Screwtape's "Age of Darwinian Scientism"

The Daley Times-Post ^ | Jan. 27, 2006 | Linda Kimball

[spinestein]

[Does this article mis-state the evolutionary assertion that birds decended from dynasouars?

http://www.apologeticspress.org/articles/471 ]


Yes, and badly.

The author's characterization of this assertion is grossly wrong. He shows a lack of understanding of how a reptile's lungs operate as compared to a bird's lungs (and this comparison is a central thesis of his article).

But more importantly, his article overall is to use the same fallacious reasoning that I've been trying to correct in my last few posts; that is the straw man argument that evolutionists theorize that new species develop all at once or in a single event, which is NOT what evolutionary theory predicts.

He takes random examples of fossils which show animals with widely different characteristics and argues that since they are so different one could not have directly resulted in the other. Such a misuse of logic is what I would expect to see in those humorous books the Jehovah's Witnesses put out where someone pokes a stick into a radio and whacks it around for awhile (thus simulating mutations) and asking the question "Does this make the radio work better? Of course not. Therefore, evolution doesn't work."

The mechanism for evolutionary change which results in new species really is not that hard to understand (it's not like the theory of universal gravitation which requires at least some algebra and also some calculus is helpful) and its repeated gross mischaracterization is surprising to me.

[Ichneumon]

Okay, Mr. Ichneumon, here are a few question for you about information:

I'll be glad to help.

How much information is contained in the DNA sequence of the simplest cell?

By what definition of information? Shannon information? Kolmogorov information? Hamming information? Or some other measure of information content?

And define "simplest cell". Hell, define "simple". Fewest unique proteins? Smallest? Shortest genome? Fewest genes? Least polymorphic genome?

And define "cell" -- do viruses count? How about a mitochondria? A chloroplast?

Phi-X 174, a virus of E. coli, has a genome of 5,386 basepairs containing 10 genes. A muman mitochondrion has a genome of 16,569bp, 37 genes. Epstein-Barr virus has a genome of 172,282bp, 80 genes. Nanoarchaeum equitans (a parasitic archaean) has a genome of 490,885bp, with 552 genes, the smallest genome of a self-contained organism yet found.

If you want a more specific answer, you'll have to clarify your question.

Does science have ways of measuring quantities of information?

Yes, it has many ways, depending upon the specific application.

Why does DNA information not tend to degrade into randomness as the laws of physics would predict?

First, the "laws of physics" do not "predict" this. I see you've been reading the creationist pamphlets on the Second Law of Thermodynamics -- they always get that one wrong (2).

There are, however, processes which tend to damage DNA over time under most conditions, even though the laws of physics do not *require* this to inevitably occur, but these are overcome by (drumroll please) the processes involved in evolution, namely reproduction coupled with natural selection.

What are some documented examples of information being produced by non-life?

Here you go.

See also:

The Origins of Order: Self Organization and Selection in Evolution. By Stuart Kauffman, S. A. (1993) Oxford University Press, NY, ISBN: 0195079515.

Compositional genomes: Prebiotic information transfer in mutually catalytic noncovalent assemblies

Eigen M, and Schuster P, The hypercycle. A principle of natural self-organization. Springer-Verlag, isbn 3-540-09293, 1979

The origin of genetic information: viruses as models

Compositional genomes: prebiotic information transfer in mutually catalytic noncovalent assemblies

Stadler PF, Dynamics of autocatalytic reaction networks. IV: Inhomogeneous replicator networks. Biosystems, 26: 1-19, 1991

Lee DH, Severin K, and Ghadri MR. Autocatalytic networks: the transition from molecular self-replication to molecular ecosystems. Curr Opinion Chem Biol, 1, 491-496, 1997

Lee DH, Severin K, Yokobayashi Y, and Ghadiri MR, Emergence of symbiosis in peptide self-replication through a hypercyclic network. Nature, 390: 591-4, 1997

Apolipoprotein AI Mutations and Information

Creationist Claim CB102: Mutations are random noise; they do not add information.

Multiple Duplications of Yeast Hexose Transport Genes in Response to Selection in a Glucose-Limited Environment

Evolution of biological information

Evolution of biological complexity

Evolution and Information: The Nylon Bug

Examples of Beneficial Mutations and Natural Selection

The evolution of trichromatic color vision by opsin gene duplication in New World and Old World primates

Gene duplications in evolution of archaeal family B DNA polymerases

Koch, AL: Evolution of antibiotic resistance gene function. Microbiol Rev 1981, 45:355378.

