Pheobe Debates The Theory of Evolution

Original scene from the show... Friends. ^ | NA | NA

[Mr.Atos]

I was just lisening to Medved debating Creationism with Athiests on the air. I found it interesting that while Medved argued his side quite effectively from the standpoint of faith, his opponents resorted to condescension and beliitled him with statements like, "when it rains, is that God crying?" I was reminded of the best (at least most amusing)debate that I have ever heard on the subject of Creationism vs Evolution, albeit a fictional setting. It occurred on the show, Friends of all places between the characters Pheobe (The Hippy) and Ross (The Paleontologist). It went like this...

Pheebs: Okay...it's very faint, but I can still sense him in the building...GO INTO THE LIGHT MR. HECKLES!!

Ross: Whoa, whoa, whoa. What, uh, you don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: Nah. Not really. Ross: You don't believe in evolution? Pheebs: I don't know. It's just, ya know, monkeys, Darwin, ya know, it's a, it's a nice story. I just think it's a little too easy.

Ross: Uh, excuse me. Evolution is not for you to buy, Phoebe. Evolution is scientific fact. Like, like, the air we breathe, like gravity... Pheebs: Uh, okay, don't get me started on gravity.

Ross: You uh, you don't believe in gravity? Pheebs: Well, it's not so much that ya know, like I don't *believe* in it, ya know. It's just...I don't know. Lately I get the feeling that I'm not so much being pulled down, as I am being pushed.

Ross: How can you NOT BELIEVE in evolution? Pheebs: [shrugs] I unh-huh...Look at this funky shirt!!

Ross: Well, there ya go. Pheebs: Huh. So now, the REAL question is: who put those fossils there, and why...?

Ross: OPPOSABLE THUMBS!! Without evolution, how do YOU explain OPPOSABLE THUMBS?!? Pheebs: Maybe the overlords needed them to steer their spacecrafts!

Pheebs: Uh-oh! Scary Scientist Man!

Pheebs: Okay, Ross? Could you just open your mind like, *this* much?? Okay? Now wasn't there a time when the brightest minds in the world believed that the Earth was flat? And up until what, like, fifty years ago, you all thought the atom was the smallest thing, until you split it open, and this like, whole mess o' crap came out! Now, are you telling me that you are so unbelievably arrogant that you can't admit that there's a teeny, tiny possibility that you could be wrong about this?!?

Pheebs: I can't believe you caved. Ross: What? Pheebs: You just ABANDONED your whole belief system! I mean, before, I didn't agree with you, but at least I respected you. Ross: But uh.. Pheebs: Yeah...how...how are you gonna go in to work tomorrow? How...how are you gonna face the other science guys? How...how are you gonna face yourself? Oh! [Ross runs away dejected] Pheebs: That was fun. So who's hungry?

[Right Wing Professor]

In day to day things it really is not, since it would most certainly drive all jawed creatures to infinitely long jaws.

No, presumably there's some optimum. The graph of 'reproductive fitness' (Y axis) versus 'jaw length' (X-axis) has a maximum. The evolutionarily stable population probably has a distribution with X values close to the maximum. Mutation causes the scatter; selection keeps the distribution narrow.

[whattajoke]

RWP has to be all "sciencey" about it!

; )

[Tribune7]

It was not an everyday phenomena, but a unique and glorious event. One might even say, miraculous (no matter what the causation).

Very true.

[AndrewC]

Mutation causes the scatter; selection keeps the distribution narrow.

But doesn't that describe something that is stable and driven towards stasis and not change?

[L,TOWM]

My understanding of where these arguments usually go is:

1) General agreement in biological micro-evolution,
2) Vehement flame wars concerning the theory of macro evolution, particularly in the origin of man question, generally in speciation, and
3) An Atheist-Christian food fight over the existence of God, the inerrancy of scripture, and the incompatibillity of any naturalism with religious faith...

Bleccch.

I reject that framework. I have been flamed by both sides of this issue. I know little of either physics or theology, but the realities discussed in scientific papers and scripture often differ only in the terms used and the depth of discussion.

It seemed to me from the post that I was responding to, that a singular, unique event was being classified as an "everyday phenomena". Incorrect. If a singular, unique, and glorious event cannot be called be a miracle, then what in His name can be? Or, what in nothing's name can be? (If you go that way...)

[Right Wing Professor]

Interesting recent paper on this

Sexual selection affects local extinction and turnover in bird communities

Paul F. Doherty Jr., Gabriele Sorci, J. Andrew Royle, James E. Hines, James D. Nichols, and Thierry Boulinier

PNAS | May 13, 2003 | vol. 100 | no. 10 | 5858-5862

Abstract

Predicting extinction risks has become a central goal for conservation and evolutionary biologists interested in population and community dynamics. Several factors have been put forward to explain risks of extinction, including ecological and life history characteristics of individuals. For instance, factors that affect the balance between natality and mortality can have profound effects on population persistence. Sexual selection has been identified as one such factor. Populations under strong sexual selection experience a number of costs ranging from increased predation and parasitism to enhanced sensitivity to environmental and demographic stochasticity. These findings have led to the prediction that local extinction rates should be higher for species/populations with intense sexual selection. We tested this prediction by analyzing the dynamics of natural bird communities at a continental scale over a period of 21 years (1975-1996), using relevant statistical tools. In agreement with the theoretical prediction, we found that sexual selection increased risks of local extinction (dichromatic birds had on average a 23% higher local extinction rate than monochromatic species). However, despite higher local extinction probabilities, the number of dichromatic species did not decrease over the period considered in this study. This pattern was caused by higher local turnover rates of dichromatic species, resulting in relatively stable communities for both groups of species. Our results suggest that these communities function as metacommunities, with frequent local extinctions followed by colonization. Anthropogenic factors impeding dispersal might therefore have a significant impact on the global persistence of sexually selected species.

