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Jul 6, 2010 05:00 PM | 107
Last year, on the 150th anniversary of the publication of Origin of Species, Darwin's stock soared higher than Apple's. It's 2010—time for a market adjustment.
The philosopher Daniel Dennett once called the theory of evolution by natural selection "the single best idea anyone has ever had." I'm inclined to agree. But Darwinism sticks in the craw of some really smart people. I don't mean intelligent-designers (aka IDiots) and other religious ignorami but knowledgeable scientists and scholars.
Take, for example, the philosopher Jerry Fodor of Rutgers University and the cognitive scientist Massimo Piattelli-Palmarini of the University of Arizona in Tucson. In What Darwin Got Wrong (Farrar, Straus and Giroux, 2010), these self-described atheists argue that the theory of natural selection is "fatally flawed." Their book, which I reviewed for The Philadelphia Inquirer, is, well, fatally flawed. For example, they air familiar debates over how large a role contingency plays in evolution; whether natural selection operates primarily at the level of genes; why certain clusters of genes persist unchanged for eons. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini wrap up the discussion of each debate with the same kicker: natural selection must be wrong.
But saying debates over contingency, levels of selection and gene conservation disprove evolutionary theory is like saying debates over the formation of Saturn's rings disprove heliocentrism. If you're going to shoot the king, the old saying goes, you had better kill him. Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini don't even wound Darwin. What Darwin Got Wrong nonetheless serves as a useful reminder of more coherent complaints about natural selection.
I lump Darwin's secular critics into two camps: Some, such as the left-leaning biologists Stephen Jay Gould and Richard Lewontin (who are cited by Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini), fear the political implications of Darwinian theory. If we accept evolutionary explanations of human nature, they suggest, we may come to believe that many insidious modern "-isms"—unbridled capitalism, racism, sexism and militarism—were highly probable outcomes of evolution and thus not easily subject to change. Given how genetic theories have been employed in the past, these concerns have merit.
Other critics object to Darwinism for precisely the opposite reason. They fear that evolutionary theory, even when buttressed by modern genetics and molecular biology, does not make reality probable enough. Reality seems too precarious, too much a product of blind luck. No one has worked harder to solve the improbability problem than the biologist Richard Dawkins. Ironically, Dawkins has also revealed how deep and possibly intractable the problem is.
In Climbing Mount Improbable (W. W. Norton, 1997) Dawkins emphasizes that the vast majority of variants of a given species fail to propagate; there are many more ways to be a loser in the game of life than to be a success. Surely that is true of life as a whole. Of all the imaginable possible histories of life, what is the likelihood that it would persist for billions of years, long enough to produce toads, baboons and Glenn Beck?
Dawkins also notes that "nature, unlike humans with brains, has no foresight." Each individual organism pursues its short-term interests regardless of the long-term consequences for life as a whole or even for other members of the species. Given this fact, it is all too easy to imagine scenarios in which one species—a bacterium or virus, perhaps—runs amok and destroys all life on Earth.
If our past was improbable, our future might be as well. Recognizing this implication of evolutionary theory, some scientists have proposed alternative mechanisms to make life more robust. For example, biochemists such as Ilya Prigogine and Stuart Kauffman (cited by Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini) have postulated "self-organization" forces that made the origin of life and its subsequent history highly probable.
Other theorists have proposed that natural selection may favor not just genes or individuals but populations, species, even entire ecosystems. The most extreme version of this group-selection concept is Gaia theory, which holds that all of life somehow conspires to ensure its continued survival. Self-organization and Gaia are flawed theories that have won few adherents, but that doesn't mean that the problem they address doesn't exist.
Early in his career, the philosopher Karl Popper (yes, cited by F and P-P) called evolution via natural selection "almost a tautology" and "not a testable scientific theory but a metaphysical research program." Attacked for these criticisms, Popper took them back. But when I interviewed him in 1992, he blurted out that he still found Darwin's theory dissatisfying. "One ought to look for alternatives!" Popper exclaimed, banging his kitchen table.
Is it possible that some future genius will discover an alternative that supplants Darwinism as our framework for understanding life? Will we ever look back on Darwin as brilliant but wrong?
Postscript: I'd like to thank my buddy Robert Hutchinson—author, editor, polymath, punster, triathlete—for suggesting that I call this blog "Cross-check". A cross-check is an illegal hit in hockey. I don't cross-check on the ice, but on this blog anything goes.
Image: John Collier portrait of Darwin from Wikimedia Commons
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107 Comments
Add CommentIt is always a little amusing (but more often irritating) when people try to apply philosophical constructs to factual concepts. Never really works, often makes ostensibly intelligent people look like dolts, always wastes everyone's time. I'm not a fan of the term Darwinism simply because "-ism" implies a belief component. What one happens to believe about a set of facts has absolutely on influence on their veracity. Among "knowledgeable scientists and scholars" the only ones hedging on evolutionary theory are the wishy-washing, spineless ones who feel the need to pander to the other side of a very well-defined fence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is always a little amusing (but more often irritating) when people try to apply philosophical constructs to factual concepts. Never really works, often makes ostensibly intelligent people look like dolts, always wastes everyone's time. I'm not a fan of the term Darwinism simply because "-ism" implies a belief component. What one happens to believe about a set of facts has absolutely on influence on their veracity. Among "knowledgeable scientists and scholars" the only ones hedging on evolutionary theory are the wishy-washing, spineless ones who feel the need to pander to the other side of a very well-defined fence.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"what is the likelihood that it would persist for billions of years, long enough to produce toads, baboons and Glenn Beck?" Come on - I know you are a giant cluster of Marxists, but cannot you publish a serious article without taking a cheap shot?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHey Scar... I'd agree, but I'm afraid it is impossible to take a "cheap shot" at Glenn Beck". There isn't a shot low enough.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisInteresting that the author should coin the plural "ignorami". Ignoramus is a not a substantive but verbal form (1st person plural present indicative tense of verb ignorare). As such, I guess that "ignoramuses" would have been a better choice.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMay we assume that Scientific American, in using terms like IDiots and "religious ignorami " aims to be to science mags what The National Inquirer is to journalism?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is a species running amok. It's called homo sapiens.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisReggiano... sorry, but this is "Scientific" american. If you are looking for support for religion and quackery, you had best look elsewhere. SA is not likely to coddle the religious in its writings.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with Reggiano - terms like "IDiots" and "religious ignorami" are not appropriate for a SciAm-sponsored blog. Cross-check indeed, not cool.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe Glen Beck - I too am rankled he is on this list. That was a cheap shot to Baboons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this'ignoramus' is a fully accepted noun in the English language. Of course its source is Latin, but what you describe is Latin and not English. So what is your point?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Ignoramus"means "we don't know". What's the plural of "we don't know"? It doen't make sense. "Ignorami" would be something like "we don'ts know" or maybe "we dont't knows". Since, as you say, this is a "fully acepted noun" in the English language, I suggest that we should use the rules of the English language, i.e. "ignoramuses" ... as ignorami does not exist in Latin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to like browsing bookstores. Now I just get mad when I see Glen Beck's novel plastered all over the place.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI agree with ChrisJones on this one. When I hear people saying things like "The problem with a theory is it's social and political implications" it demonstrates to me that these people aren't scientists so much as philosophers and social engineers. If the problem with a theory is that it's unsatisfying you are basically saying that the problem with the theory is you don't like it. Fact has very little (nothing really) to do with what you like or dislike.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, and in general, when I read critiques of Dawkins pointing out supposed flaws in his logic it is almost universally a misunderstanding of what he is saying. The following quote followed up by the paraphrase demonstrates an incomplete and inaccurate understanding:
"nature, unlike humans with brains, has no foresight." Each individual organism pursues its short-term interests regardless of the long-term consequences
This is not what Dawkins is saying. Organisms may pursue short-term or long-term interests but natural selection does not occur at the level of the organism, it occurs at the level of the gene which isn't pursuing anything at all. This occurs one chance mutation at a time which either makes the gene more or less likely to perpetuate itself by imparting the organism with some characteristic. It isn't even that natural selection necessarily makes the organism itself more likely to survive. Case in point, many species have evolved to die during the reproductive process thus making their genes more fit for survival and the organism itself clearly not.
Natural selection works in extremely complex and invariably logical ways. It's a mistake to take the elementary analogical explanation at face value and assume natural selection works the way it is often explained to children: This animal is better at surviving than this animal so it survives and evolves based on chance mutations. If this were really the theory of evolution it would truly be an illogical and fantastic proposition. This is clearly what most Intelligent Design proponents believe the theory is. It's disappointing to find such misunderstanding in The Scientific American and apparently the opinions of the 'knowledgable scientists and scholars' quoted.
