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Source: (consider it)
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Thread: The Death of Darwinism
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Barnabas62
Host
# 9110
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Posted
I haven't read Reason, Science and Faith for some time, but remember it as well written and argued when I did read it (over 20 years ago now). IIRC it predates the Intelligent Design issue and so is definitely dated. But worth a read.
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Who is it that you seek? How then shall we live? How shall we sing the Lord's song in a strange land?
Posts: 21397 | From: Norfolk UK | Registered: Feb 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
I'd also second the Science, Religion and Faith recommendation. Though it doesn't include ID it is still gives a good back ground on the larger discussion re: YEC and other forms of creationism. A good combination of theology and history of science that would put things into a decent perspective from which the newer ideas of ID can be addressed. Forster and Marston used to maintain a site here containing the text of the book and some space for discussion - unfortunately it appears to have been hi-jacked by Answers in Genesis and just contains their (somewhat biased) review of the book ![[Mad]](angryfire.gif)
I'd also add Science, Life and Christian Belief by Jeeves and Berry to the list. An extensive discussion of the history of Judeo-Christian thought in the development of science. There's an extensive section on evolution and biological science. But, a lot on other aspects of the intersection of the Christian faith and science (eg: psychology). I notice the Amazon site lists a 1999 edition, which I think is newer than the copy on my shelf at home (I'd actually need to be at home to check that) and may have a bit more stuff in it.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Forster and Marston used to maintain a site here containing the text of the book and some space for discussion - unfortunately it appears to have been hi-jacked by Answers in Genesis and just contains their (somewhat biased) review of the book
Its not "somewhat biased". It is a hateful pack of lies. How can people who claim to be Christin ministers deliberatly pose as honest men when they are willing to lie about God, science, and the Bible in order to defame other Chritsian ministers? As if any further proof was needed that YEC is fundamentally an anti-Christian movement.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
And now I can't find my copy of Reason, Science and Faith ![[Frown]](frown.gif)
Who did lend it to? ![[Confused]](confused.gif)
Or have I been burgled by a censorious YECcie Inquisition that left the Dawkins alone but wanted to expunge the class traitors?
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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samara
Shipmate
# 9932
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Posted
A bit late to the party, but I wanted to mention Finding Darwin's God by Ken Miller. I read it years ago, in the fairly early days of my hunt for info, but I remember appreciating it. A new edition is out.
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Bookworms will rule the world (after we finish the background reading).
Courtesy of Trouble in China
Posts: 439 | From: Canada | Registered: Aug 2005
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The Revolutionist
Shipmate
# 4578
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Posted
Thanks for the recommendations! I'll try and check some of those out.
Posts: 1296 | From: London | Registered: May 2003
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
The Flood really happened......In Britain anyway.
I'm sure stuff like this is the genesis (if you'll excuse the pun) of the various flood myths around the world (or at least around the mediterranean).
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
quote:
Originally posted by Mad Geo:
The Flood really happened......In Britain anyway.
I'm sure stuff like this is the genesis (if you'll excuse the pun) of the various flood myths around the world (or at least around the mediterranean).
A bit long ago, I think.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
There were people at the end of the last ice age. Living in northern Europe, too.
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Karl: Liberal Backslider
Shipmate
# 76
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by MouseThief:
There were people at the end of the last ice age. Living in northern Europe, too.
Yes, but the links are about inundation which occurred in around 100,000BC - some ten times as long ago as the end of the last ice age.
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Might as well ask the bloody cat.
Posts: 17938 | From: Chesterfield | Registered: May 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
This is interesting... quote:
From the article:
Creationism, by any name, adds nothing of intellectual value to the effort.
Well, I think I've nailed this article's ultimate concern.
How do you determine "intellectual value"? Since the intellect is itself an abstraction piled upon abstractions, how do you measure it?
I think the article does a fine job of ripping up simple creationism (not that that's really very hard to do, since all the opposition does is "pursue argument by exclusion--that is, they belittle evolutionary explanations as far-fetched or incomplete and then imply that only design-based alternatives remain," but I find the ultimate argument for the value of the underlying approach interesting.
Is every theological attempt to work with scientific-derived understanding really "intellectually bankrupt"?
I also found these two sentences kind of interesting if you place them next to each other: quote:
Some people introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena.
quote:
intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand.
They're kind of wordy, but they both sound like "people introduce new ideas when their old ideas stop working."
The only difference is that creationist models are open-ended (God can do anything) while scientific models try to constrain their ideas as much as possible (we're only using this model to explain a particular phenomenon, therefore it probably only has influence in that particular phenomenon).
I'll admit that my vaguely theist (perhaps post-theist?) leanings may be biasing my reading, but the difference between the two styles may not be so great as the article's author seems to imply with the "we're good, they're bad; we're intellectual, they're ignorant" language.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
I also found these two sentences kind of interesting if you place them next to each other: quote:
Some people introduce new particles, such as quarks, to flesh out their theories only when data show that the previous descriptions cannot adequately explain observed phenomena.
quote:
intelligent-design theorists invoke shadowy entities that conveniently have whatever unconstrained abilities are needed to solve the mystery at hand.
They're kind of wordy, but they both sound like "people introduce new ideas when their old ideas stop working."
<snip>
I'll admit that my vaguely theist (perhaps post-theist?) leanings may be biasing my reading, but the difference between the two styles may not be so great as the article's author seems to imply with the "we're good, they're bad; we're intellectual, they're ignorant" language.
I'll tend to agree that, on that point at least, the author was a bit to vague, quite possibly as a result of an editorial demand to keep the article down to a specified length. And, in the vagueness he let some inaccuracies slip in.
Here's how I would have a crack at making the same points. First for the description of the scientific approach:
In science you will almost always have observations that are not explained by current understanding of the physical processes involved. When this happens scientists adopt one or more of the following strategies to deal with the situation
- Try to repeat the anomalous observation, or reanalyse the data that produced that observation, to determine if it's a genuine issue or due to some experimental error. This would almost always be the first thing that's done.
