil with his/her mind already made up that evolution happened, then that fossil becomes evidence for evolution (but not on my authority):
Paleontologists often claim that fossils tell us something. But fossils, by themselves, tell us nothing; not even that they are fossils....When a paleontologist concludes that he is dealing with a fossil and by implication with an organism, he already knows a great deal about that organism. He knows that the plants and animals which he encountered in the geologic past will have the characteristics required of them by the theory which he has presupposed in order to reach them.
[Prof. David B. Kitts. 1974. PALEONTOLOGY AND EVOLUTIONARY THEORY. EVOLUTION, September, p.458]
Prof. Thompson did not seem to be particularly impressed with comparative anatomy:
What such cases like those of anatomical 'convergence' and general homology actually demonstrate is that there are large numbers of organisms differing considerably in the details of structure but constructed on the same fundamental plan. However, this is no proof of descent from one original ancestor of this anatomical type. This itself requires proof. [1956. Introduction. In: Charles Darwin. Origin of Species. Everyman Library No. 811. London: J. M. Dent and Sons. Reprinted with permission. Evolution Protest Movement. 1967. NEW CHALLENGING ‘INTRODUCTION' TO THE ORIGIN OF SPECIES. Selsey, Sussex: Selsey Press Ltd., pp. 11-12]
If Cuvier did, in fact, attribute the various fossils to successive special creations, then his position was/is not mine.
Re your statement, ...[W]hile mutations add to possibilities, evolution derives from eliminations of some possibilities, evolving the species to the capabilities of survivors.
What possibilities do mutations add to any life form (see Thompson quote)? Which possibilities are eliminated by evolution? Does evolving the species to the capabilities of survivors involve a predetermined plan?
Where is there an example of my intellectual dishonesty? My position was publicly stated: Traditional Roman Catholic, militant young-Earth Biblical creationist and geocentrist,
http://www.minnpost.com/scientificagenda/2010/03/18/16696/understanding_earth%E2%80%99s_geological_age_and_evolution_linked
The evidence that supports my position is the fossil record.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo you do not have a reset button, just a preset button.
Not only do you selectively quote from whatever out of date publications you or other creationists have managed to dredge up, the one you REALLY believe is your 1899 Bible.
Interesting that you question scientific estimates of age of the earth which differ on how many billions of years age, and you prefer the bible that says everything started 6,000 years ago. In reality, that was the time that humans channelled hunter gatherer spirtual beliefs into the first organised religions with specific deities that better suited the new complex, organised societies they were starting to experiment with.
You claim that paleontologists bring their preconceptions to their consideration of fossils, then you trot out this creationist professor who, surprise, surprise, wrote critical comments for the Evolution Protest Movement. BTW, Thompson got it wrong. Evolution is not convergence, it is divergence of form that retains some of its existing features. That is why there are so many similarities of form between humans and apes, because we diverged from a common source well before the date that the bible says all this started.
Thompson's reference to a plan refers to Professor Richard Owen, who worked with Cuvier for a while and picked up the similarities among bone structures in hands, the wings of bats and fins of whales. Owen made up the word homology to describe it, but instead of using it as evidence of branching evolution, he called it the archetype, the plan used over and over by the creator. After Darwin published Origin, he made out that he had worked out another rather strange method of evolution before Darwin, so he wanted it both ways.
When you say that your evidence is the fossil record, you mean that the existence of a succession of skeletons showing signs of human evolution from earlier forms is actually evidence of a creator who kept coming back and building a new model because she was not happy with the previous one. Did she do trade ins?
Anyway Bill, you did make me look hard and work out a number of issues I had not previously thought of. A pity you are so preset. If you read my book Connecting the Dots, I explain how humans in the modern world use a mechanism that evolved to pass on hunter gatherer practices from generation to generation to perpetuate belief systems. It is in Ch. 6 - Ideology.
www.ideasintuitionandthinking.com
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt would seem we share at least one trait: a preset button.
Had you read my comment at Minn. Post with even a modicum of attention, you would have noticed that my Biblical reference comprises approximately 5% of the total content; the remainder is from the scientific literature. Had you read my last comment on this web page with even a modicum of attention, you would have noticed that my claim concerning paleontological preconceptions was really the claim of a professor of geology. Had you read another of my comments on this web page with even a modicum of attention you would have known that Prof. Thompson was not a creationist; he wrote the Introduction to one of the 1956 editions of "...Origin of Species..." Creationist input was to obtain permission from the publisher to reprint the intro in booklet form.
My evidence from the fossil record is the same evidence available to evolutionists. There is, after all, only one fossil record in existence. The fossil record requires interpretation. My Creator only created once.
Thank you for giving me credit for motivating you to take a second look at some issues.
