Posted on 09/13/2006 3:52:47 PM PDT by DannyTN
Evolution Is Practically Useless, Admits Darwinist 08/30/2006
Supporters of evolution often tout its many benefits. They claim it helps research in agriculture, conservation and medicine (e.g., 01/13/2003, 06/25/2003). A new book by David Mindell, The Evolving World: Evolution in Everyday Life (Harvard, 2006) emphasizes these practical benefits in hopes of making evolution more palatable to a skeptical society. Jerry Coyne, a staunch evolutionist and anti-creationist, enjoyed the book in his review in Nature,1 but thought that Mindell went overboard on Selling Darwin with appeals to pragmatics:
To some extent these excesses are not Mindells fault, for, if truth be told, evolution hasnt yielded many practical or commercial benefits. Yes, bacteria evolve drug resistance, and yes, we must take countermeasures, but beyond that there is not much to say. Evolution cannot help us predict what new vaccines to manufacture because microbes evolve unpredictably. But hasnt evolution helped guide animal and plant breeding? Not very much. Most improvement in crop plants and animals occurred long before we knew anything about evolution, and came about by people following the genetic principle of like begets like. Even now, as its practitioners admit, the field of quantitative genetics has been of little value in helping improve varieties. Future advances will almost certainly come from transgenics, which is not based on evolution at all.Coyne further describes how the goods and services advertised by Mindell are irrelevant for potential customers, anyway:
One reason why Mindell might fail to sell Darwin to the critics is that his examples all involve microevolution, which most modern creationists (including advocates of intelligent design) accept. It is macroevolution the evolutionary transitions between very different kinds of organism that creationists claim does not occur. But in any case, few people actually oppose evolution because of its lack of practical use.... they oppose it because they see it as undercutting moral values.Coyne fails to offer a salve for that wound. Instead, to explain why macroevolution has not been observed, he presents an analogy . For critics out to debunk macroevolution because no one has seen a new species appear, he compares the origin of species with the origin of language: We havent seen one language change into another either, but any reasonable creationist (an oxymoron?) must accept the clear historical evidence for linguistic evolution, he says, adding a jab for effect. And we have far more fossil species than we have fossil languages (but see 04/23/2006). It seems to escape his notice that language is a tool manipulated by intelligent agents, not random mutations. In any case, his main point is that evolution shines not because of any hyped commercial value, but because of its explanatory power:
In the end, the true value of evolutionary biology is not practical but explanatory. It answers, in the most exquisitely simple and parsimonious way, the age-old question: How did we get here? It gives us our family history writ large, connecting us with every other species, living or extinct, on Earth. It shows how everything from frogs to fleas got here via a few easily grasped biological processes. And that, after all, is quite an accomplishment.See also Evolution News analysis of this book review, focusing on Coynes stereotyping of creationists. Compare also our 02/10/2006 and 12/21/2005 stories on marketing Darwinism to the masses.
You heard it right here. We didnt have to say it. One of Darwins own bulldogs said it for us: evolutionary theory is useless. Oh, this is rich. Dont let anyone tell you that evolution is the key to biology, and without it we would fall behind in science and technology and lose our lead in the world. He just said that most real progress in biology was done before evolutionary theory arrived, and that modern-day advances owe little or nothing to the Grand Materialist Myth. Darwin is dead, and except for providing plot lines for storytellers, the theory that took root out of Charlies grave bears no fruit (but a lot of poisonous thorns: see 08/27/2006).
To be sure, many things in science do not have practical value. Black holes are useless, too, and so is the cosmic microwave background. It is the Darwin Party itself, however, that has hyped evolution for its value to society. With this selling point gone, whats left? The only thing Coyne believes evolution can advertise now is a substitute theology to answer the big questions. Instead of an omniscient, omnipotent God, he offers the cult of Tinker Bell and her mutation wand as an explanation for endless forms most beautiful. Evolution allows us to play connect-the-dot games between frogs and fleas. It allows us to water down a complex world into simplistic, easily grasped generalities. Such things are priceless, he thinks. Hes right. It costs nothing to produce speculation about things that cannot be observed, and nobody should consider such products worth a dime.
We can get along just fine in life without the Darwin Party catalog. Thanks to Jerry Coyne for providing inside information on the negative earnings in the Darwin & Co. financial report. Sell your evolution stock now before the bottom falls out.
