I've always liked this quotation:
"...in his bodily form, man bears the indelible stamp of his lowly origins."
-- (Darwin, 1871)
Hey, creationists. Why do we have toes on our feet in your view of things? It couldn't be because we are descended from arboreal ancestors, whose far more agile toes gripped tree branches could it? Did you ever go to bed, and then, just short of complete sleep, suddenly come awake with a start and the feeling that you were falling? I guess that can't be because we descended from arboreal ancestors who had to worry about falling out of their tree while asleep.
More fun with warning lables for books:
[URL=http://www.sciam.com/article.cfm?articleID=00022DE1-0C15-11E6-B75283414B7F0000]Steve Mirsky of Scientific American[/URL] wrote:
Sticker in Introduction to Cosmology: "Astronomers estimate the age of the universe to be approximately 13 billion years. If evolution ticks you off because you believe that the earth is only 6,000 years old, cosmology should really make smoke come out of your ears. There's a fire extinguisher next to the telescope."
Sticker in Geography for Today: "Some people believe that the earth is flat. An ant probably thinks the beach ball he's walking on is flat, too. Anyway, this book says the earth is more like an oblate spheroid. Now go find Moldova on a map."
Sticker in Earth Science: "You are free to exercise your First Amendment rights in this class and to identify all stratigraphic layers as being 6,000 years old. We are free to flunk you."
Sticker in Collegiate Chemistry: "Electrons. They're like little tiny ball bearings that fly around the atomic nucleus like planets orbit the sun. Except that they're actually waves. Only what they really are are probability waves. But they do make your MP3 player run, seriously."
Sticker in Our Solar System: "Remember they said in chemistry class that electrons fly around the nucleus like planets orbit the sun? Some people think the sun and other planets go around the earth. You'll have a much easier time with the math if you just let everybody go around the sun, trust me."
Sticker in Physics for Freshmen: "We know that a lot of what's in this book is wrong, and with any luck they'll eventually find out that even more of it is wrong. But it's not so far off, it took some real geniuses to get us this close, and it's way better than nothing."
Sticker in Creationism for Dummies: "Religious belief rests on a foundation of faith. Seeking empirical evidence for support of one's faith-based beliefs therefore could be considered pointless. Or even blasphemous."
Sticker in Modern Optics: "CAUTION! Dark ages in mirror may be closer than they appear."
Ideas similar to intelligent design theory were already popular when Darwin wrote "Origin of the Species". However, Darwin countered that even an organ as complex as the eye can be explained by adaptation and natural selection:
Quote:To arrive, however, at a just conclusion regarding the formation of the eye, with all its marvellous yet not absolutely perfect characters, it is indispensable that the reason should conquer the imagination; but I have felt the difficulty far to keenly to be surprised at others hesitating to extend the principle of natural selection to so startling a length.
It is scarcely possible to avoid comparing the eye with a telescope. We know that this instrument has been perfected by the long-continued efforts of the highest human intellects; and we naturally infer that the eye has been formed by a somewhat analogous process. But may not this inference be presumptuous? Have we any right to assume that the Creator works by intellectual powers like those of man? If we must compare the eye to an optical instrument, we ought in imagination to take a thick layer of transparent tissue, with spaces filled with fluid, and with a nerve sensitive to light beneath, and then suppose every part of this layer to be continually changing slowly in density, so as to separate into layers of different densities and thicknesses, placed at different distances from each other, and with the surfaces of each layer slowly changing in form.
Further we must suppose that there is a power, represented by natural selection or the survival of the fittest, always intently watching each slight alteration in the transparent layers; and carefully preserving each which, under varied circumstances, in any way or degree, tends to produce a distincter image. We must suppose each new state of the instrument to be multiplied by the million; each to be preserved until a better is produced, and then the old ones to be all destroyed. In living bodies, variation will cause the slight alteration, generation will multiply them almost infinitely, and natural selection will pick out with unerring skill each improvement.
Let this process go on for millions of years; and during each year on millions of individuals of many kinds; and may we not believe that a living optical instrument might thus be formed as superior to one of glass, as the works of the Creator are to those of man?
To create some trait, evolution needs two things. The trait must confer a survival advantage, and there must be a path to the trait such that each step along the way confers additional advantage. That's proably why there are no creatures with treads like a tractor - a partial tread is not an advantage. There is no path to it.
Brandon9000 wrote:To create some trait, evolution needs two things. The trait must confer a survival advantage, and there must be a path to the trait such that each step along the way confers additional advantage.