Translation: basically, those bird species with differently colored males and females, which is an indicator of sexual selection, tended to be more likely to become locally extinct.

[Right Wing Professor]

But doesn't that describe something that is stable and driven towards stasis and not change?

Well, locally stable. But introduce a new degree of freedom, and you won't be stable along that axis. And existing degrees of freedom won't be stable if you change something.

[Right Wing Professor]

Sorry; occupational hazard.

I'm done.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Ah, make the most of what we yet may spend,
Before we too into the Dust Descend;
Dust into Dust, and under Dust, to lie,
Sans Wine, sans Song, sans Singer and--sans End!

- Omar Khayyám (d.1123) tr. Edward Fitzgerald (1809-1883)

[BMCDA]

But doesn't that describe something that is stable and driven towards stasis and not change?

Yes, and this is what happens if the selective pressure doesn't change considerably.

[Doctor Stochastic]

No. It describe something in constant flux about some roughly optimal point. Of course, the optimal point may change exogenously to the organism.

[L,TOWM]

The statement, "God did it" is not good enough for me. It's a personal thing. That phrase simply leads to a million more questions which all circle back to the original given answer: "God did it."

You are catching on to the, shall I say, fundamental, reason why us Jesus Freaks do a lot of the things we do. Ultimately, one half of our questions circle back to that "God did it". The other half of our questions lead back to another phrase; "God loves me (you/us)".

Don't ask me why. I used to spit on people that tried to tell me about God. Never had anyone that I treated halfway decent die for me--let alone some one that I hated die for me. Until I got to know Jesus.

[Right Wing Professor]

One other thing I wanted to say; if you've done a multivariate optimization, you realize how complicated the surface of a graph of comparatively simple independent functions becomes once you put in more than a few dimensions. Say you do a non-linear least squares optimization to a data set with ten or so independent variables (this isn't a big deal if you have a well-conditioned problem). What you find is that the error surface is frequently enormously complicated, and your fit swings all over the place, exploring all sorts of valleys and local minima, beofre you find the globally optimum solution, which may take a very long time. I see evolution as being like this; as species become more and more fit, they can go way out to the extremes of some characteristics, and then head off in an enirely different direction. They can bifurcate as a result of small local differences in the environment, and end up in totally different places on the graph.

[Doctor Stochastic]

And the response surface (fitness function) changes with time, probably discontinuously. (Like not living on a volcano.)

[AndrewC]

But introduce a new degree of freedom, and you won't be stable along that axis. And existing degrees of freedom won't be stable if you change something.

But then why are there still monkeys?

[js1138]

The formation of the universe is not an "everyday phenomena".

Agreed.

[balrog666]

Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

I close my eyes
Only for a moment, then the moment's gone
All my dreams
Pass before my eyes, a curiosity
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

It's the same old song
We're just a drop of water, in an endless sea
All we do
Just crumbles to the ground, though we refuse to see
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Life's too short brothers and sisters
Dust in the wind
All we are is dust in the wind

Don't hang on
Nothing lasts forever, but the earth and sky
It's there always
And all your money won't another minute buy
Dust. . . all we are is dust in the wind
Life's too short brothers and sisters
Dust. . . all we are is dust in the wind

Open your eyes you've acquired quite a bit
Keep your balance don't you slip
It could all end instantly as you will see
Time waits for no one, it just moves on
There is a white one
Who won't accept the black one
Who won't accept the yellow one
Who can't accept the white. . .

When will we learn
That all we are is dust in the wind
Time for the healing to begin
All we is are dust in the wind
Time for the healing to begin
All we are is dust in the wind
Everything is dust in the wind

[exmarine]

Some things are sacred, even to skeptical humbugs like me, and beautiful language is one of them.

An evo who believes something is beautiful? Is beauty objective or in the eye of the beholder? Would anyone (who isn't hampered by mental illness) call a glorious sunset anything less than beautiful? Where does the aeshetic sense (feelings for beauty) fit into the evolutionary puzzle? It would seem to me that such things would be absolutely useless to the survival of any species.

[Junior]

But then why are there still monkeys?

Because the new "degrees of freedom" only affected a portion of the population.

[exmarine]

"Jesus said unto him, If thou wilt be perfect, go [and] sell that thou hast, and give to the poor, and thou shalt have treasure in heaven: and come [and] follow me. "

Yes, the rich young ruler did well in following the commandments 5 thru 10, but he fell short on the first one, didn't He? He loved his money more than God. There are only 2 ways to heaven: (1) absolute perfection (Mt. 5:58 "Be ye therefore perfect, even as your Father which is in heaven is perfect."), or (2) trusting completely in Jesus Christ and His finished work on the cross. The rich young ruler was trusting in the law. The law can only condemn - it is the great schoolmaster that drives us to Jesus Christ. We have ALL blown it big time and, in fact, we are doomed by the law. No one has a hope of getting to heaven by their own merit.