Selection in the evolution of gene duplications

Velkov, VV: Gene amplification in prokaryotic and eukaryotic systems. Genetika 1982, 18:529543.

Romero, D & Palacios, R: Gene amplification and genomic plasticity in prokaryotes. Annu Rev Genet 1997, 31:91111.

Stark, GR & Wahl, GM: Gene amplification. Annu Rev Biochem 1984, 53:447491.

Reinbothe, S, Ortel, B, & Parthier, B: Overproduction by gene amplification of the multifunctional arom protein confers glyphosate tolerance to a plastid-free mutant of Euglena gracilis. Mol Gen Genet 1993, 239:416424.

Gottesman, MM, Hrycyna, CA, Schoenlein, PV, Germann, UA, & Pastan, I: Genetic analysis of the multidrug transporter. Annu Rev Genet 1995, 29:607649.

Schwab, M: Oncogene amplification in solid tumors. Semin Cancer Biol 1999, 9:319325.

Widholm, JM, Chinnala, AR, Ryu, JH, Song, HS, Eggett, T, & Brotherton, JE: Glyphosate selection of gene amplification in suspension cultures of three plant species. Physiol Plant 2001, 112:540545.

Otto, E, Young, JE, & Maroni, G: Structure and expression of a tandem duplication of the Drosophila metallothionein gene. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 1986, 83:60256029.

Maroni, G, Wise, J, Young, JE, & Otto, E: Metallothionein gene duplications and metal tolerance in natural populations of Drosophila melanogaster. Genetics 1987, 117:739744.

Kondratyeva, TF, Muntyan, LN, & Karvaiko, GI: Zinc-resistant and arsenic-resistant strains of Thiobacillus ferrooxidans have increased copy numbers of chromosomal resistance genes. Microbiology 1995, 141:11571162.

Tohoyama, H, Shiraishi, E, Amano, S, Inouhe, M, Joho, M, & Murayama, T: Amplification of a gene for metallothionein by tandem repeat in a strain of cadmium-resistant yeast cells. FEMS Microbiol Lett 1996, 136:269273.

Sonti, RV & Roth, JR: Role of gene duplications in the adaptation of Salmonella typhimurium to growth on limiting carbon sources. Genetics 1989, 123:1928.

Brown, CJ, Todd, KM, & Rosenzweig, RF: Multiple duplications of yeast hexose transport genes in response to selection in a glucose-limited environment. Mol Biol Evol 1998, 15:931942.

Hastings, PJ, Bull, HJ, Klump, JR, & Rosenberg, SM: Adaptive amplification: an inducible chromosomal instability mechanism. Cell 2000, 103:723731.

Tabashnik, BE: Implications of gene amplification for evolution and management of insecticide resistance. J Econ Entomol 1990, 83:11701176.

Lenormand, T, Guillemaud, T, Bourguet, D, & Raymond, M: Appearance and sweep of a gene duplication: adaptive response and potential for new functions in the mosquito Culex pipiens. Evolution 1998, 52:17051712.

Guillemaud, T, Raymond, M, Tsagkarakou, A, Bernard, C, Rochard, P, & Pasteur, N: Quantitative variation and selection of esterase gene amplification in Culex pipiens. Heredity 1999, 83:8799.

If information cannot be produced by non-life,

It can.

how was the first DNA sequence in the simplest cell created?

In a stepwise fashion. See above.

Grapple away. I am grateful for any answers that you can provide to a poor, benighted Creationist.

Glad to help.

[balrog666]

So many mistakes, so much ignorance, so much fear - what a complete and utter waste of the written word.

[Ichneumon]

Does Darwinism align better with Communism (Socialism, Humanism, Big Governmentism to lead the less evolved...) or Christianity (Freedom based on principled responsibility enabling free-markets, self-protection, land ownership...)

ROFL! Even leaving aside your misrepresentations (Christianity is hardly equivalent to "Freedom based on principled responsibility enabling free-markets" -- for nearly two thousand years it was used to justify feudalism and theocracy), your asking to choose between "communism and Christianity" is about as meaningless as insisting that someone choose between "giraffes and typewriters".

Christianity is a religion. Communism is an economic system. It is entirely possible for someone to advocate *both* (or reject both), and many people do. It's hardly the "either/or" you make it out to be. They are not opposite sides of one coin.

[microgood]

We all have a "me and mine" drive inside our primate brains which we've inherited from our most distant ancestors, and a more science-based and less mystic-based understanding of our own behavior and biology would better serve humanity.