- Run further experiments, or collect additional observational data (if, for example, your field is astrophysics there are limits to what experiments you can do you just have to look for instances where Nature does it for you), to explore how widespread the difference between theory and obsercation extends - is it just one example, or is it a more general issue?
- Tinker with the theory introducing minor changes to see if these resolve the problem (without creating new problems elsewhere).
- Devise a new theory that can explain both the previously explicable and the previously inexplicable observations
In practice, assuming step 1 shows that the anomaly is genuine, different scientists will likely adopt each of strategies 2-4 in a (largely) uncoordinated attempt to determine the nature of reality.
An example of this from physics would be the progressive recognition of increasing numbers of particles responsible for the observed phenomena associated with atomic, nuclear and particle physics. At first, it was thought that atoms were indivisible units; then it was realised that certain phenomena (eg: the way atoms bond in molecules and ionisation) could best be explained if the atom consisted of loosely bound electrons and a positively charged nucleus. The nucleus was thought to be indivisible, until is was realised that certain phenomena (eg: radioactive decay and different isotopes) could best be explained if the nucleus consisted of a collection of neutrons and protons. It was then found that there are other, heavier particles, similar to neutrons and protons - these different similar particles are called hadrons. The properties of these different hadrons were best explained if they were all composed of different combinations of three fundamental particles, which are called quarks.
Now, for my summary of the Creationist (whether YEC or ID) approach:
Creationists note that scientists observe various phenomena that are not explicable under current understandings of physical processes. Instead of trying to understand the extent to which these phenomena can be explained by variations to existing theories or the development of new theories, Creationists point to such instances and declare "God did it" (or, to try and fool people into thinking that they're not offering a religious viewpoint, "a clearly Intelligent Designer did it").
Unlike the scientific approach which approaches inexplicable observations as a chance to better understand the underlying physical processes of reality, the Creationist approach to such inexplicable observations is to offer a blanket "explanation" that, if accepted, prevents further research into the physical processes of reality.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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The Great Gumby
Ship's Brain Surgeon
# 10989
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Posted
Thanks Alan, that's a very helpful summary of the differences. There's just one thing I'd quibble with.
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
Creationists note that scientists observe various phenomena that are not explicable under current understandings of physical processes.
There may be creationists who do this, but I think they're the exception. IME, they're more likely to misunderstand (or even worse, distort and fabricate) either the phenomena or the scientific explanation, and point to God/ID as the solution to the problem they just created. Fossil records and thermodynamics are common battlegrounds in this respect. If they confined themselves to inexplicable phenomena, their claims would be much more modest, and I'd be much happier.
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The first principle is that you must not fool yourself, and you are the easiest person to fool. - Richard Feynman
A letter to my son about death
Posts: 5382 | From: Home for shot clergy spouses | Registered: Feb 2006
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
Yes, you're probably right there. Perhaps a better version of that phrase would be:
Creationists note that scientists observe various phenomena that are not explicable under current understandings of physical processes, or where Creationists claim that the explanation offered by scientists is incorrect and no other known physical process could account for the observation.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
So, Yeccies/IDers aside, where is God in all of this evolution stuff?
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Horseman Bree
Shipmate
# 5290
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Posted
God, as Creator,obviously set the whole thing up, but it is quite possible that evolutionary processes are part of His way of doing the work of making our world the way it is.
He certainly left us lots of clues in the rocks that he created, in the fossils that are all over the place, and in the DNA He used as His control on how we live.
Denying that those clues are there is roughly akin to doubting the Word of God, ISTM.
I know that sounds rather like some sort of Intelligent Design, but you're stuck with some aspect of that if you actually believe in a Creator.
I tend towards Deism on that one, however.
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It's Not That Simple
Posts: 5372 | From: more herring choker than bluenose | Registered: Dec 2003
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
So, Yeccies/IDers aside, where is God in all of this evolution stuff?
I think there are two logical answers to that question.
The first is, more or less, classical Deism. God set everything up (including creating the laws that creation follows) and basically sat back and watched what happened.
The second is, more or less, classical Theism. God sustains the whole of Creation by the power of his word (constantly commanding "let there be.." if you like). But that sustaining action is so embedded within the fabric of creation itself that we don't see it. The laws and regularities we observe in the physical universe simply reflect the faithfulness and consistency of the God who's sustaining all things.
The advantage of Deism is that it leaves God out of the messy everyday business of the world, but it has difficulty reconciling miracles to the model. Theism has no difficulty with miracles, they're simply God chosing to sustain the world in a different way (for a short time in a specific location), but it does mean that God is then intimately involved in causing all things to happen - including all the nasty stuff like disease and earthquakes.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Horseman Bree:
God, as Creator,obviously set the whole thing up, but it is quite possible that evolutionary processes are part of His way of doing the work of making our world the way it is.
He certainly left us lots of clues in the rocks that he created, in the fossils that are all over the place, and in the DNA He used as His control on how we live.
Denying that those clues are there is roughly akin to doubting the Word of God, ISTM.
I know that sounds rather like some sort of Intelligent Design, but you're stuck with some aspect of that if you actually believe in a Creator.
I tend towards Deism on that one, however.
The trouble with Deism, to me, is that the bible doesn't make God out to be a hands-off kind of entity (unless you're Marcionite, that is). Deism also seems to evolve into a god of the gaps, where God only exists in the unknowable (and questionably extant) beginning of time. Some god you've got there. Sits on his hands for all of eternity. No wonder Nietzsche thought he was dead.
If by "the Word of God," you mean the bible, I think there's a big difference between doubting a human-produced compilation that's about 2000 years old and doubting evidence that's right before our eyes.
At the same time, in a funny way, the rejection of scientific evidence seems more gnostic or docetic than Christian; God simply isn't in the things of this world, or God is a demiurge who created all these fossils to trip us up. The whole puzzle of the incarnation is that God is present in the world, through the holy spirit.
"Creationist" in that article, and in most conversations, means "person with some bad science masquerading as religion, or with some bad religion masquerading as science," and at the same time, even the most liberal Christians on the spectrum prefer to call God the Father "Creator."
