The "Threat" of Creationism, by Isaac Asimov

Internet ^ | 1984 | Isaac Asimov

[balrog666]

I like Hume too.

Immanual Kant was a real pissant
Who was very rarely stable
Heidegger, Heidegger was a boozy begger
Who could think you under the table
David Hume could outconsume
Schopenhauer and Hegel
And Wittgenstein was a beery swine
Who was just as sloshed as Schlegel

There's nothing Nietzsche couldn't teach ya
'bout the raising of the wrist
Socrates himself was permanently pissed

John Stuart Mill, of his own free will
On half a pint of shanty was particularly ill
Plato, they say, could stick it away
Half a crate of whiskey every day
Aristotle, Aristotle was a bugger for the bottle
Hobbes was fond of his dram
Rene Descartes was a drunken fart
"I drink, therefore I am"

And Socrates himself was particularly missed
A lovely little thinker but a bugger when he's pissed

[lasereye]

He was not talking about mutations at the time. I gather you just want to steer the topic back to mutations.

This is his post that you were responding to, wasn't it?

3--EVOLUTION IS NOT RANDOM!!!!! IT NEVER WAS!!!

Sorry. Pet peave of mine.

It has a element of chance, but entirely too much emphasis is placed on it. Mutations are the mechanism for evolution, but they are mostly harmful for the species, and so are surpressed. The process by which mutations are selected follows very specific rules which apply under specific conditions. The nature of the rules and conditions is a subject of some debate, but the fact that it HAPPENS just isn't. It is impossible, as you suggest, for the incredible complexity of life on this planet to have arisen purely by chance. It is a very common misconception that this is how evolution works, but it's far more rational a system than that.

[lasereye]

So are you saying mutations are deterministic?

[Rachumlakenschlaff]

Greetings to all. I'm new to the Free Republic and this topic (although I have read the last 100 or so posts) so my apologies in advance if this has already been discussed.

Instead of jumping in late on the existing threads, I thought I'd propose (what I think is, for this forum) a new line of discussion: How does the theory of evolution account for the creation of new information? I think everyone can agree that human beings have considerably more information imbedded in them than do amoebas. This is obvious simply based on the relative complexities of the two organisms. The current view from science is that most, if not all, of this information is stored in DNA. The sequencing of genomes in recent years indicates that, indeed, human beings have more genetic material than do amoebas. Some information may very well exist outside of the genome but, regardless of where it may be stored, naturalistic philosophy requires that it be stored somewhere within the material world of the organism.

Regardless of the mechanism, any naturalistic theory of the evolution of less complex organisms into more complex organisms must account for the origin of the information that is in higher life forms. Natural selection, the fundamental driving force in all theories of evolution, does not explain the origin of new information. It simply says that an organism will be more likely to survive than another if it has certain traits that give it a reproductive advantage. i.e., survival of the fittest. Or, as some have pointed out, the survival of those who survive. The point is, the principal of natural selection, which is easily observable in the every day world, does not explain where the traits come from that help the organism survive and reproduce.

Darwin originally proposed the inheritance of acquired traits, but 20th century science rejected that and instead proposed mutations of the genetic code as the origin of new traits. Whether it is the inheritance of acquired traits, micromutations over long periods of time ,or Simpson's Punctuated Equilibrium, the problem is the same: all naturalistic theories of evolution propose that undirected, purposeless forces are responsible for the origin of the information that is in higher life forms but not in lower life forms.

This is a profound concept that, I would suggest, has no parallel in any other theory in any field of study and, in fact, is diametrically opposed to all of our experience with the natural world. In no case has information been observed to spontaneously arise out of the undirected actions of the laws of the natural world. Quite the contrary, our experience with the natural world teaches us that, without the intervention of intelligent agents, or safe-guarding provisions made by intelligent agents, purposeless natural forces acting upon stores of information will cause information to be lost, not gained; ever. Pick you favorite information store: books, video tapes, computer disks, the internet, etc., and find an example to the contrary.

