Review of Godless -- (Centers on Evolution)

Powells Review a Day ^ | August 10, 2006 | Jerry Coyne

[publius1]

Godless: The Church of Liberalism by Ann Coulter Coultergeist A Review by Jerry Coyne

H. L. Mencken once responded to a question asked by many of his readers: "If you find so much that is unworthy of reverence in the United States, then why do you live here?" His answer was, "Why do men go to zoos?" Sadly, Mencken is not here to ogle the newest creature in the American Zoo: the Bleached Flamingo, otherwise known as Ann Coulter. This beast draws crowds by its frequent, raucous calls, eerily resembling a human voice, and its unearthly appearance, scrawny and pallid. (Wikipedia notes that "a white or pale flamingo ... is usually unhealthy or suffering from a lack of food.") The etiolated Coulter issued a piercing squawk this spring with her now-notorious book, Godless: The Church of Liberalism. Its thesis, harebrained even by her standards, is that liberals are an atheistic lot who have devised a substitute religion, replete with the sacraments of abortion, feminism, coddling of criminals, and -- you guessed it -- bestiality. Liberals also have their god, who, like Coulter's, is bearded and imposing. He is none other than Charles Darwin. But the left-wing god is malevolent, for Coulter sees Darwin as the root cause of every ill afflicting our society, not to mention being responsible for the historical atrocities of Hitler and Stalin.

The furor caused by her vicious remarks about the 9/11 widows ("I've never seen people enjoying their husbands' deaths so much.") has distracted people from the main topic of her book: evolutionary biology, or rather the pathetic pseudoscientific arguments of its modern fundamentalist challenger, Intelligent Design (ID). This occupies four of Coulter's eleven chapters. Enamored of ID, and unable to fathom a scientific reason why biologists don't buy it, Coulter suggests that scientists are an evil sub-cabal of atheist liberals, a group so addicted to godlessness that they must hide at all costs the awful "truth" that evolution didn't happen. She accuses evolutionists of brainwashing children with phony fossils and made-up "evidence," turning the kids into "Darwiniacs" stripped of all moral (i.e., biblical) grounding and prone to become beasts and genocidal lunatics. To Coulter, biologists are folks who, when not playing with test tubes or warping children's minds, encourage people to have sex with dogs. (I am not making this up.)

Any sane person who starts reading Godless will soon ask, Does Coulter really believe this stuff? The answer is that it doesn't much matter. What's far more disturbing than Coulter herself (and she's plenty disturbing: On the cover photo she has the scariest eyes since Rasputin) is the fact that Americans are lapping up her latest prose like a pack of starved cats. The buyers cannot be political opponents who just want to enjoy her "humor"; like me, those people wouldn't enrich her by a dime. (I didn't pay for my copy.) Rather, a lot of folks apparently like her ravings -- suggesting that, on some level at least, they must agree with her. And this means that the hundreds of thousands of Americans who put Coulter at the top of the best-seller lists see evolution as a national menace.

Well, that's hardly news. We've known for years that nearly half of all Americans believe in the Genesis account of creation, and only about 10 percent want evolution taught in public schools without mentioning ID or other forms of creationism. But it's worth taking up the cudgels once again, if only to show that, contrary to Coulter's claim, accepting Darwinism is not tantamount to endorsing immorality and genocide.

First, one has to ask whether Coulter (who, by the way, attacks me in her book) really understands the Darwinism she rejects. The answer is a resounding No. According to the book's acknowledgments, Coulter was tutored in the "complex ideas" of evolution by David Berlinski, a science writer; Michael Behe, a third-rate biologist at Lehigh University (whose own department's website disowns his bizarre ideas); and William Dembski, a fairly bright theologian who went off the intellectual rails and now peddles creationism at Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. These are the "giants" of the ID movement, which shows how retarded it really is. Learning biology from this lot is like learning elocution from George W. Bush.