Frankly, I've just never seen a systematic evolutionary Christianity that I've liked (though I have read some bits and pieces), which is funny because I'm actually pretty content with both Evolution and Christianity.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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Bullfrog.
Prophetic Amphibian
# 11014
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Alan Cresswell:
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
So, Yeccies/IDers aside, where is God in all of this evolution stuff?
I think there are two logical answers to that question.
The first is, more or less, classical Deism. God set everything up (including creating the laws that creation follows) and basically sat back and watched what happened.
The second is, more or less, classical Theism. God sustains the whole of Creation by the power of his word (constantly commanding "let there be.." if you like). But that sustaining action is so embedded within the fabric of creation itself that we don't see it. The laws and regularities we observe in the physical universe simply reflect the faithfulness and consistency of the God who's sustaining all things.
The advantage of Deism is that it leaves God out of the messy everyday business of the world, but it has difficulty reconciling miracles to the model. Theism has no difficulty with miracles, they're simply God chosing to sustain the world in a different way (for a short time in a specific location), but it does mean that God is then intimately involved in causing all things to happen - including all the nasty stuff like disease and earthquakes.
I think I tend toward theism, and my classic riposte to the argument from earthquakes is that I don't believe that God micromanages, and that the universe isn't created for our convenience.
I'll also confess that I tend to value miracles more for what they represent (or represented to their audiences) than as historical realities, and hope that this doesn't logically turn into a wimpy sort of liberal gnosticism.
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Some say that man is the root of all evil
Others say God's a drunkard for pain
Me, I believe that the Garden of Eden
Was burned to make way for a train. --Josh Ritter, Harrisburg
Posts: 7522 | From: Chicago | Registered: Feb 2006
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ken
Ship's Roundhead
# 2460
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Bullfrog.:
So, Yeccies/IDers aside, where is God in all of this evolution stuff?
Same place he is in all the other stuff.
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Ken
L’amor che move il sole e l’altre stelle.
Posts: 39579 | From: London | Registered: Mar 2002
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Dinghy Sailor
Ship's Jibsheet
# 8507
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Posted
If anyone's still after a copy of Reason, Science and Faith by Forster & Marston, it can be bought along with a bunch of other books on a cd for £6, here
Posts: 2821 | Registered: Sep 2004
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sheba
ship's border collie
# 10654
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Posted
Has anyone been to www.reasons.org ? I like this website. ![[Cool]](cool.gif)
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Spiders are a little people, but they live in Kings' palaces.
Am Yisrael Chai! עַם יִשְׂרָאֵל חַי
Posts: 69 | From: hampshire, england | Registered: Nov 2005
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Alan Cresswell
Mad Scientist 先生
# 31
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Posted
It's a fairly reasonable place to get some good descriptions of the latest conjectures from the Intelligent Design Creationism camp. It's a long way from unbiased (well, very few such sites are). I find their tag line "providing powerful new reasons from science to believe in Jesus Christ" somewhat misleading. For a start, their adherence to the ID conjecture means that in most cases they're presenting reasons from a pseudo-science, and as such I tend to find them not only not powerful but actually contrary to their aim - presenting the sort of misunderstandings of science (and Scripture) inherent in ID would be as likely to provide reasons for not believing the rest of their message about Christ. And, besides, though I do believe that there's nothing in science that contradicts Christian faith ... I don't think that looking for science to support the Christian faith is a fruitful exercise. In practically all cases the same scientific evidence can easily support a vast array of different religious or philosophical positions.
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Don't cling to a mistake just because you spent a lot of time making it.
Posts: 32413 | From: East Kilbride (Scotland) or 福島 | Registered: May 2001
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Neil Robbie
Shipmate
# 652
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Posted
Having originated this thread all those years ago I wonder, has Darwinism died yet or is the organism still twitching?
The irony of it all is surely this...Darwinism couldn't evolve to suit our post-modern cultural environment and so, as a theory, it will soon be extinct.
[ 29. June 2008, 14:11: Message edited by: Neil Robbie ]
Posts: 228 | From: Wolverhampton | Registered: Jun 2001
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TomM
Shipmate
# 4618
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Neil Robbie:
Having originated this thread all those years ago I wonder, has Darwinism died yet or is the organism still twitching?
I would suggest that the same answer that you were given originally still applies - Darwinism as proposed in On the Origins has long since died with advent of genetics. The principles of evolution still seem to be supported by the body of scientific evidence.
T
Posts: 405 | Registered: Jun 2003
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
It's worth having a look at an essay called The Imminent Demise Of Evolution - or, The Longest Running Falsehood In Creationism. It's a long (but by no means exhaustive) list of "Evolution is on its way out" claims from the 1820s to the present day, and demonstrates quite implacably that such claims may indeed be free of any ability to evolve. They're even worded almost exactly the same, from one decade to the next: increasing numbers of scientists are giving up on evolution and realising that it's inadequate, turning to God or ID or whatever as the mighty edifice of old science slips beneath the waves.
It remains to be seen, as the article concludes, when this demise of evolution will become apparent to the rest of us. It's certainly not become clear from this thread, where evolution has been rather soundly celebrated and the various naysayers have silently stolen away.
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
*bump*
This is where all the Behe duscussions since 2001 are. Start at the beginning or put the thread into printer friendly view for searching with Control F, and you'll soon find them.
cheers,
Louise
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Here's a link to the first in a series of posts on this thread reviewing and critiquing Michael Behe’s book Darwin’s Black Box.
Those who wish to claim that Behe's work stands up to his critics and is superior to Ken Miller's - here you go, have at it.
cheers,
L.
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Rex Monday wrote:
That's an old document. If you search for the title in Google, you'll find plenty of responses to it from the time that point out Behe's various mischaracterisations of the arguments - have you read these?
Perhaps the best argument that Behe is so mistaken is that (as was shown at Kitzmiller vs Dover) there's been a huge amount of good science done since then on the evolutionary origins of the systems he describes, and which he hasn't bothered to follow, whereas his approach hasn't been developed at all (least of all by him).
