There are valid criticisms of evolution

Wichita Eagle ^ | 3/9/2005 | David berlinski

[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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[js1138]

Someone call for Classical Gas?

[js1138]

[betty boop]

Thank you so very much for this fine summary, A-G!

[Doctor Stochastic]

In an absolute sense, the temperature of most living organisms is rather high. The just need lots of energy to keep going.

[metacognative]

What is that acronym?

[Fish Hunter]

The acceleration produced by the solar effect is a function of surface area, light intensity, and reflectivity. Solar sails work very well because they have a lot of surface area, a high reflectivity, and a a direct incidence angle to the sun. Couple that with a low mass, then F=ma, will give you a force large enough to propel a spacecraft in "human time-frames".

Every celestial object around the sun experiences these effects. The effect on the Earth is reduced by a spherical reflection, atmospheric absorption and the fact the Earth is not a perfect reflector. Light hits the Earth every day. Every photon that hits the surface and reflects off of it imparts a little kinetic energy. Couple that with a huge mass you will get a small force. This is why the Earth's orbit is "measurably" constant.

If you make the evolutionary assumption that Earth is a billion years old, you have to accept that the Earth would of been under this solar effect for a billion years.

This small change in kinetic energy is cumulative, and over the years it adds up to a huge change in velocity. We do not see this, so therefore this evolutionary assumption is in violation of the laws of physics PERIOD.

Do the math. No matter how small an acceleration value you use, you will see the Earth's orbit is unstable over a "cosmic" time-frame. The only solution to this dilemma is to change your ASSUMPTION that the Earth is a billion years old because you cannot discount the empirical evidence for the solar effect and our measurably constant orbit.

If evolution is true then classical physics is false and all the hard empirical science we have developed is wrong. The assumption that the solar system is only thousands of years old DOES fit because this solar effect would not of amounted to anything measurable in this tiny time-frame.

Thanks for the critiques. It has been good sport, Because this is a revolutionary insight I think it is foolish to continue without writing a paper on it. I have a much more important missionary project on the plate now. As soon as I finish that I will take the time to do a rigorous write it up. I will probably get crucified, but if I cause a few people to challenge some of their preconceived notions it will be worth it.

F H

PS: Vaderetro, I used the intensity of light at 1 AU. For evolution to be correct the Earth must have been at approximately this distance from the sun for a cosmic time-frame. All I have to do is show that the solar effect exists, and over a "cosmic time-frame" it will move planets. My numbers did that by many orders of magnitude to spare.

[Doctor Stochastic]

National Review's take on Berlinski.

[donh]

A crystal is a low-information state, low entropy. It doesn't take much to describe a crystal, the lattice descriptor, the origin, and how much salt. One can even tell exactly how many flaws a crystal will have if given the temperature.

The meaning of "information" w/respect to states of matter or energy is a matter, I aver, of viewpoint, not fixed to a particular stochastic meaning as I think you assume--The reason it can't be considered a vital consideration regarding the reliability of evolutionary theory. I can write a message with crystal flaws. How can I write a message with amorphous gas molecules in a uniformly random suspension? My point being that there are no fixed gradiants I can leverage to store or pass a message in a uniformly distributed gas suspension--because the entropy has, regarding this question, been maxed by gasation, as compared to crystals.

[jennyp]

should-i-even-bother PLACEMARKER.

[balrog666]

Oh, my! I guess you are just waiting around for your Nobel prize then?

BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHA!

[NonLinear]

I'm sorry, I really must have missed something.

The ratio of a/g is the ratio of the acceleration from the solar wind (in the + r direction, outward) to the acceleration due to the sun's gravity (in the -r direction, inward).

If a/g > 1.0 the body accelerates away from the sun
If a/g = 1.0 the body is in static equilibrium, and just sits there until something else happens.
If a/g < 1.0 the the body accelerates towards the sun.

This a/g ratio for the earth was roughy 1.63E-14, or
0.0000000000000163. This is much less than 1.0. This means that the earth must offset the sun's gravity by means of an obital velocity, if it is to avoid plunging into the sun.

Were a/g > 1.0, our orbit would not last a minute, and we would be soaring out into space along with everything else in our solar system.

That's how I am reading this. Where have I made a mistake?

[metacognative]

Well then, we should probably disregard all those ideas...
that's the darwinite way!

[Elsie]

I'm not a Big Banger, either. But one day it occurred to me that there was a fatal flaw in the Big Bang theory that was so huge that I wondered if I was missing something.

IF there are REALLY such things as Black Holes, that are SO immence NOTHING ever can escape them, would not the OOOU (Origin of Our Universe) been the BIGGEST and the BLACKEST of holes?

How did all this STUFF get out??

[NonLinear]

ping for location

[VadeRetro]

Everything I've been patiently explaining is still true; the bigger a thing gets the more squishy it is and the more it absorbs energy internally rather than rebounding elastically. Conservation of momentum is easily observed for small, elastic-rebounding things but it has trouble in high-friction environments. (It's actually still holding, but the momentum changes are disguised as heat within macro objects.) The Earth is very squishy. Especially its clouds and oceans.

But I'm going to try a whole other viewpoint, since it seems you've got that one barricaded and nothing is getting through. You concede that the push must be very, very, very, very tiny. It is that. (For reasons I've beaten to death I suspect it is close to zero. Note that a billion times zero is still zero.)

At any rate it is below noise level.

There is a noise level. The Earth is struck daily by space objects of non-trivial mass and momentum. The tiniest imbalance in that bombardment utterly swamps your trivial, utterly unmeasurable solar sail effect. Then there's the gravitational pull of near-neighbors the Moon, Venus, and Mars.

You can't have a cumulative effect from a "signal" that's dwarfed by the noise. It doesn't accumulate. It never goes anywhere.

Lest I forget: yes, the Earth is still at one AU from the sun. But if it ever does move out to the orbit of Mars the solar pressure won't be so much. You pushed it out to 20 gazillion something-or-others with no decrease in solar photons. That's another way your answer is wrong. Not that it matters.

[Fish Hunter]

Good question. I assume you are using that excellent NASA web page someone posted before. I will get back to you soon with an answer using that web page (my original analysis looked at the problem in another way).

F H

[Nightshift]

thanks. I thought it fit them nicely.

[Nightshift]

Man, they must be old gym socks. You should have them carbon dated, just to see how old they really are. LOL.

In a 1,000 years, I wonder how they will explain this kind of evolution.

[VadeRetro]

Let's try yet another way of looking at this. Let's multiply 1.63 x 10^-14 by four billion years and call it acceleration years. It's like asking whether if you speeded up time by a factor of four billion, would the acceleration be more visible?

I'm ignoring whether the acceleration by gravity would work faster as well, which it would. I'm also temporarily waiving every other objection I've made on the subject.

The new ratio is .0000652 if I'm using my calculator correctly. It still don't move much.

[Doctor Stochastic]

Again note the tenaciousness with which people cling to incorrect numerics. Some people would rather remove their own gall bladder than to admit to numerical error.