Perhaps a review would be helpful. You sloughed off my assessment of one of your favorite mutations. You sloughed off my challenges to some of your assertions. You also sloughed off my so-called selective quotes from allegedly outdated scientific literature. Is there a remote possibility of room in your agenda to rectify that situation (i.e., to make a reasoned response to some of my challenges)? Is it reasonable for me to ask you for a capsule summary of ch. 6?
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou can find summaries of all chapters on my website.
www.ideasintuitionandthinking.com
But a word of warning. This could be dangerous to a young Creationist. Even you might recognise the truth about evolution of humans over 6 million years and development of complex societies over the last 6,000 years.
Bacteria never evolves. It has never become multi cellular. It has never done anything more than eat carbon based food and produce enzymes. It has never developed any new functions.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIT adapts by mutations but it also dies by mutations. Single cell creatures either die or adapt.
Multi cellular creatures only lose functions when mutations destroy the cell replication, or reduces the effectiveness of the cells function (diseases).
There is only de-evolution in multi cellular creatures this is shown in absolutely irrefutable physical evidence in DNA.
There is no such thing as evolution.
This NEVER happens:
Evolution: "that theory which sees in the history of all things organic and inorganic a development from simplicity to complexity, a gradual advance from a simple or rudimentary condition to one that is more complex and of a higher character." Webster's Encyclopedic Dictionary of the English Language.
BadScienceForYou,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat gives with creationists? You are responding to comment number 10, 3 weeks ago.
Is it that you have difficulty with anything over 10, or is that, when your arguments are going nowhere, you revert to page 1.
I know it is pointless suggesting that you read comments over the last 3 weeks, but if you did, you might find that mutation is actually one of the main processes that creates possibilities for evolutionary change by increasing genetic diversity.
Evolution then happens when survival pressure comes onto the species that eliminates all individuals unable to survive, their elimination evolves the species towards the survivors and adapts the species to the external conditions.
So you are correct, the core of evolution is adaptation.
When there is a change in conditions, if all individuals in a species are able to survive, there is no change in the species. If no individuals are able to survive, the species becomes extinct. What happens between those two extremes is evolution.
Single cell organisms increase population by the cell splitting into two. Some time within the last billion years, instead of increasing population, that process of cell division increased the size of the organism's body. It took about 4 billion years for the first multi cell organisms to evolve, but over the next few hundred million years, the rest has been, as they say, evolutionary history.
So, if you can hang around in a lab for a few billion years you will probably find a microbe that mutates to a multi cell organism. But why bother? It has already happened.
hoamingin (comment 77),
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf your chapter summaries are only dangerous to a young creationist, it should pose no threat for me. Regarding the alleged truth of human evolution, it could only be potentially true if evolution happened. Since Prof. Thompson (not a creationist) was unconvinced that evolution has happened, it's highly unlikely my position will differ from his. Do you not find interesting the development of complex societies over the last 6000 years (Where have we encountered that number before?) following 6 million years of alleged human evolution? That would seem to indicate a meteoric development (so much for gradualism). In fact, if the information available to me is correct, the history of the Earth, in evolutionary terms, demonstrates the existence of nothing more than single-celled organisms for several billion years, then the Ediacaran/Cambrian enigmas. Alleged human evolution only occupies a minute fraction of that history. Does it not seem odd that the simplest organisms took the vast majority of available time to develop while the most complex would seem to have burst into existence?
Please allow me to repeat a request: Is there a remote possibility of room in your agenda to rectify that situation (i.e., to make a reasoned response to some of my challenges)?
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am having difficulty reconciling the revelation that you are a young creationist with my former image of you as an older person whose inability to integrate facts to modify existing beliefs came from age related inflexibility. It was because of that impression that I previously tried to simplify ideas and use small words that even this old guy could understand. Now we know that the lack of plasticity in your brain is not related to age, but to what Goethe was referring to when he wrote that nothing is worse than active ignorance.
You keep referring to the Introduction written by this guy Thompson, so I found a copy on the internet and read it. You say he is not a creationist, yet the Addendum states that, in addition to the Introduction, "An incisive critique of Teilhard by Dr. Thompson is also in print, carefully pointing up that the present crisis in Faith in the Catholic Church (indeed, in all of Christianity) is directly attributable to Science".
Thompson does not clearly state his beliefs (after all, he earned his living as a scientist), but instead sniped around the edges. He lets his beliefs show with his reference to a plan, which as I previously mentioned, relates back to Richard Owen, about whom the comment was made "his God was a traditional British craftsman working to a blueprint". Thompson let his own views slip out with his comment that "The Origin effectively dissipated the evidence of providential control". So Thompson believed that evolution was externally directed.
Thompson's sniping was misguided. He tried to argue that mutations do not happen, then commented that "mutations are not adaptive. ....... In general, they are useless, detrimental, or lethal". Which simply says that mutations do happen, after all. Noone claims that mutations have to be beneficial, some are, some aren't.
If you were paying attention to previous posts, you will understand that I agree that Darwin's explanation of the evolutionary mechanism was wrong. Specifically, Natural Selection is based on rejection of the effect of external conditions, the only factor capable of adapting species to the conditions they have to survive in.
