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There are valid criticisms of evolution
Wichita Eagle ^ | 3/9/2005 | David berlinski

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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TOPICS: Philosophy
KEYWORDS: crevolist; darwinism; science
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To: Tamberlane

Didn't see it, but I'll catch up as quick as I can.

Thanks!


581 posted on 03/10/2005 4:43:10 PM PST by Radix (Lost: Decent Tag Line; Reward offered.)
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To: NonLinear
Hi NonLinear,

I studied the page. Sound physics. Got me thinking in a different way, and I went back and checked my original equation I used. I found that I left out the initial condition. You "seem" to be RIGHT. The solar effect simply cancels out a little gravitational acceleration and offsets our orbit a small unmeasurable amount. I originally used a kinetic energy approach, which in hindsight was incorrect.

I used "seem", not to discredit your achievement (the math supports you PERIOD), but just that I want to study this solar effect some more and try some different methods of attack, because my gut feeling is that I am on to something and I am one stubborn SOB (I am still thinking the solar pressure shifts the energy balance of the solar system over time, but I need to run a bunch of equations to get a handle on it)

Job well done, man of science !!

F H
582 posted on 03/10/2005 4:45:23 PM PST by Fish Hunter
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To: Fish Hunter
Job well done, man of science !!

More like "man who just likes math and I'll have a side of physics with that too".

Not trying to dispute your original claim, but would rather not let you to walk into a lion's den packing a water pistol...

Good luck!
583 posted on 03/10/2005 5:22:20 PM PST by NonLinear ("If not instantaneous, then extraordinarily fast" - Galileo re. speed of light. circa 1600)
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To: VadeRetro
I'm ignoring whether the acceleration by gravity would work faster as well, which it would...

But that's already in the ratio so it's not being ignored.

584 posted on 03/10/2005 5:22:29 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Doctor Stochastic
Some people would rather remove their own gall bladder than to admit to numerical error.

Hurts enough when you let a doctor do it and you can get a few days worth of Percocet.

585 posted on 03/10/2005 5:23:43 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Conspiracy Guy
It is really frustrating when you answer the same question 5 times to different posters and number 6 chimes in.

I hear you.

586 posted on 03/10/2005 5:33:57 PM PST by Oztrich Boy (The true danger is when Liberty is nibbled away, for expedients. - Edmund Burke (1799))
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To: metacognative
How do you know for sure it is a myth?

Because I've read Genesis. It's a myth. You don't need to study Darwin to realize it is a myth, study Galileo and how he describes how the solar system is set up as opposed to how Genesis says. That's why he was branded a heretic. Even if Darwin is wrong, Galileo was right.

587 posted on 03/10/2005 6:05:01 PM PST by PFC
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To: VadeRetro; NonLinear
Actually you need to multiply it by a billion years * 365 days*24 hours*60mins*60 seconds. Then square that number (a*t^2). You will get a big number that does amount to much because the noise is always positive and it has a radial direction outward. The other noise you were talking about is in random directions and therefore cancels out.

NonLinear convinced me I was wrong using another approach. You two guys showed a lot of class, not like some of the other despicable smart asses on this thread. I still want to pursue this under a different avenue because this is really fascinating stuff. (I need to look at case where the solar pressure changes over the eons due to the age of the sun, I want to figure out if this would cause any unstability in the Earth's orbit over a celestial time-frame)

Cudos,

FH
588 posted on 03/10/2005 6:13:35 PM PST by Fish Hunter
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To: Conspiracy Guy

I also want to apologize. I should never have taken the thread as seriously and as personaly as I did. I should have known going in that neither side was going to convince the other and that it would have been better to avoid the topic (at least in this format, where it is really hard to elaborate and things come of differently than they do in person). I think on most issues we would probably agree (I am pro-life, pro-military, small government, and consider myself a patriot and lover of my country) On this issue we don't agree. I would rather have you as a countryman than some liberal, mealy-mouthed new-ager who happened to agree with me on evolution.
And for the record, I have been called a lot worse than a jerk and a dumbass; and i've sometimes even deserved it :)


589 posted on 03/10/2005 6:25:40 PM PST by CarolinaGuitarman
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To: Fish Hunter
Actually you need to multiply it by a billion years * 365 days*24 hours*60mins*60 seconds. Then square that number (a*t^2).

I don't think so. We've been watching for a lot of years worth of seconds already and there's been no detectable outward drift. If, say, the Earth were 6,000 years old now and there has been over this time an accumulating acceleration, the effect might have become at least measurable with the sensitive technology we've been using since the dawn of the space age.

That's your model. The effect is tiny, but it builds and builds until it's whooshing through the galaxy and we're flying right out of the solar system. If we're supposed to be flying trillions of miles out after a billion years, we should be able to tell we're moving after 6,000.

Anyway, the model is still bad. One of your wave-aways was this: "The other noise you were talking about is in random directions and therefore cancels out."

Just in one case, I don't think the meteors do cancel out. If nothing else, I think there's a bias in favor of impacts in the direction we move. It's similar to how there's more rain on your car's front window than the back when you're moving. That's a decelerating effect which would tend to more than cancel your teeny tiny solar sail push.

Thus, maybe your winning ICR contest entry should be titled, "The Earth Would Have Fallen Into the Sun by Now if it is Old." However, orbital mechanics are based upon fairly stable equilibria and are not easily degraded to the point of catastrophe except when big things start banging into each other.

But your effect is so teeny tiny that in any event the Earth just eats it with the mushiness of its atmosphere, oceans, snowpack, etc. Earth is not a SuperballTM, it's a bean bag.

590 posted on 03/10/2005 6:36:27 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: PFC
" Because I've read Genesis. It's a myth."

There are many myths. Gilgamesh, Beowulf, lots and lots of others.

Just because you have read them is not a reason to dismiss them. They are all based on things which other generations seemed to have understood.

I have read the Bible myself, and though there are apparent discrepancies, it is still more likely that the so called myths are based on facts which have not been adequately recorded.

Your post seems arrogant and dismissive to me. I doubt that you have read even a fraction of nearly the things which I actually have.

That does not make me a better person, but it does make me think that I have a bit more tolerance than you have expressed.

I assure you, that you do not know everything!

Darwin had no knowledge of DNA or Chromosomes.

Galileo challenged the priests to simply look through his glass, but that does not mean that he knew of many of what are now considered "Laws of Physics."

I cannot say exactly why your post annoys me me, but my sense is that you are just an arrogant little snit.

Have a nice day.

591 posted on 03/10/2005 6:38:12 PM PST by Radix (Lost: Decent Tag Line; Reward offered.)
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To: VadeRetro; Fish Hunter
However, orbital mechanics are based upon fairly stable equilibria and are not easily degraded to the point of catastrophe except when big things start banging into each other.

I don't mean to imply that persistent drag effects don't matter. Skylab was supposed to be in a long-term stable orbit. However, in the mission planning stage (early 60s) when we calculated that orbit we didn't yet know that the Earth's atmosphere swells outward during peaks of the 11-year solar cycle. We had made measurements during a quiet phase and didn't appreciate the changeable nature of what we had measured. When the next peak came, Skylab proved to be skimming gas, its orbit decaying rapidly.

But I suspect the meteor imbalance drag effect is too small to do much, never mind that it swamps your solar sail.

592 posted on 03/10/2005 6:47:02 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Alamo-Girl
After all the theory of a continuum of life is based on the quantizations (fossils) of a continuum (geologic record).

That's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what quantizing a continuum means. Quantizing the continuum is where you draw an imaginary line where reality has no lines. But a fossil is a real entity. Life is a succession of discrete entities - discrete genomes, discrete beings.

593 posted on 03/10/2005 6:57:02 PM PST by Right Wing Professor
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To: VadeRetro
True,

You do seem to be open my doubt that anything in the solar system can remain stable for a billion years. The solar system is very active and a billion years is an incredibly long time, almost inconceivable to the human mind. Any constant perturbation of any size would effect things over a billion years. That was where I was going with my calculations, but I messed up when I did not throw the solar pressure into my initial condition for my exercise.

In my heart I just can't bring myself to believe in absolute constants, because the universe is dynamic and changing.

F H
594 posted on 03/10/2005 7:13:12 PM PST by Fish Hunter
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To: Fish Hunter
It's 4.5 billion years, and there have been changes. Early on things were very violent and unstable but they have settled down. Jupiter once ejected considerable mass from the system while its orbit slowed and degraded accordingly. (Conservation of momentum again.) The Earth survived massive bombardments early on and still takes the occasional whack. A poorly located planet-sized body broke up under tidal pressures (mostly from nearby Jupiter) to form the asteroid belt.

There are multiple, consistent, parallel lines of evidence pointing to the history of the solar system. It's in the orbital mechanics, the Herzprung-Russel stellar evolution model, the radiometric dates on the meteorites, etc. You don't make that go away inventing "Stump the Dummies" problems.

595 posted on 03/10/2005 7:22:50 PM PST by VadeRetro (Liberalism is a cancer on society. Creationism is a cancer on conservatism.)
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To: Right Wing Professor; betty boop; tortoise; Physicist
Thank you for your reply!

I said: After all the theory of a continuum of life is based on the quantizations (fossils) of a continuum (geologic record).

You said: That's based on a fundamental misunderstanding of what quantizing a continuum means. Quantizing the continuum is where you draw an imaginary line where reality has no lines. But a fossil is a real entity. Life is a succession of discrete entities - discrete genomes, discrete beings.

We have been down this road rather exhaustively on the Plato thread and your comments don't comport with those made by other esteemed Freepers, excerpted below from post 663:

tortoise: The underlying fallacy in reasoning here is a common variant of the classic False Dichotomy which we will call Quantizing The Continuum.

Physicist: Well done. I've noticed this before (but not named it) when it comes to speciation. As a population evolves (and leaves traces in the fossil record), we arbitrarily label the individual fossils with different species names. We define species, however, by the ability to produce viable offspring. (We can't test that, of course, but no matter: it's certain that any creature would be unable to interbreed with a distant enough ancestor.)

The problem is that if every individual left a fossil, there would always come a point where a taxonomist would have to change species names between a parent and a child, but by any reasonable definition of species they have to be the same species.

(I could give examples from particle physics, too, but they're more abstruse.)

Our notation often forces us into your fallacy (sorry, to name a thing is to own it). The ignorant then proceed to read more significance into the names (and their attendant problems) than into the ideas.

I will stand back and let you guys hammer it out, though I would appreciate being pinged.

The counsel of tortoise and Physicist taken together reads to me exactly the way I expressed it: the theory of evolution is a continuum (tree of life) based on the quantizations (fossils) of a continuum (geologic record).

IOW, a fossil is "real" quantization in the geologic record. To use the comic book metaphor from a previous post, by viewing the accumulated quantized evidence like little stick men drawn on pages in a comic book - when the pages are fanned the stickman seems to move and change and another continuum seems to emerge, a divergence or tree of life.

596 posted on 03/10/2005 9:14:47 PM PST by Alamo-Girl
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To: PFC

Moving to the latest thread by the doctrinaire Patrick Henry


597 posted on 03/11/2005 4:19:09 AM PST by metacognative (eschew obfuscation)
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To: VadeRetro
You can't have a cumulative effect from a "signal" that's dwarfed by the noise. It doesn't accumulate. It never goes anywhere.

UH....

I suspect you are WRONG here.

598 posted on 03/11/2005 4:36:25 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: VadeRetro
But your effect is so teeny tiny that in any event the Earth just eats it with the mushiness of its atmosphere, oceans, snowpack, etc. Earth is not a SuperballTM, it's a bean bag.

Wrong.

'Mushy' or not, the interia of the infintesimal small particle is STILL added to the Earth mass; it does NOT have to rebound from a hard surface.

599 posted on 03/11/2005 4:42:57 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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To: Elsie

Think of hundreds of noisy CCD pictures, in which none of them have a visible image, yet, when added together in a computer, the 'noise' averages out and the image, which was buried in ALL of the frames, nows stands clear and sharp.


600 posted on 03/11/2005 4:49:19 AM PST by Elsie (Heck is where people, who don't believe in Gosh, think they are not going....)
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