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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I'm Conspiracy Guy.
"Yes I am a Jerk and not ashamed of it."
Obviously.
As to where the species came from, 99.99% came from pre-existing species. Does science have as of yet a good explanation for the origins of life on earth? Not really, but just because we can't explain it all now does not mean that it is unexplainable through science. To say *God did it* explains nothing, because you can say that about anything we do not as of yet have all the answers to. That was a way that was used for centuries to shut people up who asked difficult questions. No need to look in that direction, we already know the answer, God did it.
"This signifies nothing less than speciation, and all in the laboratory as well. "
Sorry, but I find it absurd to simply accept the "it depends on the meaning of the word species" as a justifiable argument.
Do it with a horsefly and you might have my attention.
You guys don't stop at the known. You ridicule creationists and ID folks. So I return the favor. Name one thing that has happened in modern times that is obviously a random series of events that resulted in a design type structure. Just one. Modern man did not evolve from apes or even ape like creatures and it will never be proven otherwise. Yes we have learned more as we discover and experiment and we will continue to do so. But we are for the most part unchanged. Get used to it. Piltdown man indeed.
What part of "Evolution is not a random event" do you not understand? Nobody has ever said it was, except for creationists. It is an ANTI-RANDOM event. What is random (mostly) is the mutations. What is anti-random is what actually gets selected. The genes that are selected for are the best ones at that time in that environment. If it were random, then of course there would be no adaptation.
Bringing up Piltdown man is yet anoither example of your inability to argue but only to flame. Who the hell is defending Piltdown man?
As promised here's a website with good tree of life stuff.
Work calls so there'll be a delay before anything more.
http://www.es.ucsc.edu/~pkoch/lectures/lecture5.html
Piltdown man was the hat rack until it was revealed. What will be revealed next. Nat Select isn't random and I didn't say it was. That is your assumption. But to not believe in Creation or ID for the origin of life leaves random does it not? If it isn't random then some intelligent force had to design and set it in motion.
I have said over and over that Nat Select is real. The changes are relatively minor though.
It appears to me that you are the flamer.
Wrong. Life on Earth came into existence and that life obviously had the capacity to evolve steadily to more complex forms. The origin of life and the nature of initial life has a great deal to do with evolution. If you believe life is randomly created, certainly the type of original life and its ability to evolve are key. What you don't want to consider is there is something intrinsically present in nature that results in life with the ability to reproduce and to evolve. This is a natural course for life to take and I will guess that life possesses this ability everywhere in the universe. It is not all the result of "randomness." Why inanimate matter should start moving around and reproducing and thinking is a subject far beyond random physical occurrences.
Let's skip to the chase, do you believe life is the result of random chemical events, that our lives are without meaning, and we are purely mechanical results of chemical processes. If so, what basis if any do you have for ethics, philosophy, meaning of life, even science?
Quantum electrodynamics is accurate to 13 unyielding decimal places. Darwin's theory makes no tight quantitative predictions at all.
This is a meaningless criticism. Berlinski doesn't even say if he is talking about lenght, time, or mass. In 1983 one meter in length is defined as the distance light will travel in vacuum during 1/299,792,458 second. In 1963, one second was defined as the duration of 9,192,631,770 vibrational periods of one atom of 133 Cesium. This frequency can be measured to an accuracy of about 4 parts in 10^13. However, our standard of measurement of mass leaves much to be desired. Our standard of mass dates to 1901, when the International Bureau of Weights and Measures in France defined the kilogram as the mass of a particular cylinder of platinum-iridium alloy. Though standards of lenght and time can be measured to 1 part in 10^12 our standard of mass can only be reproduced to a precision of 1 part in 10^9. Science would like to have an atomic standard for mass, as all atoms of the same type are essentially identical, but no one has come up with a way to count individual atoms with the required accuracy.
The measurement of collisions of atoms and subatomic particles involve measurements of time and energy, both of which we can get high levels of precision. We can also very accurately describe the lenght and composition of the DNA molecule, we can deduce is mass, its molecular weight. However, this is not what evolutionary biologists measure. Saying that evolutionary theory makes no qualitative predictions is dead wrong. Evolution is defined as the change in the frequency of occurance of genes over time in populations of organisms. Individuals within a population have different genes, and some variations are passed to their offspring. Using modern DNA sequencing technology, changes in individual organisms can be measured down to the base pair. Sequences of base pairs of an organism, called the genome, can be assembled and compared with that of other organisms using the computer. The genomes of simple, short lived organisms (generally bacteria) can be sequenced and compared with that of their ancestors in near real time.