Darwin's explanation that variations gave individuals superior internal qualities that favoured them in a struggle for existence in specific conditions without the conditions having any effect relied on magic, just like the creationist explanation. The only thing intelligent about ID is they way its proponents have exploited this logical weakness in natural selection.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou might wish to consider the simple idea that more than one Thompson exists/has existed on Earth. Prof. Thompson was not a creationist. The publishers of "Origin" would not have allowed the Introduction to be written by a creationist. Please provide me the internet url for the Thompson you located. My own internet search a number of years ago, provided the information (as well as memory serves) that Thompson, a Canadian, was director of one of the biological institutes there.
You may simplify whatever you will for this aged creationist, but please provide some reasoned response to my challenges lodged against your evolutionist position.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe publishers were not under any copyright constraints. They would have found it difficult to change Darwin's text, but a controversial introduction was one way of adding some interest to their reprint. They knew that Thompson would write a critical introduction and Thompson acknowledged that many biologists would find it heretical. If you are going to quote a text, you should go back to the original and not quote out of context.
This is where I found an extract from the reprint:
http://www.pejeonline.org/files/peje/imce-shared/origins-thompson.pdf
I agree with many of Thompson's points. I agree that Natural Selection is wrong. I disagree with his silly claim that variations that are able to be inherited cannot be favourable, they can only be useless or detrimental. No-one can tell whether a variation is good, bad or indifferent, until it is exposed to the conditions in which it has to exist. When there is a change in conditions, variations that were previously useless can become critical for survival. In other words, variations do not have an innate quality, as assumed by Darwin. Their qualities are dependent on external conditions. Conditions change over time, so do the values of variations. So Thompson was also wrong.
The Addendum to the above copy of the introduction tells us that, at the time he was writing the introduction, Thompson was also writing a critique of works by the evolutionist French Jesuit, Pere Teilhard de Chardin. His works were banned by the Church, but apparently that was not enough, his ideas had to be discredited.
Lodge all the challenges you want against evolution. It has still been happening for millions of years and will still keep happening, whether you challenge it or not.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for the url. The online version, as noted, has been scanned from the original booklet, a copy of which has been in my collection for over 20 years. You should have noticed there is no claim that Thompson was a creationist. You may infer such, but it cannot be verified in the text.
Your final sentence is merely another assertion. Since you admit agreement with many of Thompson's points, that implies disagreement with others. Please point our specifically where Thompson was wrong.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThompson earned his living as a professional biologist. There was no way that he was going to walk around with a Creationist sign around his neck. There is also no way that creationists would declare Thompson a Creationist. They wanted him to appear to be an unbiased scientist so they could claim some degree of "scientific validity" for their beliefs.
What is the evidence that Thompson was a Creationist? Look at his language. He wrote "What such cases like those of anatomical ‘convergence’ and general homology actually demonstrate is that there are large numbers of organisms, differing considerably in the details of structure but constructed on the same fundamental plan. However, this is no proof of descent from one original
ancestor of this anatomical type. This itself requires proof". If, as Thompson claimed, evidence of divergence (not convergence) cannot be used as evidence of common descent, the other option is that it is a common plan repeated in many species by a Creator.
Thompson was regurgitating the argument of Richard Owen, the creationist who invented the term homology to describe the similarities of "the plan" used by the Creator in the production of many different species. Thompson even refers to Archaeopteryx, the fossil that Owen claimed was the first bird, not a link to other earlier species. Huxley later used it as evidence that birds evolved from dinosaurs, so its bony tail was a remnant of dinosaur origins that have since disappeared from present day birds.
Thompson wrote: "there are, in the opinion of respectable philosophers,abrupt transitions corresponding to an ascent in the scale of being, and they hold that the agencies of the material world cannot produce transitions of this kind". Having sniped around Darwin's explanation, Thompson argued that there were no "agencies of the material world" capable of producing the transitions, so he reverted to the "scale of being", the ladder of life that the Church adopted from Aristotle 2,500 years ago as its official explanation of how the present world came to be. So Thompson was simply running the orthodox line of the Church, as you, the self proclaimed Catholic Creationist, are doing.
Thompson argued against Darwinism and for "the intricate adaptations and co-ordinations we see in living things, naturally evoking the idea of finality and design and, therefore, of an intelligent providence". That is Intelligent Design's argument. In future, quote a scientist who was not blinded by religious belief.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOk, let me give that one away; Prof. Thompson was a creationist (but, only by giving it away). Try this one:
As a paleontologist and evolutionary biologist, my trade is the reconstruction of history....Scientists who study history, particularly an ancient and unobservable history not recorded in human or geological chronicles, must use the inferential rather than experimental methods.
[Prof. Stephen Jay Gould. 1978. Senseless signs of history. NATURAL HISTORY, October, p. 22]
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo?