I have no doubt that you find Behe persuasive. I just don't know why, as someone who doesn't understand science, you choose that over the scientists who are actually doing the science. It must be a theological stance, which is fine, but it can't be scientific.
There's lots of science I don't understand (string theory!), and on such points I have no opinion - except when it clearly works. Do I understand what a photon is? Nope. Have I done the double slit experiment? Yep. Do I believe that quantum physics is accurate? Yes I do.
Is that wrong?
R
quote:
Well It is certainly not about Science for me as I am all at sea there.
I am interested in the nature of the discussion though. Given that on both side of the debate nothing is replicable and only inductive thinking can be used, it seems to me to come down to a "It is..It isn't!" slanging match with each set of proponents having huge agenda that drives the debate.
In the Kitzmiller vs Dover case, the judge seems to have ruled against Behe's testimony on the basis that he had ignored scientific peer reviewed articles that dealt with the issues he was called as an expert witness on. Behe in turn seems to have claimed that those articles did not create convincing proof that evolutionary mechanisms could account for what he calls systems of irreducible complexity in his field of biochemistry. If I have misrepresented what happened in essence please correct me, I haven't done more than a bit of googling on it.
As to why I find Behe convincing. Well, I just read the book. (10 years after everyone else). While the arguments from analogy can never be seen as proof, and Behe himself leaves the door open a fraction to accommodate future science, I found his description of the blood clotting scenario very convincing. And latterly, the maelstrom of flying feathers that was the reaction, really a kind of affirmation. It is clear that the whole scientific community has such a stake in evolution being true, that whether it is true in fact has become irrelevant.
It is interesting that Behe has not backed down and is prepared to defend his views against the likes of Miller and Shanks and Joplin who have challenged him on the point that not all biological systems are irreducibly complex. Behe concedes that there is such a think as redundant complexity in which systems may at times function with a bit missing, but he sticks to his guns in the main on the sytems he claims are irreducibly complex.
Really, one is either for or agin his views and theologically prejudiced, which of course, I am.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Well It is certainly not about Science for me as I am all at sea there.
I am interested in the nature of the discussion though. Given that on both side of the debate nothing is replicable and only inductive thinking can be used, it seems to me to come down to a "It is..It isn't!" slanging match with each set of proponents having huge agenda that drives the debate.
In the Kitzmiller vs Dover case, the judge seems to have ruled against Behe's testimony on the basis that he had ignored scientific peer reviewed articles that dealt with the issues he was called as an expert witness on. Behe in turn seems to have claimed that those articles did not create convincing proof that evolutionary mechanisms could account for what he calls systems of irreducible complexity in his field of biochemistry. If I have misrepresented what happened in essence please correct me, I haven't done more than a bit of googling on it.
As to why I find Behe convincing. Well, I just read the book. (10 years after everyone else). While the arguments from analogy can never be seen as proof, and Behe himself leaves the door open a fraction to accommodate future science, I found his description of the blood clotting scenario very convincing. And latterly, the maelstrom of flying feathers that was the reaction, really a kind of affirmation. It is clear that the whole scientific community has such a stake in evolution being true, that whether it is true in fact has become irrelevant.
It is interesting that Behe has not backed down and is prepared to defend his views against the likes of Miller and Shanks and Joplin who have challenged him on the point that not all biological systems are irreducibly complex. Behe concedes that there is such a think as redundant complexity in which systems may at times function with a bit missing, but he sticks to his guns in the main on the sytems he claims are irreducibly complex.
Really, one is either for or agin his views and theologically prejudiced, which of course, I am.
I don't think it's fair to say that nothing's replicable on either side. Aspects of evolution are very repeatable - you can take a colony of bacteria in a petri dish, subject it to a change of environment, and watch it adapt. This has been done repeatedly, and is entirely as expected.
What Behe's said is that this isn't enough, that it's mathematically impossible for such mechanisms to create the sort of complexity found in nature. His arguments have been examined and found to be wrong on many levels, by people who work in the field and who make practical and important contributions that others use and build on - qualifications that Behe, alas, does not have.
I'm not sure that you can say that there must be something in it because of the intensity of the reaction to Behe's ideas. It is the stated intention of the Discovery Institute and others to change science education in the US to, effectively, give equal status to such ideas alongside the rest of evolutionary science. That would traduce science and it's that, rather than the ideas themselves, which is behind the strong defence.
I think that history shows very clearly that you can fight back strongly against ideas without somehow thus admitting they're correct! Isn't that exactly what you're doing now?
(I don't have much interest in reiterating Kitzmiller in detail - it's been done to death, and there are plenty of analyses out there if you feel moved to learn more.)
Science is a way of moving on from "you're for or against an idea, and that's that" - indeed, that is its primary strength. If you don't think that's valuable, then fine. If you think it is valuable, but science doesn't do that, then fine. But in either case, it won't be possible to engage in a scientific discussion in any positive way, any more than I could start arguing points of Islamic theology.
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Rex Monday:Aspects of evolution are very repeatable
Look, I am no Scientist so please excuse my ignorance and I realise that definitions of evolution, claims of what it is and isn't and what it does and doesn't do are very controversial.
To me evolution is a theory of origins which has been said to account for the natural world. In popular parlance, it has been personified. In any doco by experts you hear phrases uttered in wonderment to the effect that evolution has created or enabled or selected or organised..etc.
When it comes to detail however, Behe has had the temerity to point out that no one can actually explain how evolution was able to do X,Y,P Q, in his field of biochemistry. He is pilloried as a result but IMNSH opinion, he is actually right. It is all speculative. This is also what creationists point out. It is also what totally frustrates evolutionists who say 'at least our idea is better that 'Godditit!'
In terms of lab experiments in biochemistry, sure they are repeatable. Sure, Miller points joyously to an experiment done by, (someone whose name escapes me)to say in Glenn Oldham's words (posted on this thread on 3/9/01)"..that they have a remarkableability to evolve complex systems." But Behe comes back to say 'Hey, but the researcher actually 'designed' that!' And so the impasse continues.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Rex Monday:His arguments have been examined and found to be wrong on many levels, by people who work in the field and who make practical and important contributions that others use and build on - qualifications that Behe, alas, does not have.