Next headline on: Evolutionary Theory
"Just a flesh wound!" Placemarker
BWAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHAHAHAHAHA!
Why is it that only I need to show that my scenario is more likely?
Why don't you need to show that individual infections followed by moves to fixation for *thousands* of ERVs is 'more likely'?
Because common descent is *assumed* 'a priori' and everything is shoved into that paradigm? Obviously.
Continued research will destroy this scenario just like Haeckel's embryos. It just takes a while.
Why don't you need to show that individual infections followed by moves to fixation for *thousands* of ERVs is 'more likely'?
OK, I think this makes it clear.
In your scenario, if I'm understanding you correctly, there are thousands upon thousands more fixation events:
Under the accepted scientific scenario, an ERV got inserted into the genome of a chimp-human-gorilla ancestor once, then it was inherited by the daughter species.
Under yours, the insertion has to happen three times, in the exact same spot in the genome, and get fixed three different times. Sounds like three times more work. It also sounds less probable; why can't one of the fixations fail?
Now consider an ERV found in all apes but not in monkeys. Using normal biology, the process is exactly the same as for the chimp-human-gorilla case, just earlier. Under your hypothesis, the same virus has to infect the germ cell line of every species of both Asian and African apes in exactly the same location, then become fixed in each lineage. Lots more work, much more chance for failure, again.
Because common descent is *assumed* 'a priori' and everything is shoved into that paradigm? Obviously.
I repeat, the ERV data is evidence for common descent; as I showed above, common descent accounts for the tree-like distribution in a simple and elegant manner. No ad-hoc assumptions about the various species of simians having their DNA created with the tree pattern so the retroviruses all infect the same part of the genome. No blasphemous assumptions that God is really Loki in disguise, putting unused reverse transcriptase genes in mammals just to fool us. No improbable assumptions that the ERVs in all the various species got fixed, or that all species in a clade (everything descended from some ancestor) got infected, and only them.
Continued research will destroy this scenario just like Haeckel's embryos. It just takes a while.
Be careful what you wish for, it might come true.
There were two things with Haeckel and embryology that are no longer part of science. First, his drawings were not accurate. Not a big deal; they were replaced by photos decades ago, and are now only of historical interest.
Second, his Biogenetic Theory, that, say, a developing mammal actually is fish, then an amphibian, then a reptile, and so forth, is wrong. This has been known since before 1900, and, again is only of historical interest.
However, ontogeny really does recapitulate phylogeny, and provides yet more evidence of common descent. There are a lot of phenomena that simply make no sense otherwise. Examples include
the fetal teeth of anteaters and baleen whales which are reabsorbed and never used;
the teeth of platypuses, which are always below the gum line and are never used;
the way a whale's blowhole starts off as an embryonic nose that moves back;
the egg teeth that some newborn marsupials have but never use;
the way our ear bones form in the jaw and migrate to the ear;
the recurrent laryngeal nerve;
and so on and so on.
Some More of God's Greatest Mistakes is an amusing discussion of these and related facts of natural history.
Tone it down.
Yes sir..so sorry for all that vitriol in that post...I need to watch myself...LOL...
No, it's your theory that requires thousands of fixation events because of the thousands of HERVs and the one-time infection moving to fixation scenario. It's not just that it got inherited by some 'daughter species', it had to move to fixation, thousands of times. Indeed, why can't one of the fixations fail?
And I can't find the evidence for this 'exact same spot' claim that you and T.O. make.
I'm sure some of the fixations did fail; there's now no evidence of the retroviral infection.
Please provide some details about exactly what your explanation is for the tree-like structure exhibited by the ERVs; I probably have a wrong idea about it.
T.O. provides references ot the scientific literature. That's where to start.
No, a failed fixation would be represented by partial appearance in the population, not total absence. You cannot distinguish a 'failed fixation' from a non-infection using criteria like that. It's no more than idle speculation.
And I know t.o. provides the references. I checked them. No evidence to support the claim, other than the assertion itself... and a nice little picture to post.
I expect to find that this 'exact same spot' claim doesn't mean what you think it does. It could actually be quite consistent with 'exact same gene', which would support my hypothesis since gene expression affects have been documented.
Just wondered if you knew. I figured not.
You gotta stop taking those t.o. assertions at face value. They're worthless without knowing the underlying data. You've absolutely got to look at the underlying data for interpretive bias.
That's why it is so important to separate evidence from 'interpretation'.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.