Posted on 03/09/2005 1:46:32 PM PST by metacognative
Opinions
There are valid criticisms of evolution
BY DAVID BERLINSKI
"If scientists do not oppose anti-evolutionism," said Eugenie Scott, the executive director of the National Council on Science Education, "it will reach more people with the mistaken idea that evolution is scientifically weak."
Scott's understanding of "opposition" had nothing to do with reasoned discussion. It had nothing to do with reason at all. Discussing the issue was out of the question. Her advice to her colleagues was considerably more to the point: "Avoid debates."
Everyone else had better shut up.
In this country, at least, no one is ever going to shut up, the more so since the case against Darwin's theory retains an almost lunatic vitality. Consider:
• The suggestion that Darwin's theory of evolution is like theories in the serious sciences -- quantum electrodynamics, say -- is grotesque. Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.
• Field studies attempting to measure natural selection inevitably report weak-to-nonexistent selection effects.
• Darwin's theory is open at one end, because there is no plausible account for the origins of life.
• The astonishing and irreducible complexity of various cellular structures has not yet successfully been described, let alone explained.
• A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors, and depart leaving no obvious descendants.
• Where attempts to replicate Darwinian evolution on the computer have been successful, they have not used classical Darwinian principles, and where they have used such principles, they have not been successful.
• Tens of thousands of fruit flies have come and gone in laboratory experiments, and every last one of them has remained a fruit fly to the end, all efforts to see the miracle of speciation unavailing.
• The remarkable similarity in the genome of a great many organisms suggests that there is at bottom only one living system; but how then to account for the astonishing differences between human beings and their near relatives -- differences that remain obvious to anyone who has visited a zoo?
If the differences between organisms are scientifically more interesting than their genomic similarities, of what use is Darwin's theory, since its otherwise mysterious operations take place by genetic variations?
These are hardly trivial questions. Each suggests a dozen others. These are hardly circumstances that do much to support the view that there are "no valid criticisms of Darwin's theory," as so many recent editorials have suggested.
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I can't do a complete job, but yours is an excellent question. I may have to finish up tomorrow if no one else jumps in.
Let's take a little round cell. For whatever reason when it divides, the new cell sticks on at one end rather than separating completely. The new cell has the same genetic makeup as the first cell. It divides and we have a chain of three. The benefit is that it can absorb food more efficiently. There's no real risk if the cells are separated, the cell membrane can probably repair itself. Clearly this process can continue until the physics of the situation says longer is no longer better. We have a streptococcus.
Of course other changes keep happening. As an example, let's say one of the cells develops a way of keeping all of one of its light sensitive chemicals in one spot. So now we have a chain of, say five cells but one of them is more light sensitive than the others. Some of these 5 cell chains turn towards or away from the light randomly and half get fried. The ones which turn away from the light survive and reproduce.
More tomorrow if it has not all become blindingly clear before then.
"That Merlot that comes in the Box isn't bad at all.And here I thought you were some French fella"
LOL! Nope - crusty New Hampshire native. Scots-Irish.
kool, I kinda think of you as "Mongoose"
Did you know a new geology book states that all major mountains are the same age? Date that coincidence
"kool, I kinda think of you as "Mongoose""
I am fine with that. You can think of me any way you wish as long as it isn't "Naked".
That'd be creepy.
yes it would, dont mention it again
The stuff growing on the food does not spontaneously emerge from the food.
That geology book would be full of crap, quite frankly, given that the geologic record is chock-full of cycles of mountain-building.
Tell me one case of speciation in a hundred a fifty years of devoted darwinite digging...besides a different color bacteria...
Question - have you ever heard of the Amarillo Mountains? It is a serious question, not a joke.
"The stuff growing on the food does not spontaneously emerge from the food."
It did according to Church-sponsored philosophers before 1600. "Spontaneous Generation" - Aristotle believed it too.
"yes it would, dont mention it again"
I shan't. Ok so not all my jokes can be funny. well, maybe a few can...but not that one.
I blame the boxed merlot...
Not sure what a crapsite is...but let's use your information. I'm asking you to inform me rather than insult
Rather than random activity, from your other posts I gather your point is that evolution is driven by natural selection, which isn't exactly random. Am I right?
Anyway, whatever the mechanism is that drives species changes over time, wouldn't you agree that it should be darn busy to create complex mechanisms like the eye, a wing, metamorphosis? Why haven't we seen anything other than microevolution over thousands of years?
Seems like a species that evolved into a bird would have to try all sorts of limb changes/mutations to eventually work its way down a series of changes ending up with flight, with many unhelpful failures along the way.
My understanding is that natural selection doesn't "know" the species needs to be a bird, so it seems a very non-selective, broad, "influence" like gravity or entropy. To get something complex and sophisticated from an influence like that, it seems to me so many dead-ends would be attempted that we would see lots of species changes, helpful and non-helpful, in recorded history.
Heck, you started life as a unicellular. Then you were a simple colony of related cells. Then your cells started to differentiate ...
The answer to your question is no. What's the catch?
But wait! DNA itself is designed to be self healing and to resist mutation. And despite the thousands of generations of careful selective breeding (which will easily represent millions of years of natural selection), a dog remains essentially a freaky looking wolf and not a new breed.
Quiz me this: If the furthest galaxies are 13 billion lightyears away and the age of the universe is 14 billion years old and since the light is in the visible range, that means that the galaxy is traveling away from the earth at a relatively slow pace.
Now, assuming that the earth and that galaxy are at opposite ends of the universe and both are equal distance from the center of the "Big Bang" (7 billion l.y. from the cehter), then the light from that distant galaxy we can observe today left that galaxy 13 billion years ago, i.e. it had to be 13 billion l.y. from where earth is now 13 billion years ago. That gives it 1 billion years to move from the BB to it's current position.
How did the galaxy manage to move 7 billion light years from the center of the "Big Bang" in only 1 billion years without violating Einstein's theory of relativity?
The Origin of Mountains, Ollier and Pain
Don't be afraid of new ideas, old timer
And here I thought you had rejected silly notions.
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