In what way? Are you saying if a scientist comes up with a theory about why humans behave certain ways that this will somehow change our behavior?

What if people do not accept that point of view (another aspect of human behavior)?

This is the reason all ideas of morality and ethics have always been looked at in a univeral and higher power point of view. Because any point of view attributible to man or a group of men will never be accepted. That is why we have had so many wars and so much death. That is why a belief in inalienable rights granted to us by our Creator gives of freedom from other men. No other formula does.

Even now many in America want to take away these rights. What has made it harder are the fact the rights are not granted by men, and cannot be taken away by men. And if they are taken away, the only solution becomes the establishment of a new government and reinstitution of those rights given us by our Creator.

We can learn to live with others and maximum happiness given our nature, but the blood of all the wars we have had since the beginning of our time should have taught us we cannot change our basic nature. If we fail to heed that lesson, we will continue to fight and die for the foreseeable future while someones view of ethics and morality is imposed on people and then deposed over and over.

The last 1000 years of Western Civilization has driven us to a belief in inalienable rights granted by our Creator and defended by government. This philosophy has created the greatest and most just civilization in the history of the world. Why argue with success?

[balrog666]

This is perhaps one of the most stupid and offensively ignorant articles ever posted on FR (excepting medved's conspiracy theories of history). I am baffled as to why you pinged me to it and if you even read it yourself...

[illinoissmith]

"We all have a "me and mine" drive inside our primate brains which we've inherited from our most distant ancestors, and a more science-based and less mystic-based understanding of our own behavior and biology would better serve humanity."

I mostly agree, but with two caveats:


First, socialist ideology is rampant in the academy. Some of what is coming out of the academy posed as a scientific take on human nature, is in fact very biased in favor of collectivism, and very biased against anything that suggests the impossibility of socialist utopia. (Although, the founder of much of this research, E.O. Wilson who wrote _Sociobiology_ in the '70s, got communists dumping buckets of water on him, etc., for his trouble.)

Insofar as efforts to confront this problem aim at evolution in general, they are wasted, because there are very good reasons serious scholars believe that evolution exists and formed life. Efforts should instead be aimed at the those flaws in thinking and argument that cause a scholar to use evolutionary theory to bolster socialism.


Second, I don't think the "me and mine" drive is all bad. I think there is a lot of crass selfishness that is bad, but I also think that "me and mine" helps allow for a great deal of good: relative decentralization of power (divorce "me and mine" from, say, family structure, or the economy, and you have Hillary's fantasy), and helps provide encouragement for self-sufficency, hard work, and competition. Related, from Hesiod (through Wikipedia):

"So, after all, there was not one kind of Strife alone, but all over the earth there are two. As for the one, a man would praise her when he came to understand her; but the other is blameworthy: and they are wholly different in nature.

For one fosters evil war and battle, being cruel: her no man loves; but perforce, through the will of the deathless gods, men pay harsh Strife her honour due.

But the other is the elder daughter of dark Night (Nyx), and the son of Cronus who sits above and dwells in the aether, set her in the roots of the earth: and she is far kinder to men. She stirs up even the shiftless to toil; for a man grows eager to work when he considers his neighbour, a rich man who hastens to plough and plant and put his house in good order; and neighbour vies with [h]is neighbour as he hurries after wealth. This Strife is wholesome for men. And potter is angry with potter, and craftsman with craftsman, and beggar is jealous of beggar, and minstrel of minstrel."

[illinoissmith]

"Marx here actually calls evolution the basis of his views which devloped of course into communism."

Yes Marx spun his work as "science". So do snake-oil salesmen. So do those people trying to sell breast or penis enlargement pills via spamming. That's a common tendency of pseudo-science.

Communism's core is derived from Hegel.

Sometimes monsters don't want their roots known. You think the bogus pill spammers would tell you where they really got their formulas from?

[CarolinaGuitarman]

" Don't be obnoxious."

Stop being evasive.

"And don't be disingenuous...I don't need to tell you about anything which happened before Darwin was published. Just because two people write at different times does not mean they do not have similar ideas. And that these 2 men did is pointed out by Marx himself. If you choose to guess Marx's motives as only wanting prestige from the relationship that's up to you."

So, you STILL can't show in what ways Marx's ideas were influenced by Darwin.

"I would appreciate you not pinging me again as you say the same things over and over again. Thanks."

You're welcome. :)

[spinestein]

You ask a lot of very good questions and I admit that I don't have "factual" answers to them except to explain the philosophical reasons for my previous assertions.