BTW, the current view is Neo-Darwinism if you'd like to split hairs. Darwin didn't understand how it worked nearly as well as modern scientists do. He just observed that it did. The more evidence we find the more we refine our understanding and the more natural selection is demonstrated to hold true.
Cardia - Don't worry - at this rate it won't last long.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Tucker M, if these people don't want to be called idiots then they shouldn't act like idiots. Denying facts, misrepresenting the truth, lying and pretty much employing every fallacy in the book to advance an archaic world view places them solidly in the idiot camp. Furthermore, as was made clear in the Pennsylvania case, they have no moral reservations about using deceit to try and highjack the education system so they can manoeuvre around the separation of church and state. To me, idiot, is the most polite word for them.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHow about a citation for "Gaia theory is flawed and has few adherents". It makes sense to me without being teleological or mystical. Ilya Prigogine makes a lot of sense too. By extracting time from fourth dimension constructs and re-evaluating it as probability he goes further than Dawkins ever dreams.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen someone resorts to insults to describe the other side of an argument, no matter how clever, I immediately disregard whatever they have to say. They are not interested in respectful discourse, only moving their agenda ahead at any cost. Even exaggeration or lying. Sam reason I do not listen to Glenn Beck, Hannity or a bunch of others.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf there is no God you will not care you were right. If there is no God we will not care we were wrong. We will be dead with no knowledge of anything. In this country no one is forcing anyone to worship anything. In the very few places that might be happening it should be stopped.
Christian moral principles seem to have worked just fine for this country. I'm not sure what athiest or scientific moral principles would be. My thought is that freedom would go out the window to try to control us all in a "scientific formula for a good life".
You do your thing and we'll do our thing and we'll have lively respectful debates back and forth. I for one find it fasinating the discoveries that science comes up with, and just as fasinated hearing christian scientists fit it into their working theories.
What particular statements by Glen Beck send more than a few of the commenter's into a frothing frenzy?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisPsst... I've got news - they aren't smart.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMaybe these people were smart at some point in the past, but something happened to make them dumb. A blow to the head, a bad drug interaction, or maybe a whiff of schizophrenia. But they aren't smart.
Ok, firstly, yes it should be ignoramuses. Secondly, this is a blog, not a research article and thus it is someone's opinion and can legitimately use terms like IDiot if that person so deems appropriate. Thirdly, yes, it is "Scientific" american and ID and other such wholely NON-scientific nonsense is rightly treated with disdain when it pretends legitimacy. (And indeed in general in my opinion) Science and scientists cannot be expected to go along with the (yes ignorant) ideas of people who choose to ignore the available facts because it conflicts with their preferred belief system, otherwise we would be forever wasting time debating with every quack who believes in leprechauns, ghosts or perpetual motion. We have to be able to say 'No, there is no evidence for that' and leave it to the people who have the magical beliefs to find the magical evidence. We have had these debates, we have looked at the evidence and it does not support those ideas, come back when you have some new 'evidence' and we'll consider that too. The more we allow this kind of nonsense to be legitimised and taken seriously as viable alternatives when they are absolutely not, the more problems we will have with extremists taking their nonsense that little bit further and the next thing you know there are bombs in our cities. None of this nonsense can be legimised. We cannot let mysticism be what guides people. So YES to IDiots and "religious ignorami" even if it is grammatically incorrect - this is about protecting civilised society from dangerous mysticism and disdain is absolutely appropriate! Thank you SciAM!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWOW, you touched a nerve here, John Horgan. Do we have to be religious to believe Darwin? You are an 'agent provocateur".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAfter all, until now, no one has proved that Darwin was wrong. Evolution is here to stay, and stop calling it "theory of evolution by natural selection" ...
Religion has nothing to do if you are a believer in Darwin.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAny way, John Horgan made his point: he made us laugh!
BTW: ye shall not write " theory of evolution by natural selection" anymore. This is not a theory. Darwin's discovery is a FACT. Period.
John Horgan made his point: he made a fool out of us readers!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAnyway, ye shall not write 'theory of evolution by natural selection' anymore. Darwin's discovery is a Scientific Fact, and has nothing to do with Religion.
Are you kidding me! I once was an avid reader of SA but had not read an article in several years. It is almost unbelievable to me that this infantile garbage now passes as journalism in a so called scientific magazine! Outrageous! PS - you left out a few -isms, namely marxism, socialism, communism, and totalitarianism, imagine that!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEvolution is not a theory. It is a fact. Darwinism is a theory (or collection of theories). If Darwin was wrong about any part, it has no effect whatsoever on the observable fact: evolution. Any "knowledgeable scientist" doubting the fact of evolution has to be a crypto-relidge, maybe an IDiot. John shouldn't waste text using redundant terms together, such as "religious" and "ignorami".
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHorgan, people who believe in Intelligent Design aren't idiots, and that was a gratuitous cheap shot making it seem as though you are a disciple of that sarcastic, sloppy thinker Dawkins. I wonder if perhaps you (and Dawkins) might come to realize some day that insults and scorn are not in themselves intelligent arguments against ID - both of you wouldn't seem so shallow if you managed to rebut reputable scientists and philosophers rather than sneering at televangelists.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisoh Pugsley, c'mon. What is intelligent if people like you utter such a caustic non-scientific comment?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBest answer so far Semiahmoo! Darwin's theory of evolution was a starting point - not the end point that science has used to develop further theories that have been tested and amended and tested and amended until we now know evolution happens and is happening.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisOne cannot look at Darwin's work and pick a point he got wrong (hardly unexpected given the technology of the time) and say because his theories are imperfect that evolution does not exist. It is like suggesting that because Newton's theories on physics don't hold up in a quantum world that gravity (or rather the effects we experience) must not exist.
It sure is odd how "capitalism" and a few other "isms" got put in so easily. What happened to the "socialism" and "communism" type of "isms"?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@ildenizen got it right - this is SCIENTIFIC American; not a haven for religionist quackery!!
Amen to that!!
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMy only question regarding your comment on Glenn Beck is: Have you actually taken the time to view or listen to Glenn Beck? Or, are you simply parroting the "wisdom" of those who disagree with his political views? My suggestion: listen/watch for a week, assess the points he makes, analyse the evidence he uses to support his position on a rational and factual basis, and THEN form a conclusion. Wouldn't doing so be in accordance with the scientific method after all?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo one who believes in Intelligent Design or dismisses evolution should be automatically implied to be stupid.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe word we should use is 'ignorant'. They are simply missing some of the finer points which come so couched in layers of logical assumption that anyone could be led astray if they were to be fearful of the simple facts that lead the rest of us to understand that we are just like all the other life forms on the planet. We have advantages and disadvantages and our advantages currently make us the dominant species.
Excuse me, since when is self-organization as "flawed theory". I mean it is not perfect, but no theory is perfect, not even the theory of Natural Selection. In fact, its biggest flaw is its very intractability. As a theory it doesn't produce specific predictions which can be verified. It explains phenomena a posteriori, it can not produce safe and accurate a priori predictions (that is what is intractability is all about).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisExcellent my friend, excellent!!! The term "Theory of Evolution" is incorrect. Darwin postulated a theory of Natural Selection which explains the "phenomenon of biological Evolution". Darwinian theory is the theory of Natural Selection and Neo-Darwinian theory is the integration of the former with Mendel. Let me also point out that the role of self-organization in Evolution has been highlighted by some of the most prominent scientists of the 20th century, not just "few adherents". I will not even bother mentioning names or research, you guys in SA should write a report on self-organization, it is a huge subject with applications to many different fields.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI think the only thing that Darwin was flawed from was his religion and the time period he lived in. He was, for his time, very intelligent but his religion rendered most of his theory flawed. The only accident in this Universe happens when humans are in diapers. Our existence on this planet is brought about by our location in the Universe; we are in the perfect location to have a great and diverse amount of species, and we are not here by accident, just as species on other planets are not there by accident. There are probably billions of planets in this Universe that are at the perfect location, just like us, to support a diverse amount of species. -We are here, we grow, each species adapts to its environment, and we die. It is not simple and it is not too complicated...it is just right and we can thank the Universe for our existence by the way it was formed.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is an editorial and should not be treated as a research document.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisHumor is perfectly acceptable in an opinion piece as it helps maintain the readers intrest and keeps them attentive.
