Why do people deny evolution?

@rosborne979,

The Marcellus is a series of basins that were around as the supercontinents (Before Gondwana) ere moving bck nd forth. Te Marcellus is defined by 2 unique fossils that were wide spread but short lived , they went extinct or evolved to become related species after the mid Devonian.
The fossils , like many species of those days, are always hotly debated as to what they even were. But the gas "play" is a function of the deposits and huge organic masses of sea creatures that lived in these sediment units. The modern equivalent would be the shallow continental shelf areas surrounding continents.
weve almost always known about the gas and kerogens ("wet gas") in the sands and shalesof the lower Devonian. Its just that, earlier, our technology to drill sideways, and pinpoint the gas bearing formations, and to increase the permeability of the host rocks just wasnt there.
Actually, the real development of the technology goes back to the late world War 2 time period when slant drilling and lance drilling were tried using better "bit locating" techniques..

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@Frank Apisa,

New York is not allowing any gas development until they can be shown that it can be done without contamination.
As it appears, each day I work in this area, the more contamination I her of.
Pa already hs about 25% of its streams fucked up by old coal mining, so why not **** it up completely and stand around with our thumbs up our asses.

I was originally "safe drill advocate" (I even started a thread on it several years ago)> As it turns out, I may have been quite wrong. The real problem is careless drilling, sealing, casing driving, and lubricating existing fractures with all the "special sauces" many drillers use for what they call "Slickfrack"

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@layman,

Meyers must be smoking crack. There is NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SPUPPORT WHAT HE SAID, but an entire fosil record that refutes it.

There IS NO "REVOLUTION", (except that proposed and asserted by the gungas of the world). If you want to be a follower of science you should loosely hold on to hypotheses in favor of strong supporting evidence or that which REFUTES.
So far"Neutral Theory" is a bus with no engine.

You have some information about the validity of "Irreducible Complexity"?
No one else does.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Meyers must be smoking crack. There is NOT ONE SHRED OF EVIDENCE TO SPUPPORT WHAT HE SAID, but an entire fosil record that refutes it.

Heh, Farmer, spoken like a true believer, sho nuff. I especially like the ALL CAPS rhetorical flourish and your questioning of Myers' mental stability.

How, pray-tell, could the "fossil record" possibly tell you whether evolutionary changes were the result of either neutral drift or "natural selection?"

You know the world's really gone to hell when a vociferous opponent of ID, a founder of the "Panda's Thumb" website, no less, gets fooled by the creationists and joins their ranks, eh?

PZ Myers, a closet creationist...****, who knew?

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@farmerman,

Ya know, Farmer, most of this recent discussion started as a result of me quoting from a piece written by Dr. James Shapiro, here:

http://able2know.org/topic/229102-281#post-5932500

Shapiro took issue the following line of "reasoning:"

There aint but two kinds of people in the world:
1. Devout Neo-Darwinists, and
2. Bible-thumping creationists.

He called it the "dialogue of the deaf." You immediately undertook to somehow refute anything and everything he said because he was, you claimed, notwithstanding his direct disavowal of ID, a "creationist."

I'm afraid, however, that your efforts have only served to prove, not undermine, his observations about the "dialogue of the deaf" coming from some quarters.

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@farmerman,

To partially reiterate Shapiro's comments:

Quote:

... the potential for new science is hard to find in the Creationist-Darwinist debate. Both sides appear to have a common interest in presenting a static view of the scientific enterprise. This is to be expected from the Creationists, who naturally refuse to recognize science's remarkable record of making more and more seemingly miraculous aspects of our world comprehensible to our understanding and accessible to our technology. But the neo-Darwinian advocates claim to be scientists, and we can legitimately expect of them a more open spirit of inquiry. Instead, they assume a defensive posture of outraged orthodoxy and assert an unassailable claim to truth, which only serves to validate the Creationists' criticism that Darwinism has become more of a faith than a science.

Shapiro also advocated "opening up the possibility of addressing scientifically rather than ideologically the central issue so hotly contested by fundamentalists on both sides of the Creationist-Darwinist debate."

Just another trick attempted by a lying creationist, no doubt.

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@layman,

please, stop trying to preach. Give me a run-down of all this evidence you seem to have.

Im sorry but I go with evidence till vidence shows another route is better ,

As far as Capitals---Puhlleeeeeze-Unlike you- I just didnt feel like emboldening my words (like you do) > SO please dont call me the kettle. (At least my ords werent some clip from Wikepedia)

As Sean Carroll suggests, the regulatory systems of genes are more inportnt than" changes in numbers of genes or their gaining new functions" This allows a "rich basis" for morphological diversity. Gene expression is, therefore, a proviing mechanism for ample variation for naturl selection to act upon.

Evidence in the fossil record clearly suggests the modification of organisms with changes in the stratigraphic environment. The "fossils" are those that didnt survive the last event in an "upward fining sequence" or a" Development of a continental slope and hence greater sedimenttion rate"

As you suggest, the mammoth grew its hair before it got cld. Well, even if you are right, natural selection REMOVED all the non hairy ones as the temp plunged.

