Evolution debate enters ‘round two' (Proposal in Kansas: Change the definition of 'Science')

Actually, the Biblical story of how Eve was created most certainly puts the Bible at odds with evolution being involved with the creation of man.

Unfortuately, I'm in a rush and only have time to respond to this one thing before heading to work...

But if by "an animal" you mean "cockatoo", then no, there is not "only one species" because there are many species in the cockatoo group of the parrot family. So I don't understand the question.

Yes, that's what I meant. I had a feeling my question was not worded well. (How should it have been worded?) By an animal, I meant for example, a cockatoo, or a pig, or a dog, or a giraffe, or a grasshopper.

I'll read the other posts tonight.

Let me suggest that we cut the size of our posts somewhat. Although I sincerely appreciate your effort, I am sure that it is becoming somewhat of a time drain to you, as it is to me, to post such long documents. While I find the exercise extremely interesting and informative, I would definitely like to devote some of that required time elsewhere. Therefore, with this post, I am going to select sections and post only on those (even though I will try to hit most). If there are specific areas that I fail to address that you would particularly like to see me attempt to answer, just let me know and I will abandon others in favor of those. I will do likewise with your posts. Agreed?

By specifying only "experiment", you've left out the "observation" part (i.e., the gathering and testing of evidence by other than just "experimental" means). Don't do that.

Experimentation is the only “prospective” means of testing hypotheses or theories. All else is “retrospective” and relies purely on inductive reasoning. The chief problem with retrospective observations combined with inductive reasoning is that it, most often, requires the observer to make assumptions about the presence or absence of necessary/sufficient conditions. Frequently, such assumptions come to be sacrosanct and thus become impediments to progress in allowing changes to the theory or even its potential replacement. Consequently, my bias is, and will remain, with “prospective” experimentation.

…What aspect of evolution would you like me to show you empirical evidence for?…

Specifically, I would like a reference to any experiment wherein a new, more complex species has emerged from a less complex, different one.

…Dembski, who's rather an idiot (details upon request), which is probably the reason he's a favorite of creationists. And Dembski is quite simply wrong…

I do not know this man, nor have I read his work extensively. Additionally, it is certainly possible for anyone, regardless of education, to make mistakes just as I did in an earlier post. However, I submit that no one who has earned a PhD in any of the “hard” sciences such as mathematics, physics, etc., should be classed as an “idiot.” While you or I, or even, a majority of others, may disagree with his postulations, it is worth remembering that a great many of the scientific knowledge advancements and their originators were unfairly ridiculed by a “majority” when their ideas were first put forward.

Depends on how you define "directed", I suppose. For example, since the 1960's it has been known that environmental stresses on some organisms causes them to trigger shuffling of certain parts of their genomes. This is not "purely random", and it is "directed" in a sense, but not in the sense of sitting down and thinking, "hmm, how do I want to alter the genome today..."

Sorry, it could be my faulty memory, but I’ve had college biology since the ‘60’s and I don’t recall the mention of any mechanism, other than “adaptation,” that is anything like what you specified. Are you proposing that “environmental stresses” other than the presence of radiation, chemicals, etc., are mutagens?

Additionally, (assuming my memory is, in deed, faulty) a question immediately comes to mind: has such a mechanism ever been associated with the emergence of a new species?

… there are a wide range of possibilities between "purely random" and "intelligently designed".

Sorry, I must disagree. For example, the presence of certain mutagenic gases or chemical compounds near a volcano may not be random at any particular time, but on a planetary scale over a purported evolutionary time scale, e.g., a million years, such would probably qualify as completely random.

… natural selection is neither "purely random" (nor "purely *non*random), nor is it "intelligent" or "design", and yet it still brings "order from chaos".

As I understand the posits of “Darwinism,” natural selection is not the mechanism of initiating change, but rather mutation. Natural selection is only involved after a mutation has occurred. Am I wrong in this perception?

What you keep missing is that there's no requirement that useful mutations happen "simultaneously".

Not true. I was merely trying to point that it would exceptionally improbable for such to occur. I was in no way postulating that it was a requirement.

For example, one of the mutations ("A") … Cambrian timespan.)

I have no quarrel with your assertions here except to point out, that as I understand “Darwinism,” it takes a large number of successive mutations (i.e., generations) accumulating to result in a new species, i.e., for green crabs to become anything but crabs.

You're calculating the odds of "Joe Smith wins the lottery two weeks in a row", when the actual case is "someone, somewhere, wins the lottery most every week, what are the odds that two of them will run into each other at some point?"

Not quite. However, to use your analogy and extend it somewhat, I was concerned with odds of two lottery winners meeting each other, having a child together and that child (or grand child, or what ever descendant you like, until the money was spent) also winning the lottery and meeting someone else who had also won the lottery, having a child together, etc.

[Therefore, for all practical considerations, the accumulation of beneficial mutations in any organism is restricted to those that occur in successive generations. ]

Bingo!

This was my original point all along. Sorry I apparently communicated it so poorly.

You make genetic drift sound like a destructive process only. It's also likely to "boost" a neutral mutation in the population.

Again, not my intended implication. I intended to imply that the probability of a benign mutation becoming a beneficial mutation was potentially decreased as much by genetic drift as potentially increased by such. Therefore, the probability of a benign mutation surviving genetic drift must be accounted as a lower probability than just assuming that all benign mutations hang around until they become beneficial.