Sorry for the double post.
Well I don't know about this but maybe you could document exactly where he is proven wrong or someone else could. I'm sticking my neck out hugely here but I suspect it all comes down to arguments that claim something might conceivably have happened this way and not another.
Regarding his contribution to knowledge, well, the the implied criticism here is not just in that he freely acknowledges the huge body of knowledge he works from. He just does not agree that the mechanisms of natural selection can account for what he has observed at a microscopic, organic level.
[ 26. September 2010, 19:46: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Rex Monday
None but a blockhead
# 2569
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Posted
Experiments are designed - how could they not be? - but that doesn't mean the outcome is designed. You're trying to set things up to replicate conditions, not create a mechanism to ensure an outcome.
I mentioned the double-slit experiment earlier. That's very simple: you point a source of light at a screen with two slits cut into it, and see what pattern of light appears behind it. Designed, certainly, but what it reveals cuts straight to the heart of the quantum nature of the universe. Can you say that in designing that experiment, the experimenter designs quantum nature?
Experiments reveal, not create. It's a crucial distinction.
There is no impasse here.
As for evolutionary science not producing an exact, proven pathway for things - it never claims to, and one of my personal frustrations with ID is that it says it expects this (even though it's not on offer) while constantly refusing to make any moves in that direction itself.
Evolutionary science is about finding possibilities, not certainties: it's the fact that those possibilities paint a very logical, very consistent and very useful picture that makes it all worthwhile. The experiments help set the bounds of those possibilities, but they're by no means the only way of doing that. It's that they are of a whole with the other evidence that makes them compelling.
Behe just says 'no' to a very small part of the whole picture, but has absolutely nothing to put in its place - and nothing to say about the rest of the picture.
Where do you go from there?
R
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I am largely against organised religion, which is why I am so fond of the C of E.
Posts: 514 | From: Gin Lane | Registered: Mar 2002
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Jamat
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# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Rex Monday:
Experiments are designed - how could they not be? - but that doesn't mean the outcome is designed.
This is kind of the point. This guy article Arber makes. The kind of outcome he was after didn't eventuate
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
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Eliab
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# 9153
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
This is kind of the point. This guy article Arber makes.
I read the article and his conclusions are:
quote:
genetic mechanisms that produce variation are designed and are not products of Darwinian evolution.
and:
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Furthermore, this variation--often called microevolution--has clear limits and is unable to produce macroevolution.
I don't see how either of these follows from the research described. No one is denying that bacteria bugger about with DNA in all sorts of interesting ways that go beyond mutational errors. No one is denying that these things can (under certain conditions) lead to rapid increases in genetic diversity, nor that this increase might slow down over time for a laboratory population.
It doesn't address the first conclusion (are these characteristics of bacteria designed or did they evolve?) at all.
It proves the first and uncontroversial part of the second conclusion (there are experimental limits to the amount of genetic diversity that can be generated - there must be: no one expects to grow elephants from E. coli within the lifetime of a researcher), but the second part (and therefore macroevolution can't result) is a non sequitur.
What is it about this article that you find convincing?
[ 27. September 2010, 09:30: Message edited by: Eliab ]
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"Perhaps there is poetic beauty in the abstract ideas of justice or fairness, but I doubt if many lawyers are moved by it"
Richard Dawkins
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Well, Rex mentions 'logical' 'consistent' and 'useful' possibilities being the consequence of thinking in evolutionary terms.
This guy obviously does not agree.
"Arber concluded that the genetic mechanisms that produce variation are designed and are not products of Darwinian evolution. Furthermore, this variation--often called microevolution--has clear limits and is unable to produce macroevolution. Arber stressed that the knowledge of the "molecular basis of biological evolution" impacts not only "our worldview" in the areas of origins, but also has implications for the possible risks of genetic engineering..."
The only point for me here is that I was asked, earlier, why do I ignore the 'good Science ' and why do I believe Behe when he has been so thoroughly refuted.
Well, I want to know where the good science is and how exactly he has been refuted.
The article mentions catch phrases people use like 'evolutionary pathways'. What Behe seems to show is that no one can actually identify such things.
The stock reply seems to be that we cannot expect to know such things in detail.
My comment to that then is: "Why is there such a huge investment in affirming them?"
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
Jamat,
You do realise that that article you cite is a complete misrepresentation of Arber which he has written to them to reject and which they have not taken down? (they have produced a very insufficent correction - but not removed the original)
His statement on it is half way down the page here. Let me quote a little (English isn't his first language):
quote:
I recently got aware of an article entitled "Werner Arber: Nobel Laureate, Darwin Skeptic" that was published in September 2008 by the Institute for Creation Research and that is authored by Jerry Bergman, Ph.D. This article completely misinterprets my general conclusions that I base on several decades of studies in microbial genetics. A number of citations are taken out of their original context and surrounded by comments and misinterpretations by the author of the article. The truth is that I have contributed to advance scientific knowledge on biological evolution by studying molecular mechanisms of genetic variation. Genetic variation is clearly the driving force of biological evolution
quote:
In conclusion, I am neither a "Darwin skeptic" nor an "intelligent design supporter" as it is claimed in Bergman's article. I stand fully behind the NeoDarwinian theory of biological evolution and I contributed to confirm and expand this theory at the molecular level so that it can now be called Molecular Darwinism.
You ask where to find 'good science' - well you won't find it on a site like the ICR, because they're not doing science. They're trying to convert people to a certain theological viewpoint - and as you can see in their treatment of Arber if facts get in the way, so much for the facts.
Consider the plight of someone growing up in Eastern Europe under the Soviet regime who was only taught Party-approved history. They're taught stuff which is for the most part propaganda, with huge blind spots. Imagine that person then trying to understand European history and coming across someone like David Irving the holocaust denier, who was once a best-selling historian.
They don't have the historical background to understand how badly out of whack Irving is. All they see is a seemingly well-written and footnoted and archival-researched history book. To someone who doesn't understand the context or the sheer weight of the evidence against Irving, those books look and read like proper history books. If the person reading the book is for some reason invested in anti-semitism, then he/she has no reason to question Irving. "Oh look" they might say, "This best-selling historian agrees with me!"