As expected with such tutors, the Darwinism decried by Coulter is the usual distorted cardboard cut-out. All she does is parrot the ID line: There are no transitional fossils; natural selection can't create true novelty; some features of organisms could not have evolved and therefore must have been designed by an unspecified supernatural agent. And her "research" method consists of using quotes taken out of context, scouring biased secondary sources, and distorting what appears in the scientific literature. Judging by the shoddy documentation of the evolution section, I'm not convinced that the rest of the book isn't based on equally shoddy research. At any rate, I won't belabor the case that Coulter makes for ID, as I've already shown in TNR that her arguments are completely bogus.

What is especially striking is Coulter's failure to tell us what she really believes about how the earth's species got here. It's clear that she thinks God had a direct hand in it, but beyond that we remain unenlightened. IDers believe in limited amounts of evolution. Does Coulter think that mammals evolved from reptiles? If not, what are those curious mammal-like reptiles that appear exactly at the right time in the fossil record? Did humans evolve from ape-like primates, or did the Designer conjure us into existence all at once? How did all those annoying fossils get there, in remarkable evolutionary order?

And, when faced with the real evidence that shows how strongly evolution trumps ID, she clams up completely. What about the massive fossil evidence for human evolution -- what exactly were those creatures 2 million years ago that had human-like skeletons but ape-like brains? Did a race of Limbaughs walk the earth? And why did God -- sorry, the Intelligent Designer -- give whales a vestigial pelvis, and the flightless kiwi bird tiny, nonfunctional wings? Why do we carry around in our DNA useless genes that are functional in similar species? Did the Designer decide to make the world look as though life had evolved? What a joker! And the Designer doesn't seem all that intelligent, either. He must have been asleep at the wheel when he designed our appendix, back, and prostate gland.

There are none so blind as those who will not see, and Coulter knows that myopia about evolution is a lucrative game. After all, she is a millionaire, reveling in her status as a celebrity and stalked by ignorazzis. I have never seen anyone enjoy her own inanity so much.

But after ranting for nearly a hundred pages about evolution, Coulter finally gives away the game on page 277: "God exists whether or not archaeopteryx ever evolved into something better. If evolution is true, then God created evolution." Gee. Evolution might be true after all! But she's just spent a hundred pages telling us it isn't! What gives? As Tennessee Williams's Big Daddy said, there's a powerful and obnoxious odor of mendacity in this room.

What's annoying about Coulter (note: there's more than one thing!) is that she insistently demands evidence for evolution (none of which she'll ever accept), but requires not a shred of evidence for her "alternative hypothesis." She repeatedly assures us that God exists (not just any God -- the Christian God), that there is only one God (she's no Hindu, folks), that we are made in the image of said God, that the Christian Bible, like Antonin Scalia's Constitution, "is not a 'living' document" (that is, not susceptible to changing interpretation; so does she think that Genesis is literally true?), and that God just might have used evolution as part of His plan. What makes her so sure about all this? And how does she know that the Supreme Being, even if It exists, goes by the name of Yahweh, rather than Allah, Wotan, Zeus, or Mabel? If Coulter just knows these things by faith alone, she should say so, and then tell us why she's so sure that what Parsees or Zunis just know is wrong. I, for one, am not prepared to believe that Ann Coulter is made in God's image without seeing some proof.

Moreover, if evolution is wrong, why is it the central paradigm of biology? According to Coulter, it's all a big con game. In smoky back rooms at annual meetings, evolutionists plot ways to jam Darwin down America's throat, knowing that even though it is scientifically incorrect, Darwinism (Coulter says) "lets them off the hook morally. Do whatever you feel like doing -- screw your secretary, kill Grandma, abort your defective child -- Darwin says it will benefit humanity!"