[gomaaa]

Mutations happen all the time. Individuals within a species can vary wildly in appearance, abilities and other characteristics. It doesn't have to be anything so drastic as suddenly growing a third arm. Such a mutation is almost always harmful to the individual and might well make it harder for it to survive. Little differences, though, can give certain organisms an advantage. Individuals with that sort of trait are more likely to survive and over time this can shift the original distribution. The rule is not "chosen" by anyone, certainly not by the organism. Survival is the only criteria. If it works, it keeps propogating. If it doesn't it goes away.

[lasereye]

I understand the theory of natural selection. What I thought you were saying was that the mutations themselves are not random in nature but that somehow the beneficial ones are more likely to occur.

[gomaaa]

Ahh. Yeah, the mutation generation process is random. The selection process is not. I think we're on the same page now. Didn't mean to sound condescending there.

[Condorman]

How does the theory of evolution account for the creation of new information?

Welcome to the threads. One way to account for new genes is to recognize the existence of duplication mutations.

A recent article on Free Replublic reports on duplication in action.

To catch up on what has already been covered, you might also want to check out Junior's most recent opus, The Ultimate Creation vs. Evolution Resource [21st Revision]

[Right Wing Professor]

So are you saying mutations are deterministic?

Mutations are chemical reactions which follow physical laws. Does this mean the locations of mutations can be predicted? No, because we don't know the exact details of every molecule in a cell, and even if we did, we might have to include a quantum mechanical probability. So, no they're not deterministic; but neither are they random. Is tossing a loaded dice random? No. Is it deterministic? No.

[bondserv]

E < Mc2

[VadeRetro]

Gomaa was talking about one area of crevo-thread discussions in which creationists relentlessly misunderstand the role and nature of randomness. I was adding another one. You would have done better to read my post with the same thoroughness you read his.

I've noticed a common fallacy of equivocation in creationist argument. "Random" is used anywhere you might say "undirected." For instance, the formation of an amino acid by what is actually a rule-based, deterministic chemical reaction is described as "random," presumably because no one is supervising the details.

The next thing you know, the odds of such a molecule randomly jumping together from constituent atoms are being computed (or vaguely remembered). But you didn't make it that way, you just set up the favorable conditions and let chemistry do what chemistry does. "Random" is now being used to justify an interpretation of not just "undirected," but the wider sense of "unpatterned," "lacking causal relationships," "haphazard," "stochastic."

I don't see what's not straightforward. I clearly state a context, that of the actual formation of organic molecules (as in abiogenesis) versus the typical creationist strawmanning of the odds of the formation of such. I've seen trailer-loads of such strawmen, but here's an example from this thread.

Let's pause to admire your style in reply:

You're comparing mutations which drive evolution to a deterministic chemical reaction?

That's nice. You seemingly aren't sure so you ask. Mistakes happen. Of course, if you really aren't sure you've read right, waiting for a reply might be a good idea.

If that's true, then we must know the mechanism which drives mutations, as we know the mechanism which drives chemical reactions, or we must have at least experimentally observed the same mutation occurring repeatedly under the same conditions. Which of those is the basis for saying mutations are deterministic?

Not so good. Just in case the answer is "No," we aren't going to wait. We're going to knock over some more strawmen for the Lord.

I wasn't aware that it was an accepted evolutionary doctrine that the mutations aren't really random as the dictionary defines it. Can you give me a link for that?

Even if somebody somewhere knows a really deterministic mutagen now, Darwin didn't in 1859. His world-shaking theory must have involved something else, even if you don't know what it was. Have you proven anything? "Twist and Shout" is a lousy debate tactic.

Do you really want a "mutation" analogy for my molecular formation example? Here's the analogous creationist fallacy-attack for "mutation and natural selection."

1. Mutation is random and randomness doesn't build information or go anywhere.
2. Natural selection is a tautology. "The survivors survive."

I'm sure you don't have any problem with the above, so I'll explain.

Evolution is the joint operation of random variation and the existence of differential reproduction success for the variations ("natural selection"). This joint operation of factors is not random nor is it a simple "rose-is-a-rose" empty statement. Over time, it produces a convergence toward adaptation to current local conditions. Since current local conditions themselves have varied greatly across time and space, populations of organisms can be and have been greatly transformed over the earth's history. There is in fact no logical reason to believe that this does not happen. Many people refuse to believe, but their reasons have nothing to do with facts or logic.