If the person then looks at the trials Irving has been involved in and the horror with which he is regarded by actual historians, they could say the same sort of thing as you
"And latterly, the maelstrom of flying feathers that was the reaction, really a kind of affirmation. It is clear that the whole historic community has such a stake in the holocaust being true, that whether it is true in fact has become irrelevant."
The problem lies in starting from a position where theology/ideology has so far over-ridden basic science education that someone does not have the most basic of tools to tell when they are likely to be misled by a source. I can spot an anti-semitic website a mile away because I have a good background in modern history, and I know not to go near them for Third Reich history, if they show up in my search results, but if someone's been brought up to be anti-semitic and has not been taught basic history then such a site may look alluring and Irving may look like a real authority to them.
You are in this position and don't know it. I wonder how many dodgy articles and sources you will end up citing from sites like this before the penny drops that these people are not doing honest science. By framing their misrepresentations as being in the service of religion, sites like this end up with honest godly people swallowing their bait and posting their slanders round the internet.
Louise
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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mousethief
Ship's Thieving Rodent
# 953
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Posted
Louise: ![[Overused]](graemlins/notworthy.gif)
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This is the last sig I'll ever write for you...
Posts: 63536 | From: Washington | Registered: Jul 2001
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
Thank you for pointing out that Arber was misrepresented by ICR Louise. I honestly did not realise that they could be that slimy.
What I read of Arber's statement does make me wonder what he makes of Behe.
The following statement :
"Together with non-genetic elements specific gene products are thereby involved as variation generators and as modulators of the rates of genetic variation. These are established facts that are based on experimental evidences and that are valid for the course of biological evolution as it works today in living organisms."
seems to be precicisely the kind of thing Behe denies.
Regarding the holocaust deniers' analogy, I would hope to be able to avoid some of those pitfalls though you surely can't believe that doubting that evolution occurs is in any sense the same as denying history from 60 years back.
Incidentally, 'Schindler's List' is one of my favourite movies.
[ 28. September 2010, 07:11: Message edited by: Jamat ]
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Curiosity killed ...
Ship's Mug
# 11770
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Posted
Those involved in robot research have been building machines that evolve. [This is an article I found with a quick google. The conclusions from the full paper (which is available as a pdf) says:
quote:
We have described and analyzed a working example of an artificial autonomous agent. ... Through the evolutionary process Khepera has automatically and autonomously developed the optimal distributed control system to survive in the environment where it has been placed. ... We have neither pre-designed the behaviors of the robot, nor have intervened during evolution. The robot itself and alone has developed - starting from a sort of tabula rasa - a set of strategies and behaviors as a result of the adaptation to the environment and its own body. Despite its simple components and the simple survival criterion, it is difficult to control and predict the robot behaviour, due to the non-linearities and feedback connections exploited for optimal navigation and obstacle avoidance... (and arise from) ... the natural and logical result of the interaction between the physical characteristics of the robot and the type of environment.
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Mugs - Keep the Ship afloat
Posts: 13794 | From: outiside the outer ring road | Registered: Aug 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Louise:
The problem lies in starting from a position where theology/ideology has so far over-ridden basic science education that someone does not have the most basic of tools to tell when they are likely to be misled by a source.
While I appreceiate the concern expressed here, on reflection it raises quite a few issues and is probably deserving of a separate discussion. I will begin a thread in Purgatory.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
quote:
Louise:The problem lies in starting from a position where theology/ideology has so far over-ridden basic science education that someone does not have the most basic of tools to tell when they are likely to be misled by a source.
You are in this position and don't know it.
Oh really?
May I ask who exactly made you some kind of 'Lord high everything else' to make such proclamations?
Could you perhaps show me one seminal thinker who has not begun with an entrenched idea? Newton and Einstein both did.
If you want my tuppence worth, its a bit like being gay. A few years ago no one who was gay dared admit it. The place was full of people in the closet. Nowadays, the social stigma has virtually gone.
What I wonder is whether there are a whole lot of closet flood geologists or doubters of evolution out there but they don't fancy becoming academic road kill by coming out. For some of them we're talking livelihoods after all. Arber is a case in point perhaps though I have not read him in detail. His work has shown up something creationists pick up on and he has been quick to deny creationist implications of his work, but really, perhaps there are some. The sacred cow of evolutionary progression is pretty well academically sacrosanct in most institutions wouldn't you think?
So to come back to your point about theology overruling Science, I'd suggest that actually, theology is the 'still point in the turning world,'(Yes, I know Yeats said first,)not Science. After all, the philosophy of Science hasn't even been able to posit a stable, universally agreed definition of what Science actually is really.
The only thing we can rely on IMV that is not influenced by majority rule and academic oscillation, is actually the Bible, the logos itself.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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Louise
Shipmate
# 30
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
quote:
Louise:The problem lies in starting from a position where theology/ideology has so far over-ridden basic science education that someone does not have the most basic of tools to tell when they are likely to be misled by a source.
You are in this position and don't know it.
Oh really?
May I ask who exactly made you some kind of 'Lord high everything else' to make such proclamations?
The Basil Fawlty University of the Bleedin' Obvious, alas.
Or something close to 20 years of dealing with conspiracy theories in my own field, and following the surprisingly similar debates on subjects like this.
For instance, dealing with people who haven't the first idea of how to do academic history who expect me to take their Knights Templar fantasies about Rosslyn Chapel seriously because they've read stuff written by modern day wannabe Knights Templar and in their mind these people are 'historians' and they think the websites by these groups and the puff-piece books they sometimes write are reliable. They don't realise the response from anyone with the first clue about medieval church history is going to be either to fall about laughing or groan at seeing this nonsense again. They then get very huffy, and start accusing historians of a conspiracy to suppress 'the truth' (which if you knew anything about historians, you'd find hilarious too). What can you do? They haven't got the first clue, they don't have anything like the background for evaluating primary and secondary historical sources which would even get them to square one, yet they expect to be taken seriously. You don't know whether to laugh or cry.