Unfortunately for Coulter (but fortunately for humanity), science doesn't work this way. Scientists gain fame and high reputation not for propping up their personal prejudices, but for finding out facts about nature. And if evolution really were wrong, the renegade scientist who disproved it -- and showed that generations of his predecessors were misled -- would reach the top of the scientific ladder in one leap, gaining fame and riches. All it would take to trash Darwinism is a simple demonstration that humans and dinosaurs lived at the same time, or that our closest genetic relative is the rabbit. There is no cabal, no back-room conspiracy. Instead, the empirical evidence for evolution just keeps piling up, year after year.

As for biologists' supposed agenda of godlessness -- how ridiculous! Yes, a lot of scientists are atheists, but most have better things to do than deliberately destroy people's faith. This goes doubly for the many scientists -- roughly a third of them -- who are religious. After all, one of the most vocal (and effective) opponents of ID is Ken Miller of Brown University, a devout Catholic.

The real reason Coulter goes after evolution is not because it's wrong, but because she doesn't like it -- it doesn't accord with how she thinks the world should be. That's because she feels, along with many Americans, that "Darwin's theory overturned every aspect of Biblical morality." What's so sad -- not so much for Coulter as for Americans as a whole -- is that this idea is simply wrong. Darwinism, after all, is just a body of thought about the origin and change of biological diversity, not a handbook of ethics. (I just consulted my copy of The Origin of Species, and I swear that there's nothing in there about abortion or eugenics, much less about shtupping one's secretary.)

If Coulter were right, evolutionists would be the most beastly people on earth, not to be trusted in the vicinity of a goat. But I've been around biologists all of my adult life, and I can tell you that they're a lot more civil than, say, Coulter. It's a simple fact that you don't need the Bible -- or even religion -- to be moral. Buddhists, Hindus, and Jews, who don't follow the New Testament, usually behave responsibly despite this problem; and atheists and agnostics derive morality from non-biblical philosophy. In fact, one of the most ethical people I know is Coulter's version of the Antichrist: the atheistic biologist Richard Dawkins (more about that below). Dawkins would never say -- as Coulter does -- that Cindy Sheehan doesn't look good in shorts, that Al Franken resembles a monkey, or that 9/11 widows enjoyed the deaths of their husbands. Isn't there something in the Bible about doing unto others?

The mistake of equating Darwinism with a code of behavior leads Coulter into her most idiotic accusation: that the Holocaust and numberless murders of Stalin can be laid at Darwin's door. "From Marx to Hitler, the men responsible for the greatest mass murders of the twentieth century were avid Darwinists." Anyone who is religious should be very careful about saying something like this, because, throughout history, more killings have been done in the name of religion than of anything else. What's going on in the Middle East, and what happened in Serbia and Northern Ireland? What was the Inquisition about, and the Crusades, and the slaughter following the partition of India? Religion, of course -- or rather, religiously inspired killing. (Come to think of it, the reason Hitler singled out the Jews is that Christians regarded them for centuries as the killers of Christ. And I don't remember any mention of Darwinism in the Moscow Doctors' Trial.) If Darwin is guilty of genocide, then so are God, Jesus, Brahma, Martin Luther, and countless popes.

As Coulter well knows, the misuse of an idea for evil purposes does not mean that idea is wrong. In fact, she accuses liberals of making this very error: She attacks them for worrying that the message of racial inequality conveyed by the book The Bell Curve could promote genocide: "Only liberals could interpret a statement that people have varying IQs as a call to start killing people." Back at you, Ann: Only conservatives could interpret a statement that species evolved as a call to start killing people.

Coulter clearly knows better. I conclude that the trash-talking blonde bit is just a shtick (admittedly, a clever one) calculated to make her rich and famous. (Look at her website, where she whines regularly that she is not getting enough notice.) Her hyper-conservativism seems no more grounded than her faith. She has claimed that the Bible is her favorite book, she is rumored to go to church, and on the cover of Godless you see a cross dangling tantalizingly in her décolletage. But could anybody who absorbed the Sermon on the Mount write, as she does of Richard Dawkins, "I defy any of my coreligionists to tell me they do not laugh at the idea of Dawkins burning in hell"? Well, I wouldn't want Coulter to roast (there's not much meat there anyway), but I wish she'd shut up and learn something about evolution. Her case for ID involves the same stupid arguments that fundamentalists have made for a hundred years. They're about as convincing as the blonde hair that gets her so much attention. By their roots shall ye know them.

