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?

[Doctor Stochastic]

Can we assume that this article is a philosophical underpinning of Creationism?

[RightWingNilla]

I bet any or all of the examples can be answered by genetics, ecology, physiology, or any of the other practical sciences.

These disciplines are no more than stamp collecting without evolution. Every time you have a novel DNA sequence in hand, you want to know if it is found in other organisms, and its homology to other known genes. Some proteins can take on novel functions in different contexts.

[jennyp]

Still stuck on putting all your faith in a Marxist it seems.

LOL, I'm just analyzing the source quote you relied on to defend your point!

But as I said, off to dinner...

[Aric2000]

These guys disagree with you VERY strongly, I can come up with a few others if you would like.

http://www.faseb.org/genetics/g-gsa/statement_on_evolution.shtml

TOE is the basis of most Biological sciences, and they WOULD notice if the TOE was NOT around.

Sorry, but you are misinformed.

[ALS]

Who better to ask than the very Marxists that embrace evolution, if they embrace evolution?
I wouldn't, however, drool over their dogma, seeking to find something anti-conservative. Curious that you have...

[Doctor Stochastic]

What happens if one is heterozygous for both thalassemia and sickle-cell anemia? Does one die or does one just have the ability to live in mosquito infested swamps (like Minneapolis?)

[ALS]

Equating Marxism with Christians again doc?

tsk tsk

a definite violation

That's 20 demerits with a possible 2 or 3 off for good behavior. We'll be watching..

[dark_lord]

Every time you have a novel DNA sequence in hand, you want to know if it is found in other organisms, and its homology to other known genes. Some proteins can take on novel functions in different contexts.

Truth. And this has what to do with TOE?

[RightWingNilla]

And this has what to do with TOE?

Everything actually. If you disagree, the burden of proof is on you to come up with an alternate unifying theory that matches the observations.

[dark_lord]

These guys disagree with you VERY strongly, I can come up with a few others if you would like.

Yeah. But notice they don't bother to define the theory on their site. And notice that they just link to a site that opposes "Creation Science", as if that was relevant, which it isn't. The ludicrousness of standard Creation Science does not validate the TOE, any more than claiming that since Facism stinks as a political system, that Communism must be the one true way.

They are making a political statement, not a scientific one.

[Doctor Stochastic]

If the TOE didn't exist the biological sciences wouldn't even notice.

All the biologists that I work with (and have worked with in the past) disagree with you. There are many journals devoted to evolutionary theory. I suggest that you peruse a good univerity library's collection of biology journals and check the number of articles on evolutionary theory.

[dark_lord]

And this has what to do with TOE?

Everything actually. If you disagree, the burden of proof is on you to come up with an alternate unifying theory that matches the observations.

Boy. So it has everything to do with it. Look, I studied genetics. And botony. And back when I studied those subject (back in the 70's), big suprise, the TOE wasn't even mentioned. (I misspeak -- actually, in intro botony it was covered in like one day, and then never referred to again.)

I don't have to come up with an alternative unifying theory, since the TOE doesn't actually provide much. For example, suppose I am a geneticist looking for the genetic cause of a disease. Do I look up on the wall at my framed TOE statement that "Evolution is caused by natural selection, which is driven by mutation" and go, AHA! This predicts the problem! This tells me where to look!

No. It doesn't. That's why I say if the TOE didn't exist no one would miss it. Wait. Maybe this more focused statement, framed on my other wall (I turn around to look at it) which says: "Evolution can be precisely defined as any change in the frequency of alleles within a gene pool from one generation to the next." - Helena Curtis and N. Sue Barnes, Biology, 5th ed. 1989 Worth Publishers, p.974. will help me. Nope. Doesn't help me either. Guess I just have to get back to real science. You know, lab work. Observation. Recording data. Testing this, testing that. Writing those papers for peer review. (Just kidding -- that's not my job. But that is real science. The TOE has squat usefulness for that kind of work.)

[Virginia-American]

...we don't have to remember as many facts in our heads now that we can look them up in books - which is true enough - and therefore the evolutionary pressure towards bigger brains has ended. Say what??? ...

I see very little pressure towards bigger brains at the present time. Do smarter people tend to have more children?

This has always been one of my favorite speculations about brain evolution Throwing Madonna by William Calvin . His hypothesis is that our large brains are due to selective pressure to be able to throw stones at prey, and that speech, abstract thought, etc, are side-effects.