Not sure what your point is. All that Gould was saying was that we have to work from what evidence we have. But we have uncovered a lot more evidence since Gould wrote that, and we will keep finding more.
The problem is that you look at the evidence and reject the bits that do not fit your explanation and biologists look at the evidence and apply assumptions that do not make sense to produce an explanation that a majority of people think is even less credible than yours.
As a Creationist you should thank God every night that She gave biologists the same brain that she gave to you. The explanations that both groups come up with rely on magic, but more people think your magic is more credible than socalled "scientific" magic, Natural Selection.
If biologists ever get rid of the magic in their explanation and change all their rules, Creationism will not have a feather to fly with.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're not alone here; it's also unclear to me what point you attempted to make.
Here's another:
When I studied evolutionary biology in graduate school during the mid 1960's, official rebuke and derision focused upon a geneticist named Richard Goldschmidt....I...predict that during the next decade Goldschmidt will be largely vindicated in the world of evolutionary biology.
[Stephen Jay Gould. 1977. The Return of Hopeful Monsters. NATURAL HISTORY, June/July, p. 22]
Incidentally, a few comments ago you accused me of quoting out of context. Please let me know specifically what constituted my alleged contextual misquoting.
The invalidity of ID is no more immeasurable than other theories of the origin of the Universe. To say that Creationism is unscientific is to say that the Big Bang is unscientific. Why so? Both are basically nothing more than speculation. When one observes that everything in the Universe has a cause, one event being the effect of another event, it is not a far-fetched conclusion that the Universe itself had a cause that is transcendant to the Universe. Beyond this conclusion, whether that cause be a transcendant intelligent being or something else, all is speculation and the realm of philosophy.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is nothing scientific about "origin-of-life" science. When we ponder the origins of life and the Universe, we breach the line between science and philosophy and stand solely in the realm of philosophy.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI repeat - I agree with you that Darwin's explanation was wrong. Huxley thought so, many other people have thought so, and Goldschmidt was just one of them. I happen to disagree with Goldschmidt. In his attempt to explain apparent emergence of sudden changes in a species, Goldschmidt made the same mistake as Darwin, attributing the cause of the change to internal characteristics of individuals.
I do not understand why you suddenly trot out Goldschmidt. A little while ago you were claiming that there are no mutations that can change species, now you are supporting Goldschmidt, who claimed that change in species resulted from sudden, large mutations.
The standard explanations of biology are based on Darwin, that beneficial variations emerge that enable some individuals to outcompete others. If that were true, change would be continuous, resulting directly from emergence of variations. Genetics has shown that it is not the emergence of variations that produces change, as Darwin, Goldschmidt and the standard explanations of biology assume.
What genetics has shown us is that variations already exist within the species as genetic diversity. What makes some of those variations stand out is the elimination of other variations as a result of another mechanism, pressure from a change in external conditions.
If biologists get to do what genuine scientists are supposed to do and check their assumptions against the available evidence, they will realise that the evidence of genetics disproves their assumptions.
In the meantime, biologists cling to what I call cultural (certainly not scientific) beliefs and claims by Creationists are made to look credible by comparison.
Brench,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhat happened? Just when it looked like everyone was about argued out, you crop up with a nonsense non-sequitur.
Are you a reinforcement called up from the Intelligent Design Brigade?
I agree with you that Creationism is based on speculation and perpetuated by belief and hope. There are theories about the Big Bang that I do not pretend to understand, but what I do accept as fact is that anything that exists exists because it was within the range of possible outcomes.
As for life on Earth, it is the result of unbelievably long sequences of molecules strung together in specific order which interact with other long, specific strings of molecules to produce organisms with bodies that actually do something. Billions of years of cranking through possible combinations resulted in what we see around us.
Compared to life on Earth, or even Earth itself, and this solar system, the universe is so immense that, if there is a Big Momma out there, she would not even be aware of our existence. If she knew of our existence, she would probably reach for a can of inter-galactic disinfectant to eradicate us.
We exist because we were within the range of possible outcomes and this is how things played out.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: comment 90
It was Gould who trotted out Goldschmidt. my only action was to quote Gould. Goldschmidt's hopeful monster mechanism (systemic mutation) does not have my support. You balked at my Thompson quotes and insisted: In future, quote a scientist who was not blinded by religious belief (comment 85). Yet, even Gould could not qualify as free of religious belief; acceptance of Goldschmidt's proposal is based on faith.
Have you shared your analysis of biological nescience with Prof.s Kenneth Miller or Francisco Ayala?
Re: comment 91
Your assertion that the Creation model is based on speculation would seem to be a charge that looks back as Gould also charged:
"Scientific creationism" is a self-contradictory, nonsense phrase precisely because it cannot be falsified. I can envision observations and experiments that would disprove any evolutionary theory I know, but I cannot imagine what potential data could lead creationists to abandon their beliefs. Unbeatable systems are dogma, not science.