[DannyTN]

More info on the appendix, this one goes into detail on the critically important functions that the appendix performs during our youth.

Cutting out a useless vestigial argument

[UndauntedR]

The author makes the mistake so many evos do, mistaking common form for common ancestry, or a descent through history. Yes, this is one way to explain common features. The problem is, we have no way of conclusively demonstrating such a history truly took place.

I know, I totally agree. Even though though all the evidence can be explained by common descent, doesn't mean it was. "Scientists" make the same mistake with everything. Just because we can see objects falling to earth doesn't mean angel's aren't guiding them. I mean, without the gravity angels, I lose all perspective and there would be no reason to hold onto my morals at all.

Theories explain observations and attempt to tie them together parsimoniously. That's all they do.

Explaining all these observations in a CR/ID context... well, it certainly isn't parsimonious. One of my favorite links:

http://oolon.awardspace.com/SMOGGM.htm

[DannyTN]

"And again, the magnetic flips are prediction of basic ferromagnetism, not of creationism. "

It's not the magnetic flip itself, it's the timing of the flip. Evolutionists said they occurred slowly with each flip taking thousands of years.

YE Creationists, reasoned that if the earth wasn't old, then the flips had to have occured much much faster. Thus, they predicted that a record of quickly occuring flip would have been captured in lava. And the prediction was confirmed.

[Fester Chugabrew]

Theories explain observations and attempt to tie them together parsimoniously. That's all they do.

Yes, but as I said, for some reason where organized matter is found to perform specific functions (which is precisely what a theory entailing intelligent design would predict) suddenly it is "unscientific." Not only so, but this inequity extends so far as to assert intelligent design should, by law, not be taught in public schools.

There is most assuredly ample evidence that traits of biological entities undergo change from generation to generation, but recorded history and direct observation have always reported change within limits. This, too, suggests intelligent design, with life and its components developing and propagating as they were designed to do.

What does evolutionism offer as an alternative to intelligent design? Arbitrary ascriptions, namely "natural selection" and "genetic mutations" that could apply under any and all circumstances, defined on the basis of what has already taken place.

The overall cohesiveness of particle matter, the ubiquitous presence of organization, the ongoing presence of cause and effect: all of these point toward intelligent design. It is because the universe is intelligently designed that it is intelligible, and thus open to scientific inquiry. To suggest otherwise is to indulge philosophy, not science.

[DannyTN]

"evolution says that nectar isn't free."

WHAT!!!? That's nonsense!

Once you are aware of the symbiotic relationship between orchids and moths, and of the existence of a long spur orchid, it's reasonable to predict the existence of a long tongued moth regardless of whether or not you believe in evolution.

An uneducated African tribesman could have made such a prediction.

[betty boop]

A. From Mark Perakh:
But contrary to Mr. Berlinski’s rhetoric, any scandal related to Nilsson and Pelger’s paper occurred only in Mr. Berlinski’s imagination. Nilsson and Pelger estimate the time necessary for the development of an eye, a calculation that entails certain assumptions but which is viewed by many scientists as sufficiently sound. (According to the Science Citation Index, Nilsson and Pelger’s article has been positively referenced in at least 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications.)….

B. [Coulter] also says, where are the fossils of the evolutionary misfits, the ones that were not fit to survive?

[To which I. Responds:] Extinct, of course. Seen any dinosaurs running around recently? Not many Archaeopteryx in the trees, either.

