This week, Nature magazine published a short list of recent important developments in evolutionary biology that support the theory of evolution, as a tool to help explain that evolution is definitely a dynamic and useful theory in our field and to demonstrate that the evidence is still growing. Here’s a short summary of the 15 stories the editors picked out, but you should also read the freely available article, 15 Evolutionary Gems. Teachers, put this in your classroom!
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The discovery of Indohyus, an ancestor to whales.
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The discovery of Tiktaalik, an ancestor to tetrapods.
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The origin of feathers revealed in creatures like Epidexipteryx.
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The evolution of patterning mechanisms in teeth.
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The developmental and evolutionary origin of the vertebrate skeleton.
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Speciation driven indirectly by selection in sticklebacks.
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Selection for longer-legged lizards in Caribbean island populations.
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A co-evolutionary arms race between Daphnia and its parasites.
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Non-random dispersal and gene flow in populations of great tits.
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Maintenance of polymorphisms in populations of guppies.
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Contingency in the evolution of pharyngeal jaws in the moray.
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Developmental genes that regulate the shape of beaks in Darwin’s finches.
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Evolution of regulatory genes that specify wing spots in Drosophila.
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Evolution of toxin resistance.
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The concept of evolutionary capacitance: the idea that environmental stress can expose hidden variations that are then subject to selection.
It looks quite shiny. I’m downloading the article for offline use right now.
Wow. Do Nature editors have a vertebrate fetish, or what?