[Stephen Jay Gould. 1981. Evolution as Fact and Theory. DISCOVER, May, p. 35]
Gould was able to envision evolutionary falsifiability, but provided no example. He was also wrong about the Creation model being unfalsifiable; transitional forms would provide such falsification. Anyone tempted to claim the existence of transitional forms will be confronted with a trio of Gouldian statements, the second and third of which would seem to be contradictory:
The extreme rarity of transitional forms in the fossil record persists as the trade secret of paleontology.
[Stephen Jay Gould. 1977. Evolution's Erratic Pace. NATURAL HISTORY, May, p. 14]
All paleontologists know that the fossil record contains precious little in the way of intermediate forms; transitions between major groups are characteristically abrupt.
[Stephen Jay Gould. 1977. The Return of Hopeful Monsters. NATURAL HISTORY, June/July, p. 24]
Transitional forms are generally lacking at the species level, but are abundant between larger groups.
[Stephen Jay Gould. 1981. Evolution as Fact and Theory. DISCOVER, May, p. 37]
Further complicating the transitional assertion is that of land mammals to sea-dwelling mammals. What selection pressure was responsible for that, biological restlessness?
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI do not know what Gould's religious beliefs were (or not). I do know that he was an objector to the standard Darwinian explanation that evolution was the result of variations favouring individuals in competition, committing evolution to small, incremental changes.
I agree with Gould on that, but I cannot understand how he missed what seems so obvious to me, that there are two processes going on, gradual accumulation of random genetic variations, with occasional periods when a change in the conditions to which the species had been adapted applies survival pressure to the species.
If there are no individuals in the species able to survive the change, the species becomes extinct. If some individuals are able to survive, the species evolves towards them. That seems to me to be a simple and logical explanation.
I quote below a piece about Gould from my book Connecting the Dots: "In a paper that he delivered at a Dahlem Conference on Evolution and Development in 1981, Gould came close, but even he missed the target. When describing developments that resulted in a major change in an organism, Gould said:
… while selection must fix it [the major change] by eliminating other variants in the population, its discontinuous origin relegates selection to a negative role (eliminating the unfit) and assigns the major creative aspect of evolution to variation itself. This subject, therefore, poses the greatest challenge (among the themes of our conference) to a strict Darwinism that views all evolutionary change as a product of natural selection working upon small, random variants".
Gould described Natural Deselection, then ducked away from it.
The idea promulgated by Gould and Eldredge of Punctuated Equilibrium was not an explanation of the evolutionary mechanism, it was a description of the evidence they saw in fossil records of periods of stability followed by periods of rapid change. That is consistent with external conditions having little or no effect on a species until there is a major change in conditions that creates rapid change by working immediately on the diversity that already exists within the species, finding some able to survive in the new conditions and eliminating the rest.
What Gould displayed was the innate predisposition of the human brain to build arguments from the positive and reject arguments from the negative. See Part 2 of my blogs on the errors in Darwin's explanation.
http://ideasintuitionandthinking.com/blog
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOn the question of transition of mammals from land to sea, what initiates pressure for evolutionary change is the behaviour of individuals. I again include a cut from my book: "The shapes of ankle bones in fossils up to 50 million years old indicate that whales and dolphins evolved from land-based mammals that returned to the water. Their land-based relatives include the pig, hippopotamus, camel, giraffe, deer, cow, goat and sheep". A reference is "J Thewissen, E Williams, L Roe and S Hussain, ‘Skeletons of terrestrial cetaceans and the relationship of whales to artiodactyls’, Nature, vol. 413, 2001, pp. 277–281".
There would have been no pressure to evolve speech without some humans actively working out ways to improve communication, probably to improve co-ordination of their activities. Pressure for speech may have started with physical signalling and sounds such as clicks, leading to pressure for more precise vocalisation.
When behaviours become critical for survival in a particular lifestyle, pressure from external conditions provides direction, evolving physical characteristics that support behaviours that become essential for survival by eliminating individuals who lack the necessary capabilities.
Humans provide a great example that sometimes capabilities evolve that are not used by the species. The human brain evolved to learn and pass on practices that made humans expert hunter gatherers. It was not until a change of lifestyle to herder farmers was forced on humans by a sudden drop into the Younger Dryas mini Ice Age 11,000ya that humans began to use conscious processes of the brain. Humans then used the same brain that had produced almost no innovations for millions of years in different ways to produce the innovations that led to modern complex societies over the last 10,000 years.
So some early mammals developed behaviours that involved swimming in the ocean, an analogy for which is the hippo which spends so much time under water in rivers. Over tens of millions of years those mammals have evolved into whales and dolphins, some of the most intelligent species on the planet.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou're still making evolutionary assertions bereft of evidence. What is your explanation for the lack of transitional fossils? Why would a capability evolve that would not be used? Is that some form of preadaptation; a plan for the future?