Hi, Dimensio! Re: A above, looks to me like an ad-hominem foodfight on all sides. We don’t find many physicists disputing with each other like this. Also may I suggest that just because an article has been positively referenced in at least 25 peer-reviewed scientific publications does not necessarily mean the underlying research is “true” for a certain fact. It just means that the people who cite the research happen to agree with it.

Furthermore — this may come as surprise — I have reason to believe that if a paper is submitted to, say, Journal of Theoretical Biology, and its author suggests even indirectly or inadvertently that there is anything purposeful about natural phenomena at all, that paper will most likely be rejected. For it violates a dearly-held dogma of a highly influential editor (name withheld). The “beauty” of orthodoxy — any kind of orthodoxy — is that it allows one to quickly identify “friend” or “foe.” The unorthodox then may be suppressed, to the great applause of the rest of the orthodox community….

Which is just to say that there seem to be problems of epistemological rigor in orthodox neo-Darwinism. FWIW

However, Charles Darwin cannot be blamed for this.

Re: B above: Just because evolutionary misfits did not survive doesn’t mean they did not leave fossils. Where are they?

Anyhoot, I haven’t read what Ann had to say about evolution theory. I bought the book, and had started reading it, but didn’t get that far before I left the book behind at the doctor’s office. When I realized that, and went back to retrieve the book, it was gone, scarfed by someone. I hope that person enjoyed the book. :^)

I mean to buy another copy. But haven’t done so as yet.

Thanks for writing, Dimensio, and for the suggestion to go look up Ichneumon. (Hope he doesn’t mind I pinged him to this. He has made it very clear in the past that I am not to bother him anymore.)

[RobbyS]

It is not the central paradigm. That palm would go to genetics or biochemistry.

[RobbyS]

Fact is that Counter has more in common with Mencken than Coyne does. Her invective is far more cutting.

[Quark2005]

If you want to embarrass yourself go ahead.

All right, here we go:

No one ever claimed that this was lineal series of transitionals, but the relation and progression through time is clear. The chimp skull is merely shown for comparison.

You are 100% wrong about the magnetic flipping. Again, localized ferromagnetic flipping is a well-known phenomenon. What you don't find is a globally correlated flipping. Please don't tell me you are trying to argue that the earth is only 6000 years old, with all the data we have confirming otherwise. That's like trying to say the sun orbits the earth, in this day and age.

How about another specific prediction made by evolution:

"An animal's bones contain oxygen atoms from the water it drank while growing. And, fresh water and salt water can be told apart by their slightly different mixture of oxygen isotopes. (This is because fresh water comes from water that evaporated out of the ocean. Lighter atoms evaporate more easily than heavy ones do, so fresh water has fewer of the heavy atoms.) Therefore, it should be possible to analyze an aquatic creature's bones, and tell whether it grew up in fresh water or in the ocean. This has been done, and it worked. We can distinguish the bones of river dolphins from the bones of killer whales. Now for the prediction. We have fossils of various early whales. Since whales are mammals, evolution predicts that they evolved from land animals. And, the very earliest of those whales would have lived in fresh water, while they were evolving their aquatic skills. (Skills such as the ability to do without fresh water.) Therefore, the oxygen isotope ratios in their fossils should be like the isotope ratios in modern river dolphins. It's been measured, and the prediction was correct. The two oldest species in the fossil record - Pakicetus and Ambulocetus - lived in fresh water. Rodhocetus, Basilosaurus and the others all lived in salt water."

Creationism makes no predictions this specific (none that end up holding under scrutiny, anyway).

[b_sharp]

"Darwinists: "Imagine a can opener."

Really?

The Synthetic Theory of Evolution.

1. The phenotype (observed physical characteristics) is different from the genotype (the set of genes carried by an individual), and the phenotypic differences among individual organisms can be due partly to genetic differences and partly to direct effects of the evironment.

2. Environmental effects on an individual's phenotype do not affect the genes passed on to its offspring. That is, acquired characteristics are not inherited. However, the environment may affect the expression of an organism's genes.