Aren't there cases where a trait appears which conveys no particular advantage, but may eventually convey advantage as it changes over time, and as environmental conditions change.
For example, feathers may have first evolved as fuzziness on scales, which may have been a fairly benign change to the creature, but then as environments got colder, they may have conveyed an advantage in retaining heat. And they again later, fluffiness or feathers may have slowed the fall of creatures jumping from branches to escape predators, and allowed for selection of gliding ability.
If I remember correctly, one of the flaws in Michael Behe's idea of irreducible complexity was that there doesn't need to be a continuous flow of advantage in variation. Sometimes new systems arise simply because there is some otherwise unrelated structure which exists due to variation and can be exploited by selection when conditions change.
rosborne979 wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:To create some trait, evolution needs two things. The trait must confer a survival advantage, and there must be a path to the trait such that each step along the way confers additional advantage.
Aren't there cases where a trait appears which conveys no particular advantage, but may eventually convey advantage as it changes over time, and as environmental conditions change.
For example, feathers may have first evolved as fuzziness on scales, which may have been a fairly benign change to the creature, but then as environments got colder, they may have conveyed an advantage in retaining heat. And they again later, fluffiness or feathers may have slowed the fall of creatures jumping from branches to escape predators, and allowed for selection of gliding ability.
If I remember correctly, one of the flaws in Michael Behe's idea of irreducible complexity was that there doesn't need to be a continuous flow of advantage in variation. Sometimes new systems arise simply because there is some otherwise unrelated structure which exists due to variation and can be exploited by selection when conditions change.
Well, natural selection certain can't predict the future. A mutation can spread to a few animals by chance, but it would be unlikely to spread through the gene pool if there was no advantage to having it.
Intelligence Design 'theory' is not science, nor are its proponents really aiming for it replacing another theory.
What this is is an assault on the scientific method as a whole.
No amount of evidence will be enough in the eyes of those who value testimony over facts, decree over deduction. THis is also the reason why most arguments from the ID-side appear/are based on logical fallacies (which are identified by the scientific method, so as to prevent un-scientific results).
Since science is itself evolutionary and not divine or ever complete, there are those who believe it is enough proof to point at 'incompletion' of science as satisfactory refutation.
The frightening part is that those who control flow of information, hold power, regardless of truth. So when threats are made that 'evolution is already dead', it is not based on scientific fact, it is based on information control.
What is the opposite of Renaissance?
Brandon9000 wrote: A mutation can spread to a few animals by chance, but it would be unlikely to spread through the gene pool if there was no advantage to having it.
But it might well spread through a genome were there no
disadvantage conferred . . .
Especially if its dominant
Brandon9000 wrote:Well, natural selection certain can't predict the future. A mutation can spread to a few animals by chance, but it would be unlikely to spread through the gene pool if there was no advantage to having it.
I'm not sure about that. I guess it depends somewhat on how we define mutation. As Farmerman and I once discussed on the Sabretooth thread, a lot of variation in form is spread throughout the standard gene pool for a species. Just look at the number of different types of pigeons. Are all the variations in morphology in pigeons called mutations, or are they just amplified variation.
Last October, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania made a controversial decision to include intelligent design theory in high school biology classes. Next week, seven incumbent members of the school board will be up for re-election. There are eleven other candidates running for the same seven seats.
At least nine candidates have spoken out that the school board made a mistake in its biology curriculum decision. One such candidate remarked: "Â…offer intelligent design in another class, like philosophy, comparative religion. But I'm not for intelligent design at all. I want it to go away."
One incumbent defended his decision by saying: "Since ID is definitely a scientific theory, it should stay in the science classroom."
It will be interesting to see how many of the school board incumbents are re-elected in next week's vote!
rosborne979 wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:Well, natural selection certain can't predict the future. A mutation can spread to a few animals by chance, but it would be unlikely to spread through the gene pool if there was no advantage to having it.
I'm not sure about that. I guess it depends somewhat on how we define mutation. As Farmerman and I once discussed on the Sabretooth thread, a lot of variation in form is spread throughout the standard gene pool for a species. Just look at the number of different types of pigeons. Are all the variations in morphology in pigeons called mutations, or are they just amplified variation.
By what mechanism does a characteristic spread through the population if it confers no advantage? Animals which don't have it are just as likely to survive and mate as animals which do. Variations in a species can come from groups which are geographically isolated.
wandeljw wrote:Last October, the school board in Dover, Pennsylvania made a controversial decision to include intelligent design theory in high school biology classes...