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a bit rich, you claiming that I make assertions bereft of evidence, when you insinuate (assert without actually saying) that species change is the result of design by an unseen external entity. I look at the evidence and interpret it in ways that make sense of the data.
I agree that, as an explanation of how species have evolved complex organs such as eyes and have become closely adapted to the conditions, Natural Selection does not make sense. Natural Selection's explanation that change was the result of competition in which the fittest were favoured was based on Darwin's rejection of the effect of external conditions. What did not make sense was that the evidence of fitness was survival. So what enabled some individuals to survive while others failed to survive? The obvious answer is the effect of external conditions, the very factor that Darwin rejected to work out Natural Selection, which was the result of circuitous intellectual nonsense.
What makes even less sense is that most biologists today believe that external conditions are a (if not the) major drivers of change, yet they still cling to assumptions that are based on external conditions having no effect.
I describe that as biologists trying to be half pregnant. If evolution is the result of external pressures, they have to ditch assumptions based on them having no effect.
The only explanation that is totally consistent with the evidence is that all evolutionary change has been driven by pressure from a change in the conditions to which species had previously been adapted. The variations that distinguish the evolved species must exist within the species as genetic diversity. What makes them prominent, distinctive features of the evolved species is the elimination of other variations after the change in conditions make the improved capabilities essential for survival.
Limited records of transitional fossils are consistent with changes in external conditions that bring a species to a critical point beyond which major change is inevitable and rapid. A percentage of the species already has the new features, which become prominent features of the species as others are eliminated. Breeding among individuals with those characteristics and continuing external pressure further refine those features. It means that capabilities must always evolve and be unused, until a change in external pressures make those capabilities essential for survival.
It is external pressure that designs species intelligently for the conditions in which they have to survive.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPlease identify external pressure and explain how the alleged phenomenon causes one species to transmutate into another species (a term not as yet defined in the field of biology).
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHas anyone mentioned transmutation in the last century and a half? Oh, I forgot!! Supporters of Intelligent Design believe in transmutation, the term used to describe alchemy, the conversion of lead into gold by a magical, unexplained process.
Darwin's big error was that he believed that individuals possessed personal qualities that, in themselves, favoured those individuals in struggle in specific conditions, without the conditions having any direct effect.
Do not make the same mistake in relation to external conditions. The Silver Ant is precisely adapted to conditions in the Sahara Desert. The Emperor Penguin is specifically adapted to conditions in Antarctica. Both regions have extreme climates that have evolved species surviving there to have physical characteristics and behaviours that work in those conditions. Each species is able to survive in its conditions, but would be under extreme pressure in the other's environment.
Pressure comes from a gap between the capabilities of individuals in a species and the capabilities needed for survival in the conditions. Existing species are adapted to the conditions in which they evolved. They will only come under pressure when there is a large change in those conditions.
To understand the concept of a new species evolving from the genetic diversity within an existing species, go to the supermarket and buy a pack of mixed nuts that contains some almonds. Almonds are part of the diversity of the pack. Now eat all the nuts EXCEPT the almonds. You have just evolved a pack of almonds out of the pre-existing diversity of the mixed nuts.
That is how evolution works except, instead of you being the predator that evolved the almond pack, changes in external conditions eliminate individuals unable to survive, leaving only those who were able to survive.
Darwin focused on the survivors, when what created the new species and made the species so closely adapted to the conditions was the elimination of individuals unable to adapt.
Proponents of Intelligent Design think that evolution of physical attributes and behaviours that are so well designed for their purpose must be designed by someone, when in fact, they have been designed by a simple natural process, the elimination of individuals whose characteristics do not work.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIs there not a current claim that birds evolved from dinosaurs? If that's not transmutation, please accept my apology and tell me how the alleged phenomenon should be described. Your description of how evolution works seems nuts to me.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI know it sounds nuts, but that is how evolution works.
Darwin thought that evolution must result from emergence of improved qualities. What determines whether variations are improvements is how they improve the individual's chances of survival and procreation in the prevailing conditions. Darwin rejected the effect of external conditions, believing that some variations are innately superior, independent of external conditions.
Darwin was wrong. Like Creationism and Intelligent Design, Natural Selection relies on magic - the magical ability of internal qualities to favour individuals in specific conditions without the conditions having any effect.
My explanation is the only one that makes sense of the data without relying on magic. Variations that increase genetic diversity are a precondition for evolutionary change, but unless individuals lacking certain capabilities are at survival risk, there is no change.
In any given set of conditions, a range of behaviours will work to ensure survival. When conditions change, some behaviours that worked in the previous conditions no longer work in the new conditions. Individuals with workable behaviours survive, but they already existed in the species, so their survival is not what changes the species. What changes the species is the elimination of individuals no longer able to survive.
So grab yourself a handful of almonds and a handful of other nuts and mix them up. Then pick out the other nuts and eat them. Notice that as you eat the other nuts, step by step you reduce the diversity and evolve a collection of almonds.