3. Hereditary variations are based on particles--genes--that retain their identity as they pass through the generations; genes do not blend with other genes. This is true not only of those genes that have discrete effects on the phenotype (e.g., brown vs. blue eyes), but also of those that contribute to continuously varying traits (e.g., body size, intensity of pigmentation). Variation in continuously varying traits is largely based on several or many discrete genes, each of which affects the trait slightly (polygenic inheritance).

4. Genes mutate, usually at a fairly low rate, to alternative forms (alleles). The phenotypic effects of such mutations can range all the way from undetectable to very great. The variation that arises by mutation is amplified by recombination among alleles at different loci.

5. Environmental factors (e.g., chemicals, radiation) may affect the rate of mutation, but they do not preferentially direct the production of mutations that would be favorable in the organism's specific environment.

Points 1-5 were important early contributions to the Synthetic Theory from laboratory genetics.

6. Evolutionary change is a populational process: it entails, in its most basic form, a change in the relative abundances (proportions) of individual organisms with different genotypes (and hence, often, with different phenotypes) within a population (see Figure 2.2). Over the course of generations, the proportion of one genotype may gradually increase, and it may eventually entirely replace the other type. This process may occur within only certain populations, or in all the populations that make up a species (see point 11).

7. The rate of mutation is too low for mutation by itself to shift an entire population from one genotype to another. Instead, the change in genotype proportions within a population can occur by either of two principal processes: random fluctuations in proportions (random genetic drift) or nonrandom changes due to the superior survival and/or reproduction of some genotypes compared to others (natural selection). Natural selection and random genetic drift can operate simultaneously.

8. Even a slight intensity of natural selection can (under certain circumstances) bring about substantial evolutionary change in a relatively short time. Very slight differences between organisms can confer slight differences in survival or reproduction; hence natural selection can account for slight differences among species, and for the earliest stages of evolution of new traits.

Points 6-8 were among the major contributions of the mathematical theory of population genetics.

9. Selection can alter populations beyond the original range of variation by increasing the proportion of alleles that, by recombination with other genes that affect the same trait, give rise to new phenotypes. (This point is a contribution from genetic studies of agriculturally based plant and animal breeding.)

10. Natural populations are genetically variable: the individuals within populations differ genetically and include natural genetic variants of the kind that arise by mutation in laboratory stocks.

11. Populations of a species in different geographic regions differ in characteristics that have a genetic basis. The genetic differences among populations are often of the same kind that distinguish individuals within populations. A genotype that is rare in one population may be predominant in another.

12. Experimental crosses between different species, and between different populations of the same species, show that most of the differences between them have a genetic basis. The difference in each trait is often based on differences in several or many genes (i.e., it is polygenic), each of which has a small phenotypic effect. This finding provides evidence that the differences between species evolve by small steps rather than by single mutations with large phenotypic effects.

13. Natural selection occurs in natural populations at the present time, often with considerable intensity.

Points 9-13 were contributions from those geneticists, most of whom had a background in natural history, who studied natural populations.

14. Differences among geographic populations of a species are often adaptive (hence, are the consequence of natural selection), because they are frequently correlated with relevant environmental factors.

15. Organisms are not necessarily different species just because they differ in one or more phenotypic characteristics; phenotypically different genotypes often are members of a single interbreeding population. Rather, different species represent distinct gene pools, which are groups of interbreeding or potentially interbreeding individuals that do not exchange genes with other such groups. This reproductive isolation of species is based on certain genetically determined differences between them. (This is one version of the biological species concept.) Hence, even a mutation that causes substantial change in some phenotypic feature does not necessarily represent the origin of a new species.

16. Nevertheless, there is a continuum in degree of differentiation of populations, with respect to both phenotypic difference and degree of reproductive isolation, from barely differentiated populations to fully distinct species. This observation provides evidence that an ancestral species differentiates into two or more different species by the gradual accumulation of small differences rather than by a single mutational step.