(unless you happen to be offended by the comment, which is likely the minority, and it distracts you)
And what of the possibility of life on other planets? While we currently lack anything truly definitive in that category, astrobiologists constantly push forward the idea that if the building blocks are there, life will follow.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf we find life elsewhere, what then? While this doesn't prove or disprove Darwin, it does say something for the persistence of life.
I agree with Popper. Calling evolution a theory while assuming natural selection is not far from a tautology. It's just that evolution is almost too obvious. Negating it's basics is possible to perform using spoken language, but otherwise totally absurd. And yes, it is a research paradigm, and it should actually be more widely used, for instance in the "discipline" of macroeconomics that is currently in a state of shambles.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI used to find this amusing, now it just annoys me.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is Evolution THEORY, not law, principle or anything else. It is of course open for review and improvement; there are quite a few dark spots here and there on the how's and why's. But us not understanding some small issue on genes or not finding a particular specie's evolutionary link implying that the overall theory is "wrong" seems, quite frankly, IDiotic to me. It is obvious that we are here due to evolution, whether or not we have the mechanism's details clear. That the Creationists cling to such dark areas of our knowledge is of course to be expected. A scientist (or science reporter) that even suggests that the overall theory is "wrong" based on these I find downright offensive.
Cross-check indeed...
@Acoyauh... couldn't have said it better, in fact I tried but didn't. Blog or not, this being on the SCIENTIFIC American website is very offensive and quite honestly irresponsible.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisProblem is you can not question any part of Darwin's Theory with being labeled as an idiot. I feel much like I did in the sixth grade when I ask my teacher if the continents of the world were ever altogether as one continent, "no no don't be silly" She said "it just looks that way". Even some of Newton's Theories have been revised. The Darwinist don't get to drive a stake in the ground and say " this is it no more questions", science does not work like that. Natural Selection is scientific theory not a religion.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe debate over what constitutes SCIENCE is not a scientific discussion, it is an epistemological one. Hence, philosophical.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFor clarification, I am saying that when we decide what constitutes the scientific field of inquiry, we are indeed engaged in a philosophic enterprise. Once we agree on the question, then it's all science.
Thanks for this excellent summary of what seem to be philosophical critiques of natural selection, not scientific ones. For some, we need more data - finding other living worlds with different biologies would illuminate the probability of life and the possibility of 'self organization forces'. For me, it's worth remembering that every species, including us, is an experiment in adaptation. We've managed to adapt to many environmental niches and displace many species; we're discovering that this has consequences. Right now we're the "one species ... that runs amok"; an anthropogenic extinction event is well underway. Will we prove to be smart enough to exercise our foresight? Or will the biosphere have to rebound yet again?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt's getting a bit old to see this smug arrogance so often showing up in science discussion. The author looking down on these lowly heathens and heretics with pity and disgust. Evolution is becoming the new Christianity, Darwin being looked upon as Mosses, or even Christ at times. Will we have a new wave of witch hunts and crusades to honor this new deity?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisScience is a beautiful amalgam of fact and speculation that is the foundation of our understanding, while evolution was born of this, somehow the open minded dynamic nature of it has been lost. This has nothing to do with science anymore.
A nothing article: this theory is flawed, that theory is flawed... Darwinism is a religion, just like any other religion&
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDehomas,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thismay we agree on the following?
'Intelligent Design' has nothing to do with God, but with people who reject learning.
I believe in God, and looking at nature, I learn something new about God every day.
An 'Intelligent designer' is a human construct, far too simple to explain God, but simple enough to help understand the simplicity of its promoters' mental structures.
Their is no reasonable cause to believe that God stands in the way of a huge universe, maybe even a multiverse, or in the way of both, artivicial and natural selection. All that is in the way are the limitations of small-brained people.
Please don't laugh, but IMHO, the only scenario that makes sense is that in which homo sapien was seeded here on earth....yes, by an alien race. Of course, the next question would be how were these aliens formed or created? The only palpable answer is similiar to the concept of the universe as a whole......it and our 'planters' had no beginning and has no ending. As hard as it is for us to "wrap" our minds around this...it's the only idea that makes sense. What did Sherlock say...."When all other clues fail, the only solution must be......"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere are some strange viewpoints expresed in this blog that caused me to question the good opinion that I had of Mr. Horgan. Fisrst he says that the Gaia concept has few adherents, while in reality it is the foundation of the modern ecology movement which is the basis of our concern over climate change. No Gaia, ecological crisis. Evolution does not care about extinctions. That is part of the natural process.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe main complaint of What Darwin Got Wrong is that Darwin made natural selection a form of agency, which keeps the door open for granny God. They are right because selection is based on criteria which only an agent or person or God can determine.
Darwin's Theory is an idea. Evolution is a process. The process of change is a fact. If natural selection which is basic to his theory is doubtful, then the theory is doubtful, just as Newton's understanding of gravity has been replaced.
What other scientific concept is based on conflict (he calls it war in The Origin) rather than harmony of natural laws? What other concept is based on trial and error, rather than basic natural forces working together.
If you think that science is be falsible, provable, while religion is unfalsible, then Darwin's natural selection is religion because by all accounts it is unfalsible and this is why Popper was unhappy with it.
Thus by all criteria Darwin's natural selection is bad science. How one can overlook this is hard to understand, although the criticism from fundamentalists does not help. Check out my new book, DARWIN'S MYTH, on my website, rightrelates.org for more information.
@TerrorAndHubris: It's getting a bit old hearing the argument that logic is somehow equal to arrogance and reason is somehow on equal footing with superstition.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIf the debate between rationality and irrationality is getting old it's because people clearly seem to disregard the facts in favor of what they want to believe and wish those of us who hold a reasonable point of view would stop disagreeing with them. The argument will end as soon as you accept defeat.
And any true scientist or reasonable person when following any explanation far enough will certainly admit that the true answer to any question if stated in absolute terms is "I don't know". This has been used against us so many times, such as in the ridiculous propaganda against evolution tearing it down as 'only a theory', that we inevitably fight back in absolute terms which, quite honestly is a mistake. The open and fluid nature of 'truth' in science is really it's strong point in that we are always willing to accept new explanations when presented with new evidence. In the case of natural selection and evolution the evidence continues to build a stronger and stronger case to the point where any reasonable person concludes it is 'essentially a fact'. This is not to say that we understand all the ins and outs completely and we continue to refine our understanding all the time. From a fundamentalist point of view this serves as evidence that we were wrong since we keep updating the details and explanations. They attack us for becoming fundamentalist about our theory when the plain and simple truth is there is absolutely no evidence to support the 'alternative theories' that are proposed. Why would I even enter a debate with a person who, like the authors sited in this Blog entry, debate on a clearly non-scientific and subsequently illogical basis? I'm not a fundamentalist but unless you have another theory with demonstrable evidence to support it I won't waste my time entertaining it's merit.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou know what amazes me? I mean besides this Universe we inhabit for which you can say "how" all you want but still can't say "why"... is that supposedly intelligent people who choose not to believe feel it is their absolute right to heap any insult and indignity they feel like on those who choose to disagree with their choice to not believe. There are people who choose to believe out here who may have already forgotten more than you will ever know. Difference is, they don't get paid to display their arrogance in public forums.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"...toads, baboons, and Glen Beck ." has no place in a serious scientific article.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEcology explains the same basic changes as evolutionary theory, except evolutionary theory depends only on genetic change, usually evolution. Ecology goes beyond genes and biology to discuss how the total environment creates changes in life forms. Ecology also notes that life forms are able both to adapt the e4nvironments and to create their own niches.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisDarwinism depicts nature without boundaries, where every creature would appear to be fair game to every other. Ecology depicts a nature with many boundaries or niches that encourages individuals and life forms to interact and support each other and the constant effort to adapt.
Darwinism points to only one engine for change, genetic mutation. Ecology points to how life forms change by incorporating other life forms within them or in their lving space, life the innumerable nonhuman life forms that life within each human and pilot fish act as eyes for the shark.
Most people are aware of the mass extinction of the dinosaurs which apparently with changes in climate gave mammals a chance to grow and develope. If genetic change is the only engine of life form change as per evolution, then this idea is not true. If this idea is true, then ecology rules.
@clay_k Defeat in what way? I have no god, evolution is currently the best explanation for the world we observe. This is what science is about, evolution IS good science. The issue has nothing to do with the facts or logic, or lack thereof. It's about the zealots that want to destroy anything that doesn't mesh with what they hold to be the irrefutable only possible truth that can ever be. Science fails to function in such an environment, does it not?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisEveryone considers their own point of view to be a reasonable one, you're on the same level as those you glare down on.
