A Mathematician's View of Evolution

The Mathematical Intelligencer ^ | Granville Sewell

[seastay]

You guys talk a lot about something that nobody has any GOOD evidence one way or the other, such as an eyewitness account. How many more hours do we waist on this subject, and why are we so diligent about proving something we cannot? This topic is an effort in futility.

Like the the sea, the rain streams in from the rivers for an eternity and it is still never full.....

So, cheers, I am out to catch some sunshine, something that is at least tangible and real, and if somebody else claims that I am in darkness, well for me, It won't matter, because at least the alleged light impinging the skin warms the soul.

[Dimensio]

Then are you saying that you believe the theory of evolution is the most likely possibility based upon the evidences that you see? Is that your view?

Yes. This is no different than any other scientific claim.

How can a black hole suck in all matter and where does it go?

A black hole does not exactly "suck" matter in. A black hole is an extremely dense collapsed star producing such a strong gravitational pull that anything near it, including light, "falls" inside. The matter falls toward the singularity, though where the matter goes exactly is not entirely determined, and likely depends upon whether or not the singularity is spinning. For a spinning singularity, the matter will likely collide, but it is not known what will happen to matter reaching a point where spacetime curvature is infinite. A spinning singularity could potentially eject matter out the other side. I fail to understand how this relates to intelligent design.

How can the universe expand if the universe by definition, is the "universe"?

Your question makes little sense. The expansion of the universe is the increase in the total amount of "space". More specifically, it is a conutinual increase of the distance between matter in the universe.

These are retorical questions so please don't ask me to prove them

What would I ask you to prove? Your questions have well-understood answers.

There are lots of things in this universe for which there are no credible explanations.

Please provide an example of such a "thing".

When I was a youngster they told me nothing could go faster than the speed of light. Now they're saying that may not be true.

When were you told this? Please provide a reference.

I wouldn't dismiss things that have no credible explanation. That is often the way science advances.

Unless evidence exists for a claim, there is no reason to consider it. How can a claim for which there exists no means of testing be evaluated?

Before you can move to a "human being" you have to know what is life? If you have a definition what is it? Don't you think it would be good to know if pulling a fetus out of the womb and crushing it's scull constitute life?

You are again missing my point. The dispute regarding abortion is not over what constitutes "life" in individual cells. The debate, which is not a scientific dispute, is the physical characteristics required for a specific configuration of cells to be called a "human being".

[Dimensio]

You guys talk a lot about something that nobody has any GOOD evidence one way or the other, such as an eyewitness accoun

Not only is eyewitness evidence required for confidence in an explanation, eyewitness testimony is generally less reliable than forensic evidence. Your objections are founded upon a false premise.

[betty boop]

It shouldn't be a wonder that science is bringing about the end of the Darwinist era.

unspun!!!! It's so good to see you!!!

WRT the above, to retain its preeminence, it seems Darwinism may have to adjust to the astonishing developments in physics and mathematics since its day in the sun of classical Newtonian physics. We'll have to wait and see what happens. Yockey's working on it.... :^)

Thanks so much for writing, unspun! Don't be such a stranger....

[UndauntedR]

If a theory is wrong, it is either discarded or modified; if a law is wrong (e.g. Ampere's Law), it remains wrong.

You mean Ohm's Law.

[Physicist]

So you know for sure that that the car trip, after observing the car for 1/8 of a mile has, has been traveling exactly 1 hour to 5 significant digits. Of coarse there are no assumptions in this.

Of course there are assumptions. You ASSUME that the car's speedometer is functioning and properly calibrated. You ASSUME that the distance of the course is properly calibrated. You ASSUME that you know the diameter of the car's tires to five significant digits (bad assumption). But here's the key: every one of those needful measurements has an uncertainty associated with it. The time you calculate is no better than the most coarse of those uncertainties. That doesn't make it a theory, of course. You agree that it's a fact.

The measurement of the age of the universe proceeds the same way. It requires you to measure things like the absolute and relative brightness of Cepheid variable stars, the angular size of galaxies, the absolute and relative brightness of type 1a supernovae. These things have uncertainties associated with them, not to five significant digits, but--in decades past--to 10 to 50 percent. That means that the uncertainty in the final answer might have been no better than a factor of two. (Nowadays it's much better than that.) But still, that's only quantitatively different from the measurement you proposed, and which you called a fact. Qualitatively, they're the same.