17. Speciation--the origin of two or more species from a single common ancestor--usually occurs through the genetic differentiation of geographically segregated populations. Geographic segregation is required so that interbreeding does not prevent incipient genetic differences from developing.

18. Among living organisms, there are many gradations in phenotypic characteristics among species assigned to the same genus, to different genera, and to different families or other higher taxa. This observation is interpreted as evidence that higher taxa arise through the prolonged, sequential accumulation of small differences, rather than through the sudden mutational origin of drastically new "types."

Points 14-18 were contributed chiefly by systematists and naturalists who studied particular taxonomic groups.

19. The fossil record includes many gaps among quite different kinds of organisms, as well as gaps between possible ancestors and descendants. Such gaps can be explained by the incompleteness of the fossil record. But the fossil record also includes examples of gradations from apparently ancestral organisms to quite different descendants. Together with point 18, this leads to the conclusion that the evolution of large differences proceeds by many small steps (such as those that lead to the differentiation of geographic populations and closely related species). Hence we can extrapolate from the genesis of small differences to the evolution of large differences among higher taxa, and can explain the latter by the same principles that explain the evolution of populations and species.

20. Consequently, all observations of the fossil record are consistent with the foregoing principles of evolutionary change (although they do not prove that these mechanisms provide a necessary and sufficient explanation). There is no need to invoke, and in some instances there is evidence against, non-Darwinian hypotheses such as Lamarckian mechanisms, orthogenetic evolution, vitalism ("inner drives"), or abrupt origins by major mutations.

Points 19 and 20 were among the contributions of paleontologists.

D.J. Futuyma. 1997. Evolutionary biology 3rd ed. Sinauer Associates, Sunderland, Massachussetts.

[bray]

And who are you to determine who is and who is not qualified to comment?? Last time I looked this is a FRee Board. Did Jim die and you are not the arbitrator of who can call your Cult a dying religion?

Fact is you folks who live your lives studying and believing these charlatan scientists have brainwashed yourselves into taking everything they say as gospel. Nobody expects you to admit your bias, but you are.

Every example of a transitional species you put up, and there would have to be millions have skeptics and questions about their validity for good reason.

You can dismiss it as being ignorant Creationist Troglodytes, but there are more and more of us as we realize the odds are far too astronomical to be believed. you have had 200 years to make your case and have failed.

Ann is right, God makes more sense.

Pray for W and Our Troops

[betty boop]

A postscript to my last, Dimensio --

Re: The evolutionary misfits that did not survive, and the question of where are their fossils? We have fossils for "successful" species that are now extinct; e.g., dinosaurs. Here are some issues that come to mind on this question:

1. It seems quite clear that dinosaurs were highly successful species.

2. Perhaps they would still be around, except for the fact of a catastrophic event of extraterrestrial origin; e.g., the accepted view that meteor impact(s) drastically affected global climate, and so rapidly transformed the earthly environment that dinosaurs could not readily adjust to the changed conditions. So they died off; we have their fossils so we know they did once exist.

3. Dinosaurs were evidently not “failed species.” Their extinction seemingly was not the result of genetic defect (see below), but of cosmic catastrophe. Yet Darwin, completely unaware of the modern science of genetics, still held that some species fail. An interesting question to ask is: What is the ratio of failed species to successful ones? How many “kluged experiments in natural selection” did there have to be to produce one successful species? I imagine that Darwin’s original theory would accommodate zillions of “failed experiments.” Theirs are the fossils I’d like to see.

It seems we only find fossils for species that once were successful. Where are the fossils of the unsuccessful ones? [I gather that was Ann Coulter’s actual question, as best as I can make it out without having closely followed her argument.] Or are we to suppose that unsuccessful species don’t live long enough to leave fossil evidence? That by itself might indicate a very serious “gap” in the fossil record: We have no evidence for the unsuccessful species. An “absence of evidence” has implications for the rigor of the theory….