You think that by pointing to scientific text with the same fervor the religious point to scripture you're achieving some victory in the name of logic and rationality... you're just fighting against yourself.
"I don't mean intelligent-designers (aka IDiots) and other religious ignorami but knowledgeable scientists and scholars." Do you consider !saac Newton to be an IDiot and a religious ignoramus? In case you don't know while he was intrested in science he was obsesed with the bible and his relationship with God. He actually wrote more on that subject then he did on science! Why is that part of his life left out of history?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlbert Einstein was also a believer in God . Is he a religious ignoramus as well? Just because a person doesn't believe in evoltion doesn't make one stupid any more than not believing in God makes them evil.
There is a saying that when you point the finger of scorne look at your hand. There are 3 fingers pointing back at you.
"Darwin's theory of evolution was a starting point - not the end point that science has used to develop further theories that have been tested and amended and tested and amended until we now know evolution happens and is happening."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen please tell us how Darwinism has been amended beyond the genetic side. Prof. Dawkins still quotes Darwin as the final authority on evolution.
I for one do not say that evolution does not exist because Darwin was wrong about natural selection, but I am not going to lie and say that Darwin's Theory must be right because life changes.
Must one believe in God because God created the universe and the universe exists? Yes or No?
Dehoman,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are certainly correct in stating that personal insults have no place in a decent discussion. However, while I cannot find any excuse for calling someone an idiot (or IDiot), I can certainly express my contempt for IDiotic ideas and concepts.
I hold no contempt for the religious person; I hold every possible contempt for religious ideas. Take care that you discern clearly which it is that is disagreed with and/or attacked. I may have no right to attack you; I have a duty to attack idiocy.
Relates,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisMust one believe in Me because I created the universe (so Sez Me) and the universe exists? Yes or No?
Speaking only for myself, I've adopted the following rule: believe as little as you have to in order to achieve knowledge in a skeptical way. God is far too big to fit into this belief.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI happen to believe in a creator. I also believe in the evolution/mutation of species. My belief in evolution is a scientific matter regarding the physical world and my belief in a creator a philosophical matter. (both supported by my own evaluation of the available evidence/arguments)
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThese two beliefs aren't mutually exclusive. Though the veracity of each probably has real implications regarding it's relationship to the other (also the realm of philosophy), it's apples to oranges. One is philosophical belief and the other a belief regarding observations of the physical world.
That said, any science that posits the origin of species/everything is the realm of philosophy and not science at all. Any theory that retroactively applies our current understanding of the physical world to explain the origin of the physical world or of species is pure speculation and should not be regarded as science. We are not able to demonstrate, observe or repeat such speculations regarding the origin of things so all are in the realm of philosophy.
The mud-slinging towards 'IDiots' and 'religious ignorami' is unnecessary since their beliefs are not mutually exclusive to our scientific observations of truth in the natural world. Perhaps, one finds their philosophical beliefs to be out of alignment with his/her own, in which case they are both in the camp of 'quackery', preaching hypotheses which cannot be proven via scientific methodology.(speculation built on truth is still speculation) A superior understanding of scientific things does nothing to discredit or affirm ANY purely philosophical matter. You ridicule intelligent design yet any alternative offered will be in the same'quack' camp as it is purely speculative and assumes that we have the capacity to discern the origin of all things, even those based on our best scientific understanding of the natural world.
This is clearly a blog and I enjoyed reading this post and respect your opinions regarding philosophical things. However ridiculing completely irrelevant things doesn't make anyone more scientific or their hypotheses more true. For all who jeer IDiots in the camp of 'quackery', I am sorry to say you are simply throwing rocks from your own philosophical camp and voluntarily withdraw your argument from the realm of objective science.
It always makes me laugh when anyone says that they KNOW something. Seriously, can we not take a look at ourselves and realize that we humans have always been wrong about a lot? What makes us different today?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYes, we know more than ever, but at the most basic level of existance, we know absolutely nothing. The greatest minds in science today call the origin of the universe the "big bang" and what was before that the "singularity".
Do you know what "singularity" means? It mean that we have absolutely no idea what was, nor can we even imagine it.
So we humans resort to childish name calling while boasting that what he/she believes is right. To me, anyone who says that they know they are right have already lost the debate. Nobody is right.
It sounds like our author would call himself a desciple in the religion of science. People who emphatically believe anything and will attack, name-call, and point fingers at others occupy the same boat as, say, an Evangelical Christian.
A quick question: Knowing that the crux of evolution says that a species evolves out of a need to adapt to different environments and to give itself an advantage so it can carry on, how about this. Wouldn't any and every species develop an advanced brain, language, reasoning, consciousness, complex tools, and better means by which to live? Wouldn't it benefit any species to advance in development? Why do we still have species that are supposedly millions of years old, i.e., alligators or sharks? They haven't changed. Why are humans the only self-aware and self-conscious beings here? It doesn't add up.
Sorry for the long rant. This type of subject is devisive and envokes a lot of strong feelings for a lot of people. I am just tired of the "I'm right and you are stupid" mentality that infiltrates the subject.
If you are comfortable BELIEVING that everything exists out of random chance, that is fine. But know that all you can do is believe that something is right.
I find it ironic that the tone of this piece so closely mimics the tone of the very people you so casually denigrate. Stick to the science - cheap insults demean the work as a whole.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAlso, you do realize that Darwin himself was, as you put it, an IDiot. He believed in a diety, and was raised Christian, though had become a self described "agnostic" by the end of his life. He said that it was "absurd to doubt that a man might be an ardent theist and an evolutionist".
"..."-ism" implies a belief component."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI hate to break it to you but, although there is a great amount of evidence, evolution is still a theory. No one has been able to conclusively connect a single-celled organism with a human being (for example) in a single unbroken chain. You believe that the missing links exist, but until you can prove it, there is a belief component to the theory of evolution.
@TerrorAndHubris: As I read your first paragraph I was about to write... "Then I guess I misunderstood you and I have no problem with that"... and then you kept on calling me a fundamentalist and placing illogical and unfounded beliefs on par with scientific theories.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThis is such a frustrating train of thought in the postmodern world. Not all views merit equal consideration because not all views follow a logical thought process and not all views have evidence to support them.
If I were simply spouting illogic that I'd heard in some science text book that didn't make sense but I had canonized it in perpetuity then you'd be right. Maybe some people do that. The author of this blog appears to be doing it in that he claims to believe 'Darwinism' is the best explanation and then clearly misunderstands the basics of natural selection.
I've also read responses in this comment section that claim to tear down 'Darwinism' by saying things like 'Ecology' explains reality on a large scale in ways that disagree with 'Darwinism'. Natural selection certainly doesn't say that environmental factors affecting organisms have no role in the survival of the organism carrying the genes. It certainly doesn't say that cooperative behavior in organisms (which may or may not be caused by mutations in genes) has no role in the survival of those genes. Placing theories at odds with complimentary explanations demonstrates a lack of understanding. Clearly survival of the fittest (which wasn't Darwin's first choice of wording but was chosen because it seemed easier to understand... clearly a mistake) implies they are fit for something and that something is the environment in which they inhabit. If that environment changes, say when an asteroid hits the planet, they are no longer the most fit genes. That's all I'm saying: Most of the arguments against natural selection and 'Darwinism' I've read aren't arguments against it all. You have to understand something before you can attempt to refute it.
The difference between me and a fundamentalist is that, while I clearly don't have as a great an understanding of evolutionary theory as some, I can at least comprehend it and see that it passes the test of logic. This is not something that can be said for the non-explanation of "God created it." This explanation works right up until the point when you think about it. Then it quickly unravels and has to rely on the pat answer of it being beyond comprehension. It very well may be beyond our comprehension but it seems a lot more likely we'll understand it if we look at the evidence and use logic than falling back on the explanation people came up with before they knew the Earth was round.
Once again someone is misquoting Dawkins, an avid proponent of Neo-Darwinism.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisAbout the improbability of life: probability has absolutely no meaning for events which have already happened.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"A quick question: Knowing that the crux of evolution says that a species evolves out of a need to adapt to different environments and to give itself an advantage so it can carry on, how about this. Wouldn't any and every species develop an advanced brain, language, reasoning, consciousness, complex tools, and better means by which to live? Wouldn't it benefit any species to advance in development? Why do we still have species that are supposedly millions of years old, i.e., alligators or sharks? They haven't changed. Why are humans the only self-aware and self-conscious beings here? It doesn't add up."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSeriously? You are misunderstanding how natural selection works. Certain types of creatures, alligators and sharks for instance, haven't needed to adapt in order to survive because they have been well suited to survival for a long period of time, namely because their environment hasn't changed that much in millions of years or because they were well suited to survival even after the environment changed. They don't need to develop advanced brains in order to successfully reproduce and carry on their genes.