[For “beneficial” mutations to accumulate, the required population size, the required number of generations to reach the appropriate size after the appearance of each beneficial mutation, ]

Say what? "Reach the appropriate size"? What's this about expanding populations, and why?

It’s the lottery scenario again. If the odds of winning the lottery are 1 in 1,000,000 per drawing but only 10 people are playing, then they are going to have to play one whale of a lot of drawings before there is ever a winner... probably everybody dies before there is a winner. However, if we wait until these people have great, great, etc., grandchildren (assuming they all had a large number of children and all played), then the probability of someone winning is becoming much more reasonable. It becomes even more reasonable after more generations, but then for the next improvement we are back to the child of the lottery winner meeting the child of another lottery winner scenario, again.

[the time between generations and the mutation rate act multiplicatively to decrease the probabilities of additional beneficial mutations within a limited time. ]

Let’s continue to use the lottery scenario. The time between generations can be equated to the time it takes to have enough great, great, etc., grand children to have a reasonable chance of winning. The mutation rate can be equated to the odds of winning per generation (note: this would include the odds of winning any individual lottery and the number of drawings per generation). After a winner, once again, we are back to the child of the lottery winner meeting the child of another lottery winner scenario.

[Consequently, by “Darwinism’s posit, bacteria would arguably increase their complexity to the point of becoming another organism. ]

…evolution does *not* "strive for greater complexity". Yes, it sometimes produces greater complexity in its exploration of fitness space, but contrary to popular impressions, evolution is *not* a walk up a "ladder" of "progress". Increased *fitness* is not synonymous with increased *complexity*.

Is not the “walk up a ‘ladder’" exactly how “Darwinism” postulates that new species emerge? Exactly what would it take for bacteria to “walk up the ladder?”

…And exactly how much evolution would one *expect* to achieve in only "many thousands of generations" of lab-sized populations?

Back to the lottery scenario… in millions upon millions of generations of millions upon millions of individuals, I would expect at least one lottery winner, if there was ever going to be one. In fact, in that number of individuals, I expect enough lottery winners whose children had children by other lottery winners so that there would be, possibly, a two-celled bacteria or some such “new species.”

And again, you're incorrect in assuming that they *must* occur "sequentially" or "simultaneously"…

Mutations can only spread “generationally,” meaning that the accumulation must be sequential. If you are postulating that multiple different mutations may occur singly to different individuals per generation, I am not arguing from a purely possible occurrence standpoint. However, if this is the case, the mutation rate, which includes detrimental mutations as well as beneficial ones, has a limit or the detrimental mutations will destroy the population before the next generation of beneficial mutation holders becomes large enough to be self sustaining. Given this limit, probabilities of multiple different mutations occurring singly to different individuals per generation decrease rather starkly.

… Use the best real-world numbers available for the parameters you're using in your model, or best estimates with appropriate error-bars.

Do the *full* model, especially with realistic estimates of population sizes, total mutation events, number of mutations necessary, etc., and you'll find it's entirely within the realm of reasonable possibility.

Sorry, you are asking the equivalent of a graduate thesis. Although I would enjoy the research and writing of such, “real-world” activities like getting money for food, etc., intrudes on my time.

Check out the links later in the post you were replying to...

Did (although not all). Found several assumptions I disagreed with just as you did with my rather (admittedly) simplistic approach. However, as you observed, simpler is not necessarily worse.

So if your model's conclusions demonstrate that such results are impossible in the real world, well, it's your model that's wrong.

I see, just as it was wrong for John Dalton to say that Aristotle ‘s model of the “elements” was wrong?

And I've already identified a number of serious false assumptions in it (primarily your requirement that mutations happen *together*).

As noted above, I never made this assumption. However, it probably my poor communications skills that led you to this conclusion. Please accept my apologies.

You are correct... I screwed up... I was more concerned with using the HTML tag for superscripts than I was in looking in the right place on my scratch sheet for the correct number. Sorry 'bout that. Good catch.</p>

Experimentation is the only “prospective” means of testing hypotheses or theories.

I know I am jumping into the middle but I found this statement to catch my attention for if you believe that then you reject the basis for much of our science and sheds light on your lack of knowledge of the scientific process.

I will trust that if you want to talk more about my concerns, you will go visit an authority on the scientifc theory of validating hypotheses and the critical function of peer review of theories. Thank you.

[Experimentation is the only “prospective” means of testing hypotheses or theories.]

…if you believe that then you reject the basis for much of our science and sheds light on your lack of knowledge of the scientific process.

I will trust that if you want to talk more about my concerns, you will go visit an authority on the scientifc theory of validating hypotheses and the critical function of peer review of theories. Thank you.

Perhaps, you mistook my meaning or I, yours. Please note the following definitions and confirm whether I mistook you or vice versa:

prospective adj : relating to or effective in the future

retrospective adj : concerned with or related to the past

Introduction to the Scientific Method

The scientific method is the process by which scientists, collectively and over time, endeavor to construct an accurate (that is, reliable, consistent and non-arbitrary) representation of the world. Recognizing that personal and cultural beliefs influence both our perceptions and our interpretations of natural phenomena, we aim through the use of standard procedures and criteria to minimize those influences when developing a theory. As a famous scientist once said, "Smart people (like smart lawyers) can come up with very good explanations for mistaken points of view." In summary, the scientific method attempts to minimize the influence of bias or prejudice in the experimenter when testing an hypothesis or a theory.

I. The scientific method has four steps

1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.

2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.

3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.

4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments

Let's not shake science's foundations. Revelation of faith is not an excuse to avoid using our God given brains.