BTW. It has long been recognised that birds evolved from dinosaurs. The Archaeopteryx, the winged fossil that Richard Owen used as as example of the plan that the Creator used over and over again in different species, still had a bony tail like a lizard. All that dead weight must have been a disadvantage. Birds evolved much lighter skeletons and lost the useless bony tail, replacing it with a fan of feathers.
Recent fossil discoveries suggest that feathers evolved as insulation against the cold and later became useful for flight, another example of a physical feature that evolved for one reason and became useful for another purpose.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: My explanation is the only one that makes sense of the data without relying on magic.
That is incorrect. Any system whose adherents claim a land mammal evolved into a sea-dwelling mammal (following the alleged reverse transition) is relying on magic or, a series of miraculous events. In the context of the Creation/evolutionism debate, Dr. David Berlinski posed the challenge to Dr. Eugenie C. Scott and Prof. Kenneth R. Miller to provide an estimate of the number of morphological/physiological changes necessary to allow a dog-like mammal to evolve into a sea-going whale. Scott refused an answer. Miller agreed to propose a number but would only state that 100,000 is far too many.
[1997. RESOLVED: THE EVOLUTIONISTS SHOULD ACKNOWLEDGE CREATION, December 4. A FIRING LINE DEBATE. Columbia, SC: Producers Incorporated for Television, Transcript, pp. 42, 43, 47 (modified transcript: http://www.bringyou.to/apologetics/p45.htm]
The alleged transition(s) from reptiles to birds is no less miraculous. How many morphological changes were necessary for that one?
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with you that the number of genetic variations required to produce a major change in the body shape and behaviours of a species is evidence that Darwin's explanation of species change was wrong.
Darwin assumed that a random variation could improve an individual's capabilities. Genetics tells us that this is extremely unlikely. As you point out, significant change takes many minor variations in DNA.
Most human genes are the same as genes that code for specific proteins in much simpler organisms such as the fruit fly and sea slugs. It is now recognised that the sequences in which proteins are assembled are critical in production of a widely divergent range of species from a relatively small number of proteins.
So I agree with you that genetics presents evidence that the assumptions that led Darwin to Natural Selection were wrong and that the assumptions of the biological sciences that are based on Natural Selection are also wrong.
However, rejection of Natural Selection is not proof that species were created. As I have shown previously, Natural Selection is based on magic, just like Creationism. It was based on Darwin's belief that some characteristics are innately superior, independent of external conditions. This attributes to those characteristics a magical ability to confer benefit without any logical basis.
What I say is that there is another explanation that does not rely on magic.
If biologists believe that external conditions have direct effect on evolutionary change, they must ditch Natural Selection. Instead, biologists cling tenaciously to Natural Selection, requiring them to maintain beliefs that make them half pregnant. Most accept that external conditions have major effect, but persist with rules and assumptions built on Natural Selection, which is based on Darwin's decision that external conditions had no direct effect.
If a change of behaviours, such as starting to fly, returning to the water or standing upright enables a species to survive in a new lifestyle, a simple, natural process works out variations that support those behaviours. That process cannot create variations, it can only work with what exists, or what emerges over time within the genetic diversity of the species. That is not a process of selection, it is a process of deselecting variations that fail to provide behaviours that have become critical for survival in the prevailing external conditions.
No need for magic, whether it is Darwinian or Creationist.
hoaminging,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: Natural Selection is based on magic, just like Creationism.
That is also incorrect. The Creation model is based on what can be observed. Evolution cannot be observed. Paper after paper in the peer reviewed scientific literature contains evolutionary claims based on laboratory experimentation on Drosophila. The
starting material in each experiment is Drosophila; the ending material in each experiment is Drosophila. Where is the evoluton? The answer: There is no evoluton. Nor is there any evolution from an amphibian to a land mammal or the reverse (alleged) transition.
Your final paragraph contains a phrase that sums up the situation most aptly: "That process cannot create variations, it can only work with what exists..."
Working with what already exists will not affect
evolution in any meaningful sense of the term.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisCreationists commit the same error that Darwin made. You see evidence of change and use that as evidence of the process of change that you have already decided on.
At least Darwin developed an explanation that Thomas Huxley, after his first reading of Origin, recognised as logical and scientific. Huxley also recognised Darwin's fundamental error, the exclusion of the effect of external conditions.
Darwin's explanation of evolutionary change relied on some individuals having personal qualities with a magical ability to favour them in specific conditions, without the conditions having direct effect.
Your explanation relies on an invisible third party creating individuals whose internal systems, down to genes that code for specific proteins and non coding sections of their DNA that determine the sequences in which those proteins are assembled are precisely engineered to produce physical shapes and behaviours that suit the external conditions that exist at that time. Your Creator also changes all those internal settings when external conditions change. Fossil evidence tells us that most of the time She gets it wrong, because 99% of species that have ever lived became extinct. But we have to hand it to Her, She is persistent, creating species that take advantage of just about every resource on the planet.