This is really still kind of missing the point though. Genetic mutations aren't driven by some sort of need to succeed and advance. Genetic mutations happen regardless. These mutations either make the resultant organism more or less likely to perpetuate those genes in the environment they inhabit.
Another misunderstanding is the belief that just because sharks and alligators were around hundreds of millions of years ago and are still around today that they haven't evolved. There are likely many branches of modern organisms that have evolved from prehistoric sharks and alligators because in their local environment mutations made their genes more or less likely to survive. Evolution doesn't necessarily occur on the level of a species. Species often split. Sharks quite likely swim side by side with their genetic ancestors because survival of a genetic mutation doesn't necessarily imply extinction of it's predecessor. This is particularly apparent when you consider the modern scientific belief that all living organisms on this planet share a common ancestor, one that probably closely resembles an organism that is still in existence today.
Lastly, it's a big assumption based primarily on religious dogma that we are the only self-aware and self-conscious beings here. Considering that Neanderthals wore clothing, used tools, and likely had at least some sort of verbal communication the assumption seems to at least have been dead wrong 100,000 years ago. As far as our modern world goes, how can you look at an Orangutan and tell me it isn't self aware?
"For example, they air familiar debates over how large a role contingency plays in evolution; whether natural selection operates primarily at the level of genes; why certain clusters of genes persist unchanged for eons."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThen presumably these are vital gene clusters that clearly mutate, just like all genes, but create such undesirable results in the resultant organisms that mutations to these genes never perpetuate themselves, right?
Relates,
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhen you read articles written by Darwin you will discover there are components of his theories (particularly around the specifics of how, why and when) that are not accepted by science today. Theories of adaptation and evolution existed thousands of years before Darwin (and there are many, including Anaximander, Al-Jahiz, and Zhuangzi). Darwin did a fantastic job of using good scientific observations to create a solid theory. This is why he is credited as the father of the theory, even though modern science has substantially more factual evidence to utilise in explaining the phenomena.
Science takes an idea and tests it. These tests produce results which can be used as evidence to support, amend, or discredit a theory. This is good science. The exact how, when and why of evolution is still not fully settled. You only have to compare Dawkinss gene-centric approach with that of Goulds. Both camps have different theories but both are supporters of Darwins concepts even though they dont agree with every element of Darwins theories because of additional evidence that has been revealed in the last few centuries.
Im not sure where Gods come into this, so your example has confused me somewhat. To me personally I don't see how the theory of evolution relates to a belief in God. There are many that consider evolution to support (rather than contradict) their concept of God or Gods.
I am a believer in God which immediately suggests to me, anyhow, that there is no way that natural selec tion operated on fortuitous chemical combinations in an environment in which all parameters and inputs were guided only by random chance and God neither knew nor cared that such things were going on.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo, a blind watchmaker concept of evolution's driving impetus is inherently anti-theistic. In fact, if any supernatural or mystical influences go on at all in this universe they kind of blow up the assumption of "randomness" and "chance" being exactly as etiologically pure as they are claimed to be.
In fact, I don't believe in randomness and chance at all, considering them to be mere artifacts of human consciousness. The physical world itself is changeless and eternal, with past and future already fixed. All the mysteries and contradictions of quantum mechanics arise from time-confused humans imagining that statistical tables we construct for various events means that there really were allowable choices at even the tiniest crossroad. In reality, everything happens like it was always meant to and Free Will is our greatest philosophical joke on us.
All that being said, I truly believe there is a Gaia tendency going on in the APPARENT story line being written by life. In fact, the Gaia factor does a lot of work through the mechanism of trans-genic transfers. Individual species are hardly important at all except as incubators of DNA sequences that eventually will be incorporated in superspecies to come that themselves only exist in order to create even more advanced species.
Whales are pretty advanced creatures themselves but in the 19th century it was the duty of whales to produce the lamp oil so that humans could exchange and process information late into the night.
Imagine we are walking along an unknowably long marble hallway next to an endless tapestry that tells us the story of how life developed from material driven by p-chem processes and is apparently headed towards the development of a super-intelligence. In fact, we ourselves seem to be part of the tapestry although we may be a thread that has come loose and is now proceeding in parallel with other life forms that communicate DNA info with us by sending over a virus or a bug to make us sicker than hell while actually infecting our chromosomes with info headed into the future via us. Maybe we pass it on sexually, maybe we are just temporary storehouses and carriers and even after we die the bugs that eat the uncremated take away the vital sequences.
Before completely dismissing Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini's arguments, it worth taking a look at a recent article in New Scientist (Bob Holmes, "Accidental origins: Where species come from", 10 March 2010 - http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg20627580.800-accidental-origins.html).
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisFodor and Piattelli-Palmarini contend that evolution is driven more by endogenous factors (such as the recurrent instability of genomes) than by the external forces of natural selection. "&Gradualist-selectivist adaptationism characteristically depicts the evolutionary process as one of hill climbing, not infrequently deploying&pleasant graphic artistry to convey the intuitions behind the model of fitness landscapes and adaptive landscapes&.However, where there have been morphogenetic explosions, fitness relations become surely non-transitive and plausibly irrelevant. There is no hill climbing, not even a smooth path from each level of fitness to the next; only a jumpy traverse of a maze or a 'glass-like' surface with a huge number of neighbouring peaks." (Fodor and Piattelli-Palmarini, What Darwin Got Wrong), p. 53)
According to New Scientist, "Mark Pagel, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Reading, UK and his team gleaned more than 130 DNA-based evolutionary trees from the published literature [and] ended up with a list of 101 trees, including various cats, bumblebees, hawks, roses and the like."
"Working with each tree separately, they measured the length between each successive speciation event, essentially chopping the tree into its component twigs at every fork. Then they counted up the number of twigs of each length, and looked to see what pattern this made. If speciation results from natural selection via many small changes, you would expect the branch lengths to fit a bell-shaped curve."
"Pagel's team found that in 78 per cent of the trees, the best fit for the branch length distribution was another familiar curve, known as the exponential distribution."
According to Pagel, "It isn't the accumulation of events that causes a speciation, it's single, rare events that falling out of the sky, so to speak. Speciaition becomes an arbitrary, happy accident when one of these events happens to you."
"I think what our paper points to&is what could be, quite frequently, the utter arbitrariness of speciation. It removes speciation from the gradual tug of natural selection drawing you into a new niche."
This is a nice website..one may be wrong out of probabilities but other may get ideas from that probablities and in turn formulate better probabilities for others to perceived the right idea.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt came to my mind that someone greater that anyone with a marvelous mind and hand crafted evolution to what it is now.Like for example, just as someone who have transformed a rock into a magnificent buiding, into a steel products, etc. External energy really effects changes to state of matter. Isn't it? Evolution as Energy Application & Transformation...might be or may not be...its just an opinion whatever you may think.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@Reggiano
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo.
@ Tucker M
Cross check your knee-jerks at the door please. The first is an attempt at an amusing aside far less vituperative (and rtather more delicate) than Mr Beck's own insult technique, the other a pair of terms in common use or reflecting the strength of the writer's own perspective. Which is what blogs are about, really.
I hope you are as assiduous in policing the language to be found on blogs published by - for example - News Ltd? Now, that would be a big job . . .
Hmm, what triggers speciation? Another, really big accident? Another thread is claiming that 4 % of Europeans have Neanderthal genes and this proves that our ancestors interbred.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisNo, it doesn't prove that, because sequences can come in over the transom through the trans-genic route. But when a potential new species gets all the right DNA together to make a transformative jump, what triggers the jump? Blind luck again, as Stephen Jay Gould would argue?
One thing that mammalian species have to get right in order to interbreed is the gestation period. This suggests that the biochemistry of speciation is quantized. To get real morphological changes in a viable new creature all the sub-programs ruling the busy enzymes in the developing fetus have to time out just so,
In fact, this may be why Gaia needs to use a lot of different types of living things in order to work up the nucleic acid sequences needed for very special purposes. Gestation periods are important in the real world, and for a new species to emerge it would seem that at some point a female appears that has a significantly longer or shorter average pregnancy than her mother had. Of course, you can argue that human females are really having a lot of 7-month pregnancies anymore and maybe a new species is emerging in pre-natal units and via ever increasing caesarians.