I've seen enough misrepresentations by various creationist websites addressed over the years to know their standards for science seem to be so low and their likelihood of misrepresenting stuff to fit their agenda is so high, that they aren't even worth citing to people who deal in actual peer reviewed science, (though some of the board scientists are kindly enough and have the patience to bother refuting this stuff). Of course when they do, back comes the person with another similar offering from another one of these dodgy sites without the penny having dropped that they're searching the scientific equivalent of the National Enquirer or a Scientology tract and that they're never going to find anything of any useful standard of research there.
I tend to look at this from a historian's point of view, if people use sources known to be very unreliable, they are going nowhere with the argument. Not even to square one. Using those sites is, in my experience, a waste of everyone's time.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
Could you perhaps show me one seminal thinker who has not begun with an entrenched idea? Newton and Einstein both did.
It's what happens when an entrenched idea meets fact/findings which disprove it which makes the difference. If you're Einstein or Newton you are not only able to think out of the box but then able to show/suggest the sort of findings which will eventually prove your new theory to have great explanatory power. then when other people look for those, they find them in spades. You show how your new theory makes predictions which can be verified (my more learned scientific colleagues can correct me here if I am getting this wrong). This is what creationists have to show, if they're going to have any credibility. Unfortunately for them, it's their opponents who've turned out to pass this test.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
If you want my tuppence worth, its a bit like being gay. A few years ago no one who was gay dared admit it. The place was full of people in the closet. Nowadays, the social stigma has virtually gone.
What I wonder is whether there are a whole lot of closet flood geologists or doubters of evolution out there but they don't fancy becoming academic road kill by coming out. For some of them we're talking livelihoods after all. Arber is a case in point perhaps though I have not read him in detail. His work has shown up something creationists pick up on and he has been quick to deny creationist implications of his work, but really, perhaps there are some. The sacred cow of evolutionary progression is pretty well academically sacrosanct in most institutions wouldn't you think?
I think this is based on a poor grasp of the history of this topic. The people who started in the closet worrying about being sacked were the people whose views contradicted powerful churches and religious sentiments. It took a lot of experiments, findings being reported, and people checking things out for themselves for matters to shift, and they shifted over the past few hundred years because there was such an enormous preponderance of evidence on things like evolution, the age of the earth, the various flaws in the Noah story etc. You wont find many closet creationists and flood geologists for the same reason you wont find many people who believe in phlogiston or the four humours or physiognomy, because that stuff has been investigated over a long time span and academically beaten to death beyond recovery.
The only reason you do still find the occasional person trying to punt this stuff academically is for the same reason that I have family members who have claimed to be Knights Templar, because emotionally people can be so invested in it because of their beliefs, that added to complete ignorance of how history/science works they're able to ignore or dismiss otherwise overwhelming evidence.
The reason you won't get it in a peer reviewed journal is for the same reason you wont get nonsense about the Holy Grail being buried under Rosslyn Chapel in the Scottish Historical Review any day soon, because the idea of having such journals is to allow people to sift interesting ideas by people who have some chance of being right from stuff which is a load of fetid dingoes kidneys to start with. For the same reason, you won't be seeing me competing at the Commonwealth Games in the 100m sprint, not because there's a world athletics conspiracy against unfit Scots historians, but because I can't run for a bus.
You do of course, for reasons of money, eccentric belief or personal advantage get people who set themselves up as gurus for proven academic nonsense, despite the fact that they ought to be qualified enough to know better. People who don't realise how far out of whack they are, then trumpet their credentials, and uncritically cite their stuff. It was ever thus.
The thing is that these people usually have no bother publishing their books, or websites and even getting entire TV series, if it sells well enough or is sensational enough. Nobody censors them, they just open their mouths and it then becomes clear why they haven't got academic jobs - because they're talking pap that any competent scholar in the field could debunk - good enough to fool people who don't know much, who want to believe in Holy Grails under the nearby Kirk or aliens visiting Earth or whatever, into parting with their spondulicks, but not good enough to fool a peer reviewed journal or hiring committee.
Of course such bodies can be fooled, but then again, when people go and double check what's been published and try to take the dodgy findings further, sooner or later the fraud or mistake tends to get found out. That's the system working as it ought to.
quote:
Originally posted by Jamat:
So to come back to your point about theology overruling Science, I'd suggest that actually, theology is the 'still point in the turning world,'(Yes, I know Yeats said first,)not Science. After all, the philosophy of Science hasn't even been able to posit a stable, universally agreed definition of what Science actually is really.
The only thing we can rely on IMV that is not influenced by majority rule and academic oscillation, is actually the Bible, the logos itself.
A bit of European Reformation history is enough to indicate how far off base this is. Many of the Reformers had a touching but naive humanist belief that you just had to let people read the Bible with a bit of guidance from the pulpit and they'd all come to the same 'correct' conclusions. Imagine their surprise when people started questioning even the formulations of the creeds, coming to radically different conclusions and doing things in the street which frightened the horses. Biblical interpretation turned out to be very far from some stable universally agreed thing subject to neither majority vote or academic oscillations! You can't have the Bible without that pesky thing, the reader/interpreter with all his/her subjectivity. You can try the cop out of pretending the Holy spirit will never let you err in your reading, but again it's worth reading a bit of history, and seeing where that got people when the Spirit was apparently telling one bunch of Reformers one thing and another lot something else.
I think those notions are as far off theologically as they are scientifically.
cheers,
L.
[ 04. October 2010, 01:59: Message edited by: Louise ]
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Now you need never click a Daily Mail link again! Kittenblock replaces Mail links with calming pics of tea and kittens! http://www.teaandkittens.co.uk/ Click under 'other stuff' to find it.
Posts: 6918 | From: Scotland | Registered: May 2001
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Louise:
It's what happens when an entrenched idea meets fact/findings which disprove it which makes the difference. If you're Einstein or Newton you are not only able to think out of the box but then able to show/suggest the sort of findings which will eventually prove your new theory to have great explanatory power. then when other people look for those, they find them in spades. You show how your new theory makes predictions which can be verified (my more learned scientific colleagues can correct me here if I am getting this wrong). This is what creationists have to show, if they're going to have any credibility. Unfortunately for them, it's their opponents who've turned out to pass this test.