[Aric2000]

Related to that, the fossil record shows long periods with no changes, and then WHAMO, huge changes suddenly appear. I argue with the TOE proponents (who push the concept of long periods of gradual microevoluion)

Wrong, SO VERY WRONG!!!

This is called Puncuated equilibria.

Gould and Eldredge came up with the theory to be a part of evolutionary theory, NOT separate from it, it is a minor piece as well, because it does help explain some of the sudden appearances of some species in the fossil record, and does not at all discredit phyletic gradualism.

So again, you have been misinformed.

Here, maybe this will be helpful.

PE is essentially and exclusively directed to questions at the level of speciation and processes affecting species. The basis of PE is the neontological theory of peripatric speciation. The criteria by which "punctuations" are recognized by Gould and Eldredge involve temporal issues and geographic issues. PE is not expected to be as useful at lower or higher levels of change.

It is NOT an exclusive theory as you seem to think, it is an inclusive theory, that helped explain something that before had been somewhat unexplainable.

It was supposed to add to evolution, it has not and does not refute it.

If you believe that somehow Puncuated equilibria discredits or hurts the theory of evolution, you are sadly mistaken.

Both Gould and Eldredge accept the theory of evolution as true, but wanted to explain one of the problems they saw through the theory of Puncuated equilibria.

[Virginia-American]

What happens if one is heterozygous for both thalassemia and sickle-cell anemia?

A question I was asking myself as I posted. I don't know.

My **guess** is it would be bad news, since you wouldn't have any normal hemoglobin. I'm certainly unaware of any research on this.

[dark_lord]

There are many journals devoted to evolutionary theory. I suggest that you peruse a good univerity library's collection of biology journals and check the number of articles on evolutionary theory.

I concur that there are many such journals. However, peruse the articles therein and you will find that few relate to the TOE. They tend to focus on real scienctific work. But scientists are subject to the academic "publish or perish" credo. So you will find articles such as "The human penis as a semen displacement device" or "Matriliny as daughter-biased investment" in Evolution and Human Behavior - The Official Journal of the Human Behavior and Evolution Society; or "Bone and ivory points in the Lower and Middle Paleolithic of Europe" in the "Journal of Human Evolution".

I concede that paleontologists probably wouldn't get published unless there were evolution focused journals, but I suspect just about everyone else would.

The fact is, hardly any articles relate to the TOE. The journals provide a convenient framework for publishing. If the theory du jure was ID, I think precisely the same articles would be published -- since for any practical purpose there is no way to distinguish between ID and TOE based on observation.

[RightWingNilla]

Boy. So it has everything to do with it. Look, I studied genetics. And botony. And back when I studied those subject (back in the 70's), big suprise, the TOE wasn't even mentioned.

Well I don't know what else to tell you other than you may have been shortchanged there in your scientific education. I have been studying biology for over 10 years (5 at the graduate level) and the theory of evolution is a major part of the curriculum.

since the TOE doesn't actually provide much. For example, suppose I am a geneticist looking for the genetic cause of a disease. Do I look up on the wall at my framed TOE statement that "Evolution is caused by natural selection, which is driven by mutation" and go, AHA! This predicts the problem! This tells me where to look!

Huh? This statement is as valid as saying an electrician can rewire a house without knowledge of QED, so therefore QED "doesn't provide much".

Doesn't help me either. Guess I just have to get back to real science. You know, lab work. Observation. Recording data.

Again, without a unifying theory, you are stamp collecting. Your'e just a technician going through the motions without knowing why.

[Doctor Stochastic]

The fact is, hardly any articles relate to the TOE.

The authors tend to disagree with you. Titles are more like: "Microarray analysis of evolution of RNA viruses: Evidence of circulation of virulent highly divergent vaccine-derived polioviruses" or "Accelerated regulatory gene evolution in an adaptive radiation" or "Molecular phylogeny analysis of fiddler crabs: Test of the hypothesis of increasing behavioral complexity in evolution" or "Evolution of genome-phenome diversity under environmental stress" or "Documentation of Reticulate Evolution in Peonies (Paeonia) Using Internal Transcribed Spacer Sequences of Nuclear Ribosomal DNA: Implications for Biogeography and Concerted Evolution."

[Aric2000]

Where did he go?

[Aric2000]

OOHHHH, OOOHHH 2100?