But getting back to the constituents that assemble during the super busy gestation period, common grass has a lot more chromosomes than us simple humans, but grass is capable of being transformed into a cow and a lot of other animals with stomachs designed to procress it. There is a complete cow present in grass, just add a lot of genetic info and perfectly timed bio-chemical processes to make it come out.
Gamma rays were blamed for the longest for causing the mutations that result in speciazation. This is kind of like trying to turn the Empire State Building into a clone of the Chrysler building by bombing it from 40,000 feet.
Buildings are made from plans, and so are all living things. The plans, as far as we can see, seem to assemble themselves from a lot of different sources when the time is right. When a plan comes together, a new species happens. Maybe we should revert to Plato. There is an ideal plan for everything, and when the proper constituents finally come together withing pasting range in the real world, the plan automatically spits out a material product, kind of like a computer applying algorithms and finally deciding a problem is solvable and then voila, it prints the answer.
Ah the ad homs. The hallmark of Darwinism. Moving on. By the way its not our fault that there is not a single experiment which substantiates your claims that microbes can evolve into people. No amount of senseless personal attacks is going to change that. But moving on. Scientists who reject Darwinism do so for good reason. Not only political but scientific reasons.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Dawkins emphasizes that the vast majority of variants of a given species fail to propagate; there are many more ways to be a loser in the game of life than to be a success"
Exactly how does this provide evidence that random mutation can build a heart or a lung. Well not every single material in the world is used to build a 747 but it could still build itself. Its funny the things which is passed of as science.
"is like saying debates over the formation of Saturn's rings disprove heliocentrism"
We observe Saturn's rings. We observe heliocentrism. We do not observe a flagellum randomly forming. This is based on pure conjecture. Furthermore, debates over how Saturn's rings came to be, will prove or disprove the origin of Saturn's rings. Debates over heliocentrism will prove or disprove the origin of said event. We can also debate gravity. But thats ok. Because every time you drop your pen, gravity "happens".
We are not constantly observing through experimentation the land mammals acquiring fins and are applying this knowledge to theory. This is based on absolutely nothing. We have never seen random mutation form an organ and try to apply this logic to the rest of the organs in all animals in existence. This is based on nothing.
What we do observe are irreducibly complex structures, the inefficacy of random mutations and creatures remaining within a parameter. This is science. From this we extract the theory of intelligent design. Based on Something. Based on these facts.
Darwinist didnt have to wait so long to formulate this story. They could have imagined microbes becoming glen beck in the back of a grove in 1312 without any information any experimentation to base it on. The monopolization or attempted hijacking of science today does not negate the fact that it is still done based on no experimentation, no information.
No wonder you need ad homs. No wonder you need to hide fossils which completely refute your claims What else can you do. And this is a scientific paper on a scientific website? This is personal opinion. A giant rant made evident with things like "IDiots".
Who's editing SciAm these days? This kind of story belongs in a religious magazine, not SciAm. Unless SciAm wants to become a religious magazine.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWell John Horgan, surely you can do better than this article. You seem to have been in a hurry. Take your time and maybe have someone edit your next piece. Good subject and mercifully short.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhy does this blog and comments seem to be name bashing and personal opinion? It is a blog of course, so even if it does come under the name of SA, facts and rational arguments are not required.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisBy the way, my personal opinion is that any scientific theory never becomes fact. It is only the best explanation of what we observe that we have at the time. It is good until we get a better theory that better explains what is obseerved.
Why is it that this blog seems to contain so much name bashing personal opinion ?
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is a blog, so I guess that even if it is under the name of SA that logical arguments and facts are not required.
By the way, my personal opinion is that a scientific theory is never a fact. It is only the best explanation for what we observe that we have at the time. It can always be modified or supplanted by a new theory that better explains what we observe. Newtons theories were good and still explain things very well on some scales. Other theories have come up that do a better job in places where Newtons theories fail. We call the observation of the effects of gravity a "fact". But we still don't know what causes gravity.
@R118, all that you creationist prove when you comment here is your complete ignorance of the subject. Nowhere in evolution does it state that a genetic mutation will suddenly create a heart. Hearts and other organs evolve over millions of years. Your demand that we witness this change before we can validate evolution is convenient as it is impossible for people to witness things that take many human lifetimes to unfold. " What we do observe are irreducibly complex structures," that is a lie. You have no proof that these structures are irreducibly complex. This is a classic straw man argument. First you claim that single mutations must create complex structure and then state that because this is impossible, it proves that evolution is impossible. Your arguments against evolution are arguments against your own poor understanding of science rather than the facts. Why don't you take a page from your own book and apply the same standards for proof against your own beliefs. No one has ever seen god. No one has ever seen a being spontaneously created as god is said to have done. For your own hypothesis to have any value it must be proven. You haven't done that. You wonder why creationists are attacked personally. They have shown time and time again that they are deliberately ignorant of the facts, that are incapable of rational arguments and they come here with one purpose only, to preach. That is indicative of a person of low moral character. You act like a troll you'll be treated like one.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI am only part way through the book, "The Black Swan" which discusses the impact of the HIGHLY IMPROBABLE. As I read the blog and the responses I started to ponder this question:
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisWhich is more likely to be the HIGHLY IMPROBABLE? A Supreme Being or evolution?
In my lifetime I have seen changes in species of plants and animals. In my lifetime I have seen the impact of a divine something which protected myself or my family.
So, as my 7th grade students used to say, "Be patient with me, God isn't finished with me yet."
So Whoever, wherever, whenever, however, whatever or how we humans were helped to get here whether it is a God or Goddess OR by evolution as partially defined by Darwin. I am appreciative of the fact that I interact with other humans, I can learn, and I can see the feel the nearest star aka "sun" or "Son" which gives me food, light, life and other amenities.
So, IF there is a Black Swan, I can believe in both a God or Goddess as well as evolution. He or She as the Supreme Being may still be perfecting what He or She designed and created. After all I edited this several times before I posted it.
John Horgan is, of course, a former Sci Am editor and the magazine seems to be struggling to find its identity since him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn's approach to evolution issues is quite fair and open minded. I have debated him in blogs for a number of years now and he is hard to pin down on anything except ardent pacifism, which is OK as nobody wants us to blow up the world totally.
Now as for me, I am not so much a "creationist" as an "existentialist" in that we know the universe exists with all these incredibly complex and seemingly unlikely processes going on in it. We don't know enough to speculate why the universe exists. Even believing in God like I do does not supply me with a reason as to why God should exist or would want to design anything.
String theorists have become a little anthropic because they realize that there are zillions of possible string theories, but maybe only one that works out to produce anything like the extraordinary kind of material complexity exhibited in our universe.
We sure have a lot of anthropic evidence piling up. Edwin Hubble discovered other galaxies, but at first it seemed the Earth was still at the center of the observable universe, so that had to be explained away by Big Bang theorists conjecturing that there is a lot more universe out there which we can't see, which is hardly an empirical approach, but they do it.
Fred Hoyle was amazed at how complex the process of hydrogen burning into helium in the sun really is, which was the first anthropic argument. Then the Big Bang idea created the necessity of how matter exploding uniformly away from a point in a rapidly expanding universe ever managed to come together with enough density and pressure as to manufacture all the heavy elements.
We are told today that quantum fluctuations meant the explosion wasn't quite that uniform and that when generation 1 suns formed many were very massive and collapsed quickly into supernovas, which made heavy elements and also provided black holes to help form galaxies.
Mathematician John Von Neuman worked out that several hundred thousand individual parts would be necessary to form the first metabolic self replicating machine. Some chemicals can copy themselves but unless they have a metabolism that isn't very interesting.
Metabolism means the machine takes in energy and raw materials from the environment and excretes heat and waste. A machine with lots of parts needs to be able to find all those parts nearby or to fabricate them easily following a replicatable plan also made of available parts.