I don't know if I'm really in the more learned group, but I would like to rephrase this a bit.
Putting a new theory in place:
Compose theory
Show that it explains everything the old theory did
Show that it explains things the old theory did not
Suggest ways to further prove the theory (if you can think of any)
[subject to revision by the actually more learned! ![[Smile]](smile.gif) ]
Number 3 is the biggie in this. If a theory doesn't explain the current equal/better *and* explain some of the unexplained questions, there's no point in having it. I'm also leaving off the "prediction" portion since, as IngoB (I think) has pointed out in Purgatory, evolutionary theory does an amazingly small amount of prediction, unlike physics, for example.
This is why IDers/creationists need to start putting forth some sort of positive hypothesis/theories in order to be listened to (excepting the rare "IDer" with views like Alan Cresswell, etc). They're just going forth and attempting to poke holes in current theories, doing a piss poor job at that, and not giving anybody an actual alternative.
Any attempt to replace evolutionary theory alone (which is only one of many theories upon which our old-earth understanding rests) would be an insanely large undertaking. There's 150 years and millions of pages of research findings to explain (and exabytes of data!). Good luck to any who try.
[ 04. October 2010, 06:59: Message edited by: pjkirk ]
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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Crœsos
Shipmate
# 238
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by pjkirk:
Number 3 is the biggie in this. If a theory doesn't explain the current equal/better *and* explain some of the unexplained questions, there's no point in having it. I'm also leaving off the "prediction" portion since, as IngoB (I think) has pointed out in Purgatory, evolutionary theory does an amazingly small amount of prediction, unlike physics, for example.
I'm not sure I can agree with this. Evolutionary theory predicts things like antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pesticide-resistant weeds, which we've seen borne out. It predicts both increasing diversity and complexity of species over time, which has been borne out in the fossil record (with a few breaks for mass extinctions). It predicts that physiologically similar species should also be genetically similar, something which was also borne out once our understanding of genetics was sufficient to put such a proposition to the test. Those are just three big ones that occur to me (a non-biologist) without having to think that hard about it.
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Humani nil a me alienum puto
Posts: 10706 | From: Sardis, Lydia | Registered: May 2001
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pjkirk
Shipmate
# 10997
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Posted
quote:
Originally posted by Crœsos:
I'm not sure I can agree with this. Evolutionary theory predicts things like antibiotic-resistant bacteria and pesticide-resistant weeds, which we've seen borne out.
Indeed.
quote:
It predicts both increasing diversity and complexity of species over time, which has been borne out in the fossil record (with a few breaks for mass extinctions).
It was also designed to take that into account, so it's not really a prediction per se.
quote:
It predicts that physiologically similar species should also be genetically similar, something which was also borne out once our understanding of genetics was sufficient to put such a proposition to the test.
This is the big one that's highly problematic. For classification, genetics is the trump card. Zoology (what's left of it anyways...it seems to have transferred mostly to cladistics) plays a game where they re-align phyla based on genetic data (sequences of a group of proteins, rRNA sequences, etc) and then are constantly playing catch-up to find a new physiological property by which they can also be grouped. If you look at current research papers in zoology, you'll find that we're constantly re-aligning organism classifications, even at the phyla level (though the Linnaean categories make no actual sense scientifically).
We aren't learning much about organisms big-picture-wise by looking at physiology now. We're trying to keep zoo from having no power whatsoever. Yes, you can say that we will still put new organisms into categories based on physiology, but what use is that if we're regularly regrouping these since we don't really have an understanding of what features are important?
On the flip side, we're finding an amazing amount of diversity among organisms within a species. (note, this is very new research and only seen in bacteria so far). Eric Kirk (iirc, I can look in my notes if any are interested) has found bacteria which are 99.7% similar at the 16S rRNA level (a similarity which places them very confidently within the species, and I think at sub-species level as well) which differ by up to 25% sequence identity at the whole genome level! They were from an almost identical (macroscopically) environment as well. I don't expect similar results to be found among "higher" eukaryotes (in terms of low %age sequence identity for whole genomes), but we still don't have that many whole higher animal genomes to work with yet.
A simple statement such as you made is not untrue. It's not very reflective of the reality though, which is that the theory as we have it now has been recrafted to fit the data that we have so it's hard to call it prediction. Will it get there? Very possibly. Is it very strong as it? Most certainly. But I'm not sure we should be using the same terms as physics or chemistry does when they talk about their theories.
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Dear God, I would like to file a bug report -- Randall Munroe (http://xkcd.com/258/)
Posts: 1177 | From: Swinging on a hammock, chatting with Bokonon | Registered: Feb 2006
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Jamat
Shipmate
# 11621
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Posted
I don't think I advocated the approach of just reading scripture and interpreting it how you want. However, we do have the Bible as a guide and as a way of comparing what other sources tell us on things. The point for me is that it exists and it is authoritative as a reliable indicator of truth. nothing else does this.
To take a few examples:
Christ was actually predicted by prophesy. Cyrus was named by Isaiah before he was born. The Babylonian captivity happened. The Jewish state exists against the odds. No one apart from conservative Bible scholars in the 19century predicted that (One Robert Anderson, founder of Scotland Yard did so.)God tells us certain things, if we indulge in them, will harm us. Christianity has gone from Jewish cult to world religion. Jesus predicted the AD70 disaster in Matt 24 (not one stone left on another.) It happened. the fact is that one ignores the Bible at one's peril.
I have no problem with where the Holy Grail may or may not be secreted according to Dan Brown or whoever might be barking enough to take him seriously but I do have an issue with comparing historical charlatanism with trust in the Bible.
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Jamat ..in utmost longditude, where Heaven
with Earth and ocean meets, the setting sun slowly descended, and with right aspect
Against the eastern gate of Paradise. (Milton Paradise Lost Bk iv)
Posts: 3228 | From: New Zealand | Registered: Jul 2006
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