Apparently, your Creator is never completely happy with Her creations. She is continually creating mutations that increase the diversity in all species, so that She has more options to work with when the next change in external conditions happens.
I accept that you believe in this fairyland explanation. That belief exists in your brain and the brains of billions of other humans. That does not make those beliefs true, it is just more evidence that the human brain did not evolve over millions of years to use logic. To find out what the human brain evolved to do, see A Brief History of Your Brain on:
www.ideasintuitionandthinking.com
Your brain clings tenaciously to beliefs that are unsupported by fact or scientific evidence because it evolved over millions of years to believe and trust explanations that seem plausible to it.
Biologists use the same brain to cling tenaciously to Natural Selection, even though it was based on exclusion of external conditions that they disagree with, and even though it is contradicted by their own science of genetics.
You and biologists provide evidence that the brain innately accepts magic as plausible.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: Creationists commit the same error that Darwin made. You see evidence of change and use that as evidence of the process of change that you have already decided on.
Please explain my predetermined process of change to me. My brain has apparently not "evolved" fully enough for me to understand my own position.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt seems that "confusion" is the best way to describe your position. You have already declared (post 74) that you are "Traditional Roman Catholic, militant young-Earth Biblical creationist and geocentrist".
I have to admit, that combination of beliefs is enough to create confusion in anybody's brain, particularly when none of the available evidence supports creation or geocentrism.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou have provided nothing in support of evolution beyond assertions. That would seem to indicate your position is based on belief; a quasi-faith, if you will. My challenges to your beliefs, on the other side, have been based on multiple quotes from the scientific literature.
You are well aware of my presentation of evidence from the scientific literature to debunk vast ages of time; the Minn. Post website.
As for the geocentric model of cosmology, the evidence is manifest:
A geocentrist and a heliocentrist can stand side by side in an open field facing east at dawn and observe the sun rise above the horizon. They can return to that same open field, face west at dusk and observe the sun set below the horizon. The geocentrist will accept what has been observed as confirmation of the geocentric model. The heliocentrist, on the other hand, based entirely on a belief system, will deny the
reality of what has been observed and will further believe precisely the opposite of what has been observed is what actually happened. That, in my view, is beyond confusion; it is, rather, self-delusion.
If you would care to share with me the evidence for either evolutionism or heliocentrism, by all means, do so.
Bill,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThank you for your honesty in describing the simple minded beliefs of creationism and geocentrism.
When you stand in a field and see the sun come up one end and go down at the other, it looks like the sun is moving and it does not feel like the earth is moving, so the sun must move around earth.
What you just described is the ancient mechanism of the brain "it looks like X, so it is X" by which the human brain operated until humans began to apply logic and rational analysis to develop scientific explanations of their observations of events. Until recent centuries, there were no scientific facts from which the human brain could operate. The human brain evolved over millions of years to operate from beliefs that looked plausible, but were not based on scientific evidence. The brain evolved to trust its beliefs implicitly.
At least you, as a declared creationist and geocentrist, have an excuse for ignoring scientific evidence and relying on your beliefs. That is what your brain evolved over millions of years among hominid and early human hunter gatherers in Africa to do.
Biologists do not have the same excuse. They are supposed to be scientists. They are supposed to test their hypotheses, but they made their hypothesis, Natural Selection, the Law on which they have based their rules and assumptions.
Biologists have failed to separate the phenomenon, evolution, from the explanation of the mechanism by which the phenomenon happens. They seem to believe that accepting the fact of evolution means that they must also accept Darwin's explanation of how evolution happens.
Biologists fail to recognise that, to arrive at his explanation, Darwin decided that external conditions had no direct effect. Although most biologists would now reverse that decision, they continue to cling to an explanation that was based on rejection of what they now believe to be true.
Biologists fail to recognise that their own science of genetics reverses most of the assumptions that led Darwin to Natural Selection, or that flowed from it.
So Bill, given that so-called scientists cling to long held beliefs that ignore the evidence, we must forgive you for doing the same.
hoamingin,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: ‘What you just described is the ancient mechanism of the brain "it looks like X, so it is X"…’
That's what's known as accepting the evidence of observation as opposed to denying the evidence based on a false faith system.
Simple minded as my beliefs concerning the Creation model and the geocentric model may be, they're based on observable evidence; not so your own.
Thank you for your forgiveness.
so, what specifically have you observed that leads you to believe in God? What hypothesis or hypotheses have you formed? What falsifiable experiments have been designed and conducted to test these hypotheses? What were the results? Have they been repeated (please cite sources)?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI'm fine with people believing though I find most people that do to be little different than their ancient pagan ancestors in their belief. Rather than ripping on evolution and natural selection it would be interesting to see some scientific method involved on the part of the creationist/ID camp rather than sophhistry.