Quoting a college text (University of Oregon);
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"We also know that every living human is the direct descendent of a single Homo Sapian woman who lived in Africa 150,000 years ago (i.e. Eve) based on the matching of DNA from cellular mitochondria in people around the world. Notice that our last common ancestor with apes is Australopithecus ramidus, about 5 million years ago. Also note that many species of Australopithecus and Homo are now extinct. "
@mike cook, it always seems strange to me that people who believe in god quote scientists when the scientists say something that supports their beliefs but disregard the results of scientific inquiry when it contradicts them. That John Von Neuman was not able to envision how natural processes could give rise to self replicating molecules says more about his understanding of the systems at work and the limits of his imagination, then it does about the processes themselves. As a computer modeller I am constantly struct by how nature finds elegant solutions to complex problems. The people studying genetics were incapable of imaging DNA even though they had some understanding of how it needed to work. Yet, when they first saw it, it became very clear how DNA solved the problems of replication and heredity. Biochemistry is very complex. Nature had a great deal of time and a large number of concurrent experiments running to solve the problem of life. Don't allow humanities inability to solve the problem within a few decades to cause you to fall into the god-of-the-gaps mindset.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thiswho is glen beck
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe religious constantly say that evolution is a "theory" which has not been proven. The natural retort is that religion is a "theory" also. The difference is that evolution has been, and is being tested, presently on a genetic level. The observable facts show that evolution is happening. Religion is untestable and the only support for it is a book of stories, re-translated over and over, written by ancient men with little knowledge and much superstition, and reinterpreted by modern men and women who gain an income and some sort of power over others. Those who lie to you are dependant on your willingness to believe the lies, and dependant on the money you give them to support the lies. Religion is simply politics in a different robe.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisKDdidit seems like a very nice person. But the proper retort to a 7th grader who says "God isn't finished with me yet" is "Neither am I!!".
I am convinced scientific facs can be used by anyone to prove his philosophical view.But it is malhonnest to deny scientific reality because of a philosophical conviction.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThe "theory" we should be debating is the theory of probability which lies upon the assumption that events can and do occur for so-called random reasons or for no reasons. If chance is an illusion of consciousness then all the statistical tables you construct on the history of any distribution are just histories, they do not mean that any particular event had a real chance of experiencing an outcome other than what it experienced.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIn other words, I say that the future is as fixed as the past. You say the future is up for grabs, but that is only an assumption on your part (as is my own point of view) and NO, there is no evidence that chance is real.
In a way this whole argument is only a rephrasing of the ancient Greek debate about whether everything is many or everything is one. If it is many, then there could be branching pathways and unbiased decision points. If it is one, then no choices are available either to conscious agents or unconscious ones.
And there is no high ground of assumed rational superiority on which to claim that randomness is what it claims to be and not an illusion of mind.
Glenn Beck is somebody who gets paid a whole lot of money to talk entertainingly for three hours a day on any subject that strikes his fancy. I was interviewed in 1989 by Michael Jackson the LA radio personality on NBC radio which was syndicated nationally. It was the longest 12 minutes of my life. I can't imagine being able to talk non-stop and yet still manage to be interesting or stimulating enough to an audience that they don't turn you off.
I find it interesting that so many folks are taking issue with comments clearly aimed at specific people who object to evolution on the basis that it's contrary to their literal interpretation of genesis...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisSo many religious luminaries, including the late great Pope John Paul have acknowledged evolution (Pope John Paul actually went so far as to endorse it) and done so so publically that most folks making these comments about "religion" are specifically addressing the folks trying to get creationism taught in public schools and actively attempting to expunge evolution from any area that could contaminate their childrens minds and doom them to hell. If you actively chose to broaden context so that you can take offense then I have no sympathy for you, because by doing so you are chosing to step in front of the shot aimed at extremists who are so threatened by evolution that they make up whole new names for creationism in a bid to get it taught in public schools by hook or by crook.
Sciam has also seen fit to publish a great deal of commentary highlighting potential value in religion by folks like Daniel C. Dennet, as well as a debate between devout a prominent christian scientist (who, GASP, doesn't take genesis literally) and Richard Dawkins (who is the guy you want to pick on for alienating believers if you want to go that route).
The fact is, Mr. Horgan actually spelled out the specific target of his epithets with that little ID hint. IDers typically identify themselves as non-religious (lie number one as their funding is a matter of public record) and claim ID is a valid alternative theory (lie number two as ID fails so badly to meet the definition of a workable theory that it clearly demonstrates the ingorance of those who came up with it). Then there are the various forms of creationists who at least are honest about their reasons for objection which necessitate the addition of the "religious ignorami" comment.
I have no desire to disrespect religious people. I don't go into churches and start preaching evolution. If as a relgious believer you wish to debate evolution on a science website, no less, I suggest you grow a thicker skin and be prepared to suspend your moral outrage long enough to discern the actual target of the writers ire.
Glen Beck is paid to do what he does, he does it well and it is expected of him.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisIt is too bad that in this day and age some in Science seem to be confused as to what their priorities should be or how to go about achieving them.
Having an opinion and expressing it is one thing, but let political pundits be what they are without playing their game, and please keep Science out of the muck.
@cryofpaine: "No one has been able to conclusively connect a single-celled organism with a human being (for example) in a single unbroken chain."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThere is observable evidence that humans grow from single cells and there are specific similarities with other species throughout embryo development. Is that not convincing enough without better evidence for an alternative explanation?
@mike cook, "I say that the future is as fixed as the past. You say the future is up for grabs, but that is only an assumption on your part (as is my own point of view) and NO, there is no evidence that chance is real.", clearly you haven't heard of something called thermodynamics. How would you explain Brownian motion, turbulence, and radioactivity in terms of pre-determined events? And where is the screenplay that defines these inevitabilities stored? How is it played out? What force(s) guide the particles to their pre-determined positions in space-time? You're partly right of course, there is no evidence for your ideas. But there is a great deal of evidence to support chaotic phenomenon and the underlying physics of thermodynamics. Again, the great mysteries that you see are the result of your own ignorance of the subject matter and are not indicative of what is understood by the scientific community. It's ok to be ignorance. We all are to some degree. The difference is how you deal with it. Do you invent fantasies that make you feel better about your place in the cosmos, or do you take it as an opportunity to learn something new? Personally speaking, self delusion is not a very noble aspiration. And if there really was a god, I don't think he would reward you for it.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@cryofpaine: "No one has been able to conclusively connect a single-celled organism with a human being (for example) in a single unbroken chain."
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisYou are also unable to show an unbroken chain of your own life from conception to the current day. Does that mean you don't exist? Every field of science relies on piecing together many snapshots of reality to understand the whole picture. Look up the term Straw Man fallacy. Once again, it would be refreshing if a creationist came here with a new argument, that hasn't already been refuted many times before, that doesn't derive from a logical fallacy, and that does not demonstrate the extreme ingorance of the person making the statement. Does the US teach science at all?
Here's a tip; before posting your comment here seach the web to see if someone else has already made that claim, then look at the arguments against. If you can't refute all existing arguments against your idea, you aren't going to have any better luck here. You might as well paint a big L on your forehead and sing, "if I only had a brain!"
You seem to be assuming that there can be no evidence for supernatural events, or of God. This seems to me to be illogical.-Ken
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThrow down the Brownian motion gauntlet, Robert Schmidt, like that proves anything. First of all, if you understand theories of chaos they are highly deterministic. In theory, at least, the butterfly flapping his wings in Indiana can change the weather six weeks later in Budapest.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is because, in theory, information is never lost, which is where entropy comes in. Nothing in thermodynamics prevents us from unscrambling an egg and even inserting it back into the chicken, because the info of how the scrambled egg came to be on my plate all still exists. At the least, a really intelligent being investigating the scrambled egg could deduce that frying pans exist, as does a poultry industry, and even that feathered dinosaurs once existed.
Sufficient information destroys the assumption of randomness. It isn't easy to describe the momentum of every particle jiggling in Brownian motion but there is no theoretical reason it could not be done. Because of Heisenberg's principle we can not know the position and the momentum of a particle exactly, but we can know extremely exactly how dynamic systems of many particles and interacting forces evolve.
Suppose I put R. Schmidt on a spaceship and aim him at a supermassive black hole. He is not rent asunder by tidal forces because he is seamlessly converted into a 2-D blogger who despite being smeared out infinitely thinly over a surface still remembers his whole life up to that point. His whole life, in theory, could be reconstructed, even down to details like how many scrambled eggs he has consumed.
Nothing was random about my scrambled egg arriving on my plate. A lot of deliberate and wanted activity had to put it there done just the way I like it and, in theory, all that history of non-random activity could be thermodynamically reversed, perhaps even to include the evolution of the dinosaur from the single cell microbe that eventually became the chicken.
@mike cook, "if you understand theories of chaos they are highly deterministic" actually they are chaotic. The fact that the sum of the interactions of a chaotic system can be described by probabilistic models does not mean the phenomenon is deterministic.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this"Nothing in thermodynamics prevents us from unscrambling an egg and even inserting it back into the chicken", well technically the 2nd law of thermodynamics does because in the act of scrambling an egg, energy is lost and cannot be recaptured to unscramble the egg. Sure we can take energy from another system to unscramble the egg but then that system will lose information. This is the law of entropy.