I somehow think you actually believe that ths is a big fight going on among scientists. You seem to be quoting mostly ID sources so, I can see how youve unknowingly "bought into" that story.

I think it ws FBM who stated waay back a few pages ago, that ALL evolutionary mechanisms will be evaluated bsed upon best evidence nd testability nd prediction.

Any scientist who is denying a strongly evidenced theory ,is missing the boat completely.

Paleo environmental data supports selection. In fact, after the death of dinos, the remaining mammals (non-tuberculates) didnt remain as "second city" dwellers. as the paleogene moved along, and it warmed and dried further , the opportunistic trifurcation of land mammal clades, the rapid (stepwise) appearance of "terrorbirds", nd the return to the sea by protocetaceans, was a function of opportunity and form. Convergent evolution features in severl clades occured in unrelated species for basically the same reasons but in times that were tens of millions of years apart.

Selection rewards the fit by continued existence(thats all) and "punishes" the speciies that dont fit with extinction. Both are mere tools .

If a paleoscientist fails to keep up with the evo-devo world, she gives up a prt of her toolkit. Converesly, if an evo-devo guy totally ignores the sedimentary environment through time, he also loses a part of his toolkit.

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@layman,

s far as the "dialogue of the deaf" may I continue to invite you to please present evidence that supports neutral theory and refutes Natural selection?

You have the made-up mind it seems, You just want to keep it covered so you can appear dispassionate? So accusing me of being close minded is a nice preemptive shot, even though, I think your knowledge base is a bit too focused on pre digested thought rather than scientific inquiry.
Do I get close to the nub of your argument?

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@farmerman,

As Sean Carroll said,
The ingredients of organismal evolution are:

1 Sufficient time is needed

2 identical or equivalent mutations arise repeatedly by chance

3 Their fate (preservation or elimanation) is determined by the condition of selection upon the traits they affect.

Item 3 hs been repeated in the lab and in wild population assays(mostly in determination of color reception is various organisms) by looking at the proteins involved (opsins), Its sort of a "red Queen" case

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@farmerman,

I suspect that many/most/all of these evolution denialists severely underestimate the significance of the time factor.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

... please present evidence that supports neutral theory and refutes Natural selection?

Let me put it this way, Farmer, the arguments, and evidence, pro and con, in the selectionist/neutralist debate went on for decades, and the record of it is quite extensive. It's there if you care to look. I'm not going to try to spoon feed it all to you.

Suffice it to say, that, according to Myers, at least (and many other "hard-boiled" evolutionists, such as Lynch, who I also recently quoted here), the majority of evolutionary theorists have decided that "all" the evidence favors the neutral theory. I put "all" in quote,because, you excepted, of course, I don't think anyone is even capable of possessing, let alone critically analyzing, all the evidence that has been presented.

Unlike you, I have no reason to conclude that scientists who expressly disavow ID are nonetheless creationists if they question Neo-Darwinism. I'll let the professionals decide these issues, rather than pretend that I'm more qualified to do so than they are.

Like I said, I have no dog in this fight. I don't care who wins. I do, however object to dogmatic fundamentalism if and when it may occur in so-called "science." Do I believe that has happened with the die-hard darwinists? Yeah, I pretty much do, I guess. It's not even so much the claims they might make sometimes as it is the doctrinaire manner in which they present, and adhere to, those claims.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

Paleo environmental data supports selection. In fact, after the death of dinos, the remaining mammals (non-tuberculates) didnt remain as "second city" dwellers. as the paleogene moved along, and it warmed and dried further , the opportunistic trifurcation of land mammal clades, the rapid (stepwise) appearance of "terrorbirds", nd the return to the sea by protocetaceans, was a function of opportunity and form. Convergent evolution features in severl clades occured in unrelated species for basically the same reasons but in times that were tens of millions of years apart... if an evo-devo guy totally ignores the sedimentary environment through time, he also loses a part of his toolkit.

For some strange reason, Farmer, I guess I tend to assume that most professional evolutionists, especially those with reputations like Carrol and Myers, are aware of the "facts" that you have just recited. I tend to doubt that YOU possess this knowledge, but they don't.

Apparently they do disagree, however, with your assessment that these facts provide conclusive proof of your argument. I tend to think, again, perhaps naively, that they are actually aware of more evidence, pro and con, than you are.

Those who are convinced that OJ Simpson was innocent would naturally accuse YOU (assuming you didn't share their assessment of the evidence) of simply not putting enough weight on the fact that they gloves didn't fit. As Johnny Cochran put it: If the glove doesn't fit, you MUST acquit.

What would YOU do then? Probably point to some other evidence and claim that they weren't giving enough weight to that evidence, eh? Whatever the jurors conclude, I know this much. I wouldn't want a jury composed of all KKK members or all "black militants" to decide the case.

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@farmerman,

Here's a practical suggestion, Farmer: Why don't you log into Myers' blog and inform him of all the things he doesn't know. He might just change his opinion on the spot, who knows?