This is truly hateful and stupid. It will make us look like fools to our descendants, in much the same was as today we scoff at the Salem witchcraft trials.
Creationism vs. Intelligent Design
Is there a difference?
By Daniel Engber
Posted Tuesday, May 10, 2005, at 3:51 PM PT
Critics who argue that evolution should not be taught as scientific fact presented their case to the State Board of Education in Topeka, Kansas, last week. Testimony is scheduled to resume on Thursday, and the board expects to make a decision on whether to change its science standards this summer. The public hearings have pitched proponents of evolution against those who subscribe to "Intelligent Design." Is Intelligent Design the same thing as Creationism?
No. Intelligent Design adherents believe only that the complexity of the natural world could not have occurred by chance. Some intelligent entity must have created the complexity, they reason, but that "designer" could in theory be anything or anyone. The design argument was first put forth in 1802, when William Paley proposed the "divine watchmaker" analogy: If we assume that a watch must have been fashioned by a watchmaker, then we should assume that an ordered universe must have been fashioned by a divine Creator. Many traditional Creationists have embraced this argument over the years, and most, if not all, modern advocates for Intelligent Design are Christians who believe that God is the designer.
Creationism comes in many varieties, from the strictest biblical literalism (according to which the Earth is only a few thousand years old, and flat) to the theistic evolutionism of the Catholic Church (which accepts evidence that the Earth is millions of years old, and that evolution can explain much of its history—but not the creation of the human soul). Between those extremes, there are "Young-Earth" and "Old-Earth" creationists, who differ over the age of the planet and the details of how God created life.
The limited scope of Intelligent Design theory makes it compatible with a wide range of views. Some prominent ID theorists believe in evolution—or at least that species can change over time—and many believe that the Earth was created more than 10,000 years ago. But there are also ID theorists who believe in a literal reading of Genesis.
Young-Earth creationists have criticized the Intelligent Design movement for encouraging a loose reading of the Bible. The design theorists respond that ID represents at least the "partial truth" and that it is, at the very least, the best available tool for dislodging what they see as evolutionist dogma.
Brandon9000 wrote:By what mechanism does a characteristic spread through the population if it confers no advantage?
Random chance.
Lots of characteristics spread through populations without confering an advantage. For example, eye color in humans.
My point was that not everything genetic characteristic which exists within a species has a survival function. Many things are just neutral.
As I said before, one of the main flaws with irriducible complexity is the assumption that every stage in the development of a particular body system was a step in the design of the final system, but this simply isn't the case. Many systems have been usurped for different functions, and evolved based on changing survival criteria.
rosborne979 wrote:Brandon9000 wrote:By what mechanism does a characteristic spread through the population if it confers no advantage?
Random chance.
Lots of characteristics spread through populations without confering an advantage. For example, eye color in humans.
My point was that not everything genetic characteristic which exists within a species has a survival function. Many things are just neutral.
How does a trait which confers no advantage push out competing traits to dominate the gene pool?
rosborne979 wrote:As I said before, one of the main flaws with irriducible complexity is the assumption that every stage in the development of a particular body system was a step in the design of the final system...
Actually, this is the opposite of my assumption. Evolution has no idea where its going in the future, nor is there any final state. Every stage occurs only because it confers a survival advantage itself. That is why even a highly beneficial mechanism can never arise without a pathway to it, along which every further step is an improvement. Most likely the first eye arose as a light sensitive patch of skin, which became more and more sensitive, and developed a lens to focus an image. Every further step was an improvement over the previous configuration.
In fact, it is not simply a survival advantage. Any individual which survives is by definition fit; a trait which will improve the individual's breeding opportunity will confer a survival advantage, of sorts, on the species. But individuals within the species may have varying traits, while having one or more survival advantage traits in common. All contribute to the survival advantage of the species, but their individual characteristics which are not all common with the survival advantage characteristic are going to spread through the gene pool. Once again, eye color is a good example, in that several varieties exist within the gene pool, but it is the relative visual acuity of the organ, working the nervous system and the relevant tissue in the brain which confer the advantages which provide better breeding opportunity for the individuals, and a survival advantage for the species. That is part of the flexibility of the gene pool, as well. Some individuals in any successful gene pool will have currently neutral characteristics which can become beneficial under the stress of any significant change in the environment of the species.