[VadeRetro]

Darwin originally proposed the inheritance of acquired traits ...

That was Lamarck.

... or Simpson's Punctuated Equilibrium ...

S.J. Gould and Niles Eldredge's punctuated equilibrium.

In no case has information been observed to spontaneously arise out of the undirected actions of the laws of the natural world.

Did you know the cosmic microwave background radiation reveals that the universe was once quite evenly filled with a hot gas of hydrogen, helium, and a little lithium? Nothing else, just that? Would you say the information content of the universe has gone up or down since then?

[bondserv]

The food industry worries about the 2nd Law of thermodynamics destroying the peanut butter, not life.

All things shall wax old like a garment.

[Rachumlakenschlaff]

I don't see how duplication mutations differ in principle from any other type of mutation. I don't have a problem with mutations. I have a problem with the concept of making random changes to a body of information and gaining information as a result. It is possible for the information to change, but can information be gained or is it lost?

For example, suppose a random change occurs to the recipe for a chocolate cake so that instead of calling for chocolate it now calls for rasberries (let's ignore for the moment the problem of someone having to know how to read the recipe and bake). Have we gained any information? Some would say yes, now we know how to make a rasberry cake! In reality, we have lost our recipe for the original chocolate cake. Or, perhaps we had a duplication recipe and changed only one so that we now have two recipes instead of one!

But do we? The new recipe is certainly different but has new information been created? I think not. If it contains new information that wasn't originally there, then what is it's meaning? What does it convey? Have we now learned how to make a rasberry cake? No. We haven't learned anything because there is no new information in the altered recipe. There's no question that we get something different if we apply the same set of baking rules to different ingredients, but this was known before the change ever took place.

[VadeRetro]

The new recipe is certainly different but has new information been created? I think not. If it contains new information that wasn't originally there, then what is it's meaning? What does it convey? Have we now learned how to make a rasberry cake? No. We haven't learned anything because there is no new information in the altered recipe. There's no question that we get something different if we apply the same set of baking rules to different ingredients, but this was known before the change ever took place.

Hemoglobin, which carries oxygen in blood, arose from a duplication mutation in the gene for myoglobin, which carries oxygen in muscles. Was this not new or useful?

[Condorman]

You misunderstand. Your analogy isn't the best, but I'll continue to use it in order to explain.

When the recipe mutates, the line indicating the amount of chocolate get repeated. You now have a double-chocolate cake. Mmmmm....

But since you have two entries for chocolate now, what if the next time you bake it, the second entry changes to raspberries? Now you have three cake species living in your recipe box. A chocolate cake, a double-chocolate cake, and a chocolate-raspberry cake.

Now, when are you inviting us over, because I'm suddenly getting hungry?

[edsheppa]

What I thought you were saying was that the mutations themselves are not random in nature but that somehow the beneficial ones are more likely to occur.

Interesting you should mention that. There is a newish idea about called quantum evolution. There is a book of that name by McFadden. One observation he mentioned was an experiment in which beneficial mutations did occur more frequently than expected.

My grasp of the idea gained from his book is that quantum behaviors in cells do lead beneficial mutations to happen more frequently that you'd expect based on classical calculations. The analogy that occurred to me was a sort of resonance-in-time, mutations can sort of "sense" their future effects.

I found the speculation interesting but it is a lot of hand-waving.

[Right Wing Professor]

E < Mc2

You wouldn't be f.Christian's twin brother, would you?

[bondserv]

Twin//No ((Fellow)) Brother in >Jesus Christ is LORD<//YES :-)

We LOVE//Pray ((Right Wing Professor)) will be//DILIGENT STUDENT >of Bible< Become part of ((Fellowship of the KING))

[unspun]

When the recipe mutates, the line indicating the amount of chocolate get repeated. You now have a double-chocolate cake. Mmmmm..

Doesn't sound like a recipe for survival, for that cake. It's still an exercise in falling up-hill.