"there is no theoretical reason it could not be done...we can not know the position and the momentum of a particle exactly, but we can know extremely exactly how dynamic systems of many particles and interacting forces evolve" I count three contradictions in there. If a system is deterministic, then making predictions about those systems should be easy. But the best we can do is describe these systems in terms of probabilities not absolutes.
"still remembers his whole life up to that point" actually I don't. I can't even remember much of what I did yesterday. But that is neuroscience and is really not relevant here.
Your black hole analogy makes no sense.
"Nothing was random about my scrambled egg arriving on my plate." I hardly think that the argument of determinism comes down to the fact that you got what you ordered at a restaurant.
The fact is we are well aware of the randomness of a number of phenomenon. There is no way to determine when a particular atom will decay. If it was deterministic we would be able to find an internal clock of some sort that allowed us to sift the atoms by their clock settings thereby increasing our ability to predict decay. Despite the relative size of these chaotic phenomenon, they can send ripples of effect up into larger scale events, see Schrödinger's cat.
The claim that the universe is deterministic is not born out by current scientific evidence, let alone your evidence which is really just silly. Instead of clinging to an idea that you like why don't you let the evidence lead you too the truth? Reality can be disappointing and scary at times but it can also be amazing. Delusions on the other hand are always just delusions.
Darwinism is based on the assumption that changes in the body do not get passed on in the genotype. As the emergence of epigenetics has shown this to be a false assumption, I think it wise to doubt Darwinism based on random changes to the genotype. Richard Lewis
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisJohn Horgan's article seems to express the frustration and apparent mental
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisflailing of some "knowledgeable scientists and scholars". Why are they
frustrated, because "the vast majority of variants of a given species fail
to propagate"? From the time I started learning anything about evolution,
I thought that was a given. Perhaps in their frustration, they have equated
the improbable with the impossible. They need to renew their inspiration,
take a trip to the Galapagos Islands, find a muse, have a stiff drink.
Instead of a bacterium or virus running amok and destroying all life on
Earth, the little things could modify the genome of susceptible species.
This could have occurred many times (understatement?) during the history
of life on this planet. This would decrease the improbability of life as
we know it. The ancient remains of hominids (more primitive the farther in
the past) isn't an elaborate joke. Something is happening. The dynamics of
the phenomenon must be understood more clearly until they correlate with
the times involved.
Yes, our existence is based on chance or luck. Any species that can ask
how did we get here, has luck as an ingredient in their history.
Darwin was a scientist, he collected specimans, made a hypothesis, and tested it - for many years. His theory was based on the data, and I will "assume" that if he could have continued collecting data and found information contrary to his theory - he would have changed it. Our present debate over the "Theory of Evolution" is a social construct that seeks to put homo sapiens on the "top" of an evolutionary mountain - as if we actually have data that proves beyond a doubt that a species that has only been in existence for 2-4 million years is somehow "better" han a species that existed for 200 million years before an asteroid altered the environment. Perhaps "god" made us the last great link in the chain - perhaps not, then what. I'd be willing to bet that if god really did make us in "his" image, she'd enjoy our attempts to make sense out of our situation. Someday we may evolve away from "the theory of evolution" - or maybe we'll devolve. Chances are we'll change in the next 50 million years....
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to this@RICHARDLLL, "Darwinism is based on the assumption that changes in the body do not get passed on in the genotype" well that is certainly a straw man argument if I ever heard one. So epigenetics has now been established as the only means of changing the phenotype and genes no longer have any role? Wow! And your discovery that Darwin's theories were based entirely on things that he knew nothing about is quite surprising. In fact the term genome and the derived term genotype weren't even coined until 38 years after Darwin's death, yet he still based evolution on them, preemptively I guess. You know, I think it is even more wise to doubt someone who has clearly demonstrated that they have no clue what they are talking about.
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI totally agree with you. Its not by confining one's neighbour that one is convinced of one's sanity
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisRe: "Darwinism is based on the assumption that changes in the body do not get passed on in the genotype"
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisI have expressed the concept in modern language unknown to Darwin. But check with Dawkins, it is right. The converse, that they are, is called Lamarkism, and Dawkins will tell you that it is not in Darwinism. But, in modern form, it is as epigenetics.
I actually lost sleep due to the following point last night...
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisGould did NOT "fear political implications of Darwin's theory". To say "implies", (ahem,) implies intent. Are there political implications of or to Darwin's theory? Having read nearly all of his books, I believe Gould would choke on his tea to read that.
Darwin's theory is (Natural Selection and not Evolution, lets be clear) what it is. A theory has neither intent nor political implications, people do. Gould goes into great lengths to discuss misapprehensions and misapplications of the theory of natural selection and other core tenets of modern science. He warns and gives many historical examples of the tendency of all humans to eagerly transpose existing beliefs on more tangible frameworks, manifested as interpretations of data and stacked experimental design.
I have not read Richard Lewontin, but I suspect that the author of this piece has not read the entire works of Gould. I'm disappointed that the editorial staff did not pick up on and correct this, as he was such a popular author and this is one of his most emphatically made, exhaustive hair-splittingist discussion woven throughout nearly everything he wrote.
End Rant.
[***Nowhere in evolution does it state that a genetic mutation will suddenly create a heart. Hearts and other organs evolve over millions of years.***]
Reply | Report Abuse | Link to thisThat is not the point. The point is that nowhere has it ever been observed that random mutation can create anything significant. Nowhere has it been observed that bacteria has ever been anything but bacteria. In fact all the evidence points to the fact that they remain. To base a theory on unscientific propaganda is nothing but an agenda based conjecture. Not science. There is no problem for people having their beliefs, which is what Darwinism is. But the assertion of fact is an unfounded baseless claim which could have been dreamt up in a back alley. Whether you thought of it over there or in a scientific setting, the ignoring of plain evidence can and will yield the same results, the same assertions, in both cases.
[***Your demand that we witness this change before we can validate evolution is convenient as it is impossible for people to witness things that take many human lifetimes to unfold.****]
We can in fact replicate the process. In science there are things called "models" which are able to simulate a said process. We have computer simulations of random mutation over an extended period of time. We also have real world application to living organisms which simulation the mutation rate of certain organisms over a million year period. In the end, the "IDiots" take home the evidence in their favor.
[***You have no proof that these structures are irreducibly complex. This is a classic straw man argument. ***]
Yes we do! We have it in abundance. Darwin said that if an irreducibly complex feature could be found his theory would absolutely break down.. If he had ANY idea of how complex biological systems are, he would NEVER have made that statement. Assuming that he wanted his theory to go on. And if he had the knowledge we do today, one wonders if he would have ever continued. Now YOU as well as your fellowship are left here to defend this against the overwhelming evidence against it in light of 21st Century science. You have no choice.
[***First you claim that single mutations must create complex structure and then state that because this is impossible.***]
No, I am asserting that no amount of mutations will make a heart. We have tested it. Animals adapt. The atheistic process of continuous random assembly of life is just the rewording of the tired unfounded argument that a human can be built randomly. But trying the "adaption " pathway this time.
" it is all too easy to imagine scenarios in which one speciesa bacterium or virus, perhapsruns amok and destroys all life on Earth". Does the agent of doom have to be that small? Do I become one of an army of " ignorami"(or "ignoramuses") if I confess, who's this 'Glenn Beck'. Ah I just googled, and, hey, I still don't know who he is or what he's doing in such a discussion. Is UK radio missing anything we shouldn't? Christianity (or christianism maybe) is a belief. Darwin's scientific theory is not a belief, nor does one 'believe' in Darwin. Maybe most people believe the Origin of Species and all the subsequent debate, research and so forth is the best scientific explanation we have at this time. There is always the possibility that someone or more will come along with a more accurate-to-reality theory. I do wonder why that even more controversial theory around the world of the quantum doesn't attract the ire and angst of the pro- and anti- god brigades. Lots in there, surely, to fuel monkey trials, home-schooling, don't-sign-the-Convention-on-the-Rights-of-the-Child (such an hysterical campaign in the US), denunciations from the pulpit, a few show trials, wars against heresy, inquisitions - except who's go the Maths to do it? "Freewill cannot exist in a universe which is non-quantum" - debate. Never mind how many angels on a pinhead, count how many pinheads.
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