Therefore, anyone who claims evolutionary is not a quantitative science is flat wrong.
Darwin's theory is open at one end, because there is no plausible account for the origins of life.
This is another meaningless criticism. This criticism is a complete straw man. I believe Mr. Berlinski is confusing evolution with big bang theory. The modern synthesis theory of evolution (comprised of Darwin's theory of natural selection, Mendel's theory of inheritance, and various advances in molecular biology that have come since the discovery and description of the DNA molecule since the 1950s) has never purported to explain the origin of life. It only attempts to descibed the change in organisms over time.
A great many species enter the fossil record trailing no obvious ancestors, and depart leaving no obvious descendants.
This is akin to saying evolution is wrong because we haven't found a fossil of every organism that has ever existed. It is a good thing forensic detectives do not operate under this standard or no murderer would ever be convicted.
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.
This is another meaningless criticism without detailing how these computer models were written.
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.
That we consider some varieties of drug-resistant bacteria to be distinct species from their non-resistant cousins should not be forgotten.
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.
Hardly. I'm not even a biologist and I am able to determine that these conjectures have little relevance. The first bullet point is a perfect example of this: It is dressed up in fancy pseudo-scientific talk about significant digits and decimal places, but it does not even describe what molecular biologists are measuring in the first place.
Let's skip to the chase, do you believe life is the result of random chemical events, that our lives are without meaning, and we are purely mechanical results of chemical processes.
No.
Science is not equipped to derive the meaning of life.
The problem as I see it is that people are demanding metaphysical answers from physical science.
Science is a means, but not an end. It is simply a tool for describing the physical world.
However, it does not by itself answer philosophical questions like ""why are we here?"
I fail to understand why people demand ethical and philosophical answers from the physical sciences. I speculate it may be because of a perceived lack of ethics and morality in today's world that some people are demanding moral and ethical answers from science. But then, this begs the question what is the purpose of faith if your seeking moral answers from science?
Truly, this is mixing up apples and oranges.
No. Just a concerned Conservative who is deeply fearful for the future of the movement.
Pot, "Kettle you're black."
Enjoy yourself.
Personally I do not have a problem with accepting quantizations of a continuum, but one of the most credentialed mathematicians here on the forum has assured us time and again that it is a fallacy to quantize a continuum. As an example he asserts that some are considered rich if they make $100,000/year - which means a guy who makes $99,999/year is not rich.
The fallacy was asserted to derail an investigation into abiogenesis - the theory of life from non-life. The assertion was that it is a fallacy to quantize (define) either life or non-life/death. Our response was that if you don't have a definition for either end for the theory, there can never be a theory of abiogenesis anyone could take seriously. Thus the investigation died.
But if the fallacy applies to abiogenesis then it also must apply to evolution theory. And here it is more troubling because the theory itself is a continuum based on the quantization of another continuum. If one accepts that quantizations of continuums are fallacies per se - how can anyone take evolution seriously? After all the theory of a continuum of life is based on the quantizations (fossils) of a continuum (geologic record).
Personally, I'd like for everyone to ditch the fallacy of quantizing a continuum as cause to dismiss evidence (e.g. fossil evidence, life v non-life/death) and rather consider the quantization a fallacy only when it is used improperly in the analysis.
In the case of fossil evidence, which are quantized from the continuum, I would rather they be matched against a feasible model for the rise of autonomy, semiosis and complexity. If they don't fit the model - then either the model is bad or the evidence is bad and one should try again. If no model fits, then Occam's Razor indicates intelligent design.
Archeology, anthropology and Egypology (along with other historical sciences) face the same quantized evidence problem but do not have a comparable capability to test theory in mathematics and physics.
Another great comeback. You insult me with no provocation, I call you on it, and you call me the hypocrite. Keep working on those debating skills, right now they wouldn't even be good enough for a discussion in Dummie land.
Why should I debate balderdash. Seems pointless. Once again, enjoy yourself.
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