4. Neo-Darwinism holds that evolution is essentially genetic evolution. Yet this was evidently not Charles Darwin’s view; for in his own time people knew nothing about the modern science of genetics; nobody even heard of the genome.

Darwin was an excellent scientist who was intimately aware of the state of science in virtually all fields at their state-of-the-art in his own lifetime. I understand, for instance, that he was aware of Mendel’s experiments. But Mendel’s experiments in genetics — he is called the “father of genetics” — did not go to issues of speciation, but to hybridization.

5. I think Darwin’s main legacy is the articulation of a plausible general narrative of evolution that subsequent science has used as a “backbone” on which to construct theories which Darwin himself could not have anticipated. What these theories have in common with the original Darwinist view is a belief that teleological considerations — purpose or goals in nature —ought never to enter into science. Instead, evolution is to be viewed as a spontaneous, yet quite purposeless development from basic chemistry and physics — at bottom, a kind of sui-generis bootstrapping evolving by happenstance, ultimately “guided” from the structure of the periodic table of the elements itself.

6. Seems pretty reductionist to me…. But hey, evidently lots of people warm to this view, for whatever reason.

Just food for thought. Must run away now — I’m starting my summer vacation today!!! I’ll probably be pretty scarce around here for a while. But I thank you, Dimensio, and all addressees of this post for your conversations and contributions to this thread.

[hosepipe]

[ We have no evidence for the unsuccessful species. An “absence of evidence” has implications for the rigor of the theory…. ]

As Neils Bohrs might surmise.. An absense of evidence says something.. and is/can be evidence in itself..

[Dante Alighieri]

Do you regularly ignore TalkOrigins frequent rebuttals of the "rebuttals?"

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/helium/zircons.html
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/vestiges/appendix.html

[MHGinTN]

Wow placemarker

[VadeRetro]

Furthermore — this may come as surprise — I have reason to believe that if a paper is submitted to, say, Journal of Theoretical Biology, and its author suggests even indirectly or inadvertently that there is anything purposeful about natural phenomena at all, that paper will most likely be rejected.

Biologists repeatedly speak of the design or purpose of a thing, even if they really think it evolved to that function. Some creationist posters try to make hay of this. "He said 'design!!!!!'" Happens all the time, doesn't mean a thing, and there's no conspiracy to supress it.

However, a researcher who makes his paper about "design" in the ID sense would need some evidence for it. When somebody has something that will withstand scrutiny, he or she will not only get published but will probably get a Nobel. I do not look for this to happen anytime soon to Coulter, Dembski, or Behe.

[Frumious Bandersnatch]

A lot of words about evolution. None about Darwinism. Note that in Ann's book, she specifically stated that when she was talking of evolution in that book she meant evolution as preached by Darwin.

Sorry, but Darwinism, even as described by Darwin himself is not falsifiable. Not to mention that neither open nor closed Darwinian paths are falsifiable - nor testable for that matter.

Logically, Darwinism is an open loop. Once again, note once again, that I refer to Darwinism, which has many earmarks of a religious cult. I do not say anything about evolution itself.

[MHGinTN]

Just reread your post ... another wow placemarker.

[PatrickHenry]

It seems we only find fossils for species that once were successful. Where are the fossils of the unsuccessful ones?

BB, my delight! I'm so glad you asked.

Of all species living today (ignoring stuff like bacteria, flatworms, sponges, horseshoe crabs and insects), sharks have probably been around the longest. There is evidence that modern sharks first appeared about 100 million years ago. Because virtually all other present-day species emerged later, it is highly likely -- perhaps even obvious -- that all fossils of now-extinct species are either: (a) non-transitional dead-ends; (b) transitional, but leading to eventual dead-ends; or (c) transitional and leading to species now living.

Links to useful information:
Taxonomy, Transitional Forms, and the Fossil Record.
The Fossil Record: Evolution or "Scientific Creation" by Cuffey.