[Physicist]

No, I mean Ampère's Law. It fails for a charging or discharging capacitor. Ohm's Law holds.

[Dimensio]

It shouldn't be a wonder that science is bringing about the end of the Darwinist era.

When did this development occur? It will be a surprise to the biologists of the world. Curious that you have obtained this information before any scientific publications have heard this finding.

[js1138]

I believe he was referring to the original version of Ampere's Law.

[betty boop]

Any thoughtful person knows that it isn't the influx of stellar energy [that causes] atoms to arrange themselves into computers and nuclear power plants and spaceships, it's human creativity. That ought to give us a clue into the nature of Creation itself.

Thank you so very much for your excellent essay/post, FreedomProtector -- and for the link!

[Tribune7]

Darwin was a gradualist. The fossil record contradicts gradualism i.e. Darwin.

Hence the theory needs patching via things like punctuated equilibrium.

The point of which is that Ann Coulter is right.

[Tribune7]

Is dismissing evolution as a "religion" name calling or not?

No. "snothead" and "in your wet dreams" is name calling.

But I concede that describing a view-- namely that the fossil record supports gradualism -- to the point that one denies reality would better be called a delusion than a religion.

The emoitional investment in such a view to the point where reality is denied and name calling begins, however, is more akin to religion than objective science.

[Tribune7]

And why would you consider dismissing a belief "name calling" unless the belief was a religion?

[Virginia-American]

Both creationism and ID are nonscientific. Both claim the laws of physics are insufficient to govern the world. That is not what is found scientifically. If you want to teach that to your kids, enroll them in a parochial school, or homeschool them.

Parochial (ie Catholic) schools teach normal biology. Some Protestant schools teach creationism as though it were science.

[js1138]

But I concede that describing a view-- namely that the fossil record supports gradualism -- to the point that one denies reality would better be called a delusion than a religion.

It might be a delusion in the absence of parallel lines of evidence.

But you are misrepresenting gradualism. Even in geology, gradualism acknowledges the effects of supervolcanos and asteroids -- even planetoids, as with the creation of the moon.

Evolution encompasses many modes and rates. We can observe saltation in plants, as when new species result from polyploidy. We are also learning that some animals have frequent non-fatal chromosome mutations. The more we learn about such phenomena the more obvious it becomes that all the processes needed to account for common descent are happening and can be studied -- eventually in the laboratory.

Variable rates of evolution are mostly the result of geologic events resulting in mass extinctions. Darwin explicitly considered this possibility and rejected it. He was wrong in rejecting it, but he had limited information about geologic processes, and limited information about the underlying processes of variation.

[UndauntedR]

I believe he's referring to superluminal group velocities which usually employ quantum tunneling to attain velocities higher than the speed of light. The media picked up on these experiements and distorted them, neglecting to point out or washing over that, indeed, it is not possible for phase velocities to be higher than the speed of light. Phase velocities are the components of waves (light, de Broglie, etc) which actually contain information.

Thus, the fact that nothing can travel faster than light is a consequence of the fact that no *information* can travel faster than light. More simply, without information... there's nothing.

It's a complicated point that can be confusing. Even though the group velocities can be faster than light, the actual event is contained in the information of the wave: the phase velocity.

[js1138]

And why would you consider dismissing a belief "name calling" unless the belief was a religion?

I asked specifically why you insist that evolution is a religion. Why do you use the word religion as a pejorative?

[Tribune7]

I am not misrepresenting gradualism or Darwin's view or the fossil record.

When you imply, however, that saltation is gradualism you are most certainly misrepresenting it.

[seastay]

This topic is an effort in futility.

Like the the sea, the rain streams in from the rivers for an eternity and it is still never full.....

So, cheers, I am out to catch some sunshine, something that is at least tangible and real, and if somebody else claims that I am in darkness, well for me, It won't matter, because at least the alleged light impinging the skin warms the soul.

[UndauntedR]

No, I mean Ampère's Law. It fails for a charging or discharging capacitor. Ohm's Law holds.

Oh, pre-Maxwell, I see. I just automatically include Maxwell's correction when I think about Ampere.

And Ohm's Law V = IR is misleading since it's not valid in a moving reference frame. (I've gotten in trouble once or twice with a knee-jerk V=IR reaction) The current density J = sig (E + v x B) is prefferred.