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@FBM,

Quote:

I suspect that many/most/all of these evolution denialists severely underestimate the significance of the time factor.

"Time" is such a convenient summary of what, among evolutionists, become complex factors. Some of these evolutionists, such as (just an example) the "population geneticists, have spent virtually their whole careers "crunching numbers" with the assistance of super-computers, factoring in, of course, "time." Nonetheless (or, rather, precisely because of this) some of the most prominent of them have become convinced that "natural selection" is unable to account for macro-evolution.

This is certainly not to say that they "deny evolution" by any means. But, when assessing the viability of "natural selection" as a mechanism, they certainly consider "time" to a far greater degree than any "man on the street" does when he just throws out the word "time" as a magical explanation of all his ill-founded claims.

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@layman,

Ive been reading Phrayngula for years. Just because someone says something, without evidence, it is interesting for discussion, but that about all. Im not married to anything but assertions arent evidence.

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@layman,

Quote:

some of the most prominent of them have become convinced that "natural selection" is unable to account for macro-evolution.

receive the smoke ye accolytes.

Time cannot be discounted and you have no way of factually dismissing it. We know fairly accurately the rate at which mutations are fixed within the STL alleles of human populations. These become a "genetic clock" that is fairly accurate.

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@layman,

Quote:

Let me put it this way, Farmer, the arguments, and evidence, pro and con, in the selectionist/neutralist debate went on for decades, and the record of it is quite extensive. It's there if you care to look. I'm not going to try to spoon feed it all to you.

If you have it, why would you not want to share what you know? I can go on for several hour re nat selection and evidence that supports it,(and Ive already posted quite a few for you to try to dismiss but youve failed to step up)
Ive been in this field near onto 40 years and have attended many many symposia on evo devo and nat selection and paleo. Have you?, I think what youve been spouting is a mile wide and one half inch deep.
There IS NO evidence. Its a parlor game among drinking buds.

Dismissing nat selection without ANY evidence is \nt science, its hucksterism.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

I can go on for several hour re nat selection and evidence that supports it,(and Ive already posted quite a few for you to try to dismiss but youve failed to step up)

Great! Then do us both a favor, Farmer, and take my suggestion. Take the time to spell out all of your conclusive evidence in favor of natural selection and post it on Myers' blog (or email it to him). Let's see what a real expert has to say about it. Fair enough?

Of course, if you're really interested in what evidence there is for favoring neutral over natural selection (in the opinion of experts) you could begin by reading what Myers says in the blog for which I have just given you the website address. Or is it that you want me to cut and paste every word of it here for your convenience? Couldn't do that if I wanted. Don't know how, with so many diagrams.

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@farmerman,

This much (and a lot more, of course) is expressed in plain text by Myers in this blog post:

Quote:

Now you might try to salvage your faith in the ultimate power of selection by suggesting that the neutral and nearly neutral mutations are really rare and can thus be ignored as negligible, therefore returning us to the world of selection theory…with just a little fuzzy slop around the boundary between the green and blue bars. That’s untenable, though. We have molecular clocks.

He goes on to explain why "molecular clocks" are relevant. Read it, if you want. Or don't. I don't really care. Strictly your choice. Here's the link, again:

http://freethoughtblogs.com/pharyngula/2014/02/14/the-state-of-modern-evolutionary-theory-may-not-be-what-you-think-it-is/

Toward the end there is a summary under the heading of "Postmodern reassessment of some central propositions of Darwin and Modern Synthesis." You may (or, then again, perhaps not) find that worth reading.

Quote:

His closing sentences are: I’m not going to get into the evidence for quasi-Lamarckian evolution here, but I will say that there is good evidence for some of it: Koonin discusses the CRISPR-Cas system of adaptive immunity in bacteria. Maybe some other time I can write that up.

I don't know if he has since followed up on his suggestion that he might review the evidence for quasi-Lamarckian evolution, or not. He has since made quite a number of blog entries, so maybe.

If, as Carroll (and many others) suggests, mechanisms of "gene expression" provide additional variety, this, in itself, provides no evidence that "natural selection" directs evolution. Often the suggestion is that "gene expression" is itself the "director" of evolution because it is often correlated to demands from the environment and is therefore generated in some (quasi) Lamarckian manner.

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@farmerman,

Quote:

1 Sufficient time is needed 2 identical or equivalent mutations arise repeatedly by chance...

Have you "done the math" on this, Farmer? Apparently Myers has (or at least seen it done). He says, for example (same blog entry):

Quote:

A very large population size will accumulate more mutations purely by chance, but the probability of a single mutation becoming fixed in the population is reduced under large population sizes. When you do the math, you discover that population size cancels out, and the frequency of novel forms becoming fixed over time is dependent solely on the mutation rate.

As he is suggesting, there is a very significant difference between a chance mutation "occurring" and the chance of that particular mutation becoming "fixed (within the species) over time."

1 Reply

Why do people deny evolution?

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