First, to understand our own biology and behavior in a science-based context rather than a mystic-based context means I prefer to look to natural explanations first.

As an example, I have read many articles put out by modern religious groups, and followed by millions of people in this country alone, who believe that when a 15 year old boy is sitting in class daydreaming about the cute 15 year old girl sitting next to him instead of paying attention to what the teacher is saying, that what is happening is Satan is influencing his thoughts and corrupting him and that his lust for her is morally wrong.

The science approach says that this is a natural emotion to feel and makes sense from an evolutionary basis as this type of thought serves to perpetuate the species.

Though the science explanation is morally neutral, the morality is imposed by society (as it should be) and if we assume that 15 year old Johnny knows intellectually that it's morally wrong to ravish 15 year old Jenny in class, whether or not they're married and can provide for children, it's still helpful for him to understand WHY he feels the lust he does when he needs to control it and I can't see how it can be anything other than harmful if he believes that his thoughts are inherently evil and that Satan has taken over a part of his brain.



Secondly, in response to your statement:

[We can learn to live with others and maximum happiness given our nature, but the blood of all the wars we have had since the beginning of our time should have taught us we cannot change our basic nature. If we fail to heed that lesson, we will continue to fight and die for the foreseeable future while someones view of ethics and morality is imposed on people and then deposed over and over.]

I agree with this 100%.

Our nature is dictated to us by ...nature. But our behavior is of our own choosing and my point is that science helps us to understand our nature and our immediate emotional behavior but then is silent. Science, by definition, cannot play a role in ethics or morality and I don't think I've ever suggested it could.

My own sense of morality and ethics is something that I've gotten the way most people do; I was taught it from childhood and refined it as an adult. I admit that it's different from many others' versions, but that is to be expected given how many versions there are across humanity. <?:^)

[betty boop]

"Many have resisted, and will continue to resist, the epistemic authority of science, since it requires we abandon those beloved conceptions of freedom, dignity, and moral agency and responsibility in which persons are understood to be causally privileged over the rest of nature…science proposes naturalized…conceptions of freedom, and responsibility which embed persons…fully within the causal network"

Personally, I don't resist the epistemic authority of science operating in its proper field. That is not the same thing as saying that all of reality reduces to that authority. Science treats of "physical" things. Period. The other branch of the epistemic divide treats of spiritual things -- things of vital importance to man like language, history, the arts, philosophy, theology, and so forth. Science has zero purchase there. Yet scientistic ideologues claim that, since science can't deal with such things owing to its own methodological limitations, such things must not exist.

This is a tremendous leap of faith (or counter-faith) on their part -- a leap that extinguishes all that is of utmost value to human kind, and what makes man distinctive.

Meanwhile, man stubbornly continues to be what he is: "psyche in soma," an embodied spiritual being.

Screwtape does have a sense of humor after all. But I don't have to appreciate his "little jokes."

Fine article, Lindykim. Thanks ever so much for posting it.

[betty boop]

Thanks so much for the ping, bondserv! Please see post #151 below.

[Lurking Libertarian]

Very interesting post. I find it fascinating that Marx and Engels may have gotten their theories from a study of Darwin. USSR: 20 million deaths China: 65 million deaths Vietnam: 1 million deaths N. Korea: 2 million deaths Suggestion...you may want to add 3 million deaths in Cambodia to that list.

Except that marx and Engels had already published their theories years before Darwin ever published his. And Stalin banned the teaching of darwinism.

[CarolinaGuitarman]

Now you're going to confuse her with facts! Don't you know that because Marx said their was a connection, that there HAD to be one? No need to actually explain HOW this influence was supposed to happen. You're thinking too linearly.

(sarc off

[Lurking Libertarian]

Now you're going to confuse her with facts! Don't you know that because Marx said their was a connection, that there HAD to be one? No need to actually explain HOW this influence was supposed to happen. You're thinking too linearly.

I could have also posted the quote where Hitler said that his hatred of Jews came from Christianity. Maybe that would have made the point that just because somebody claims they got their ideas from someone else doesn't mean that it's so.

[little jeremiah]

I often ping out Linda Kimball's articles; haven't read this one yet. Might want to check it out. Does look as tho it's turning into a evofundies bash God believers party, though.

[Lurking Libertarian]

You do realize that some us both have faith in God and also accept the overwhelming evidence for evolution?

[little jeremiah]

I know, a lot of people hold internally inconsistent beliefs.

[JCEccles]

Powerful essay. Thank you for posting it.

[balrog666]

Being direct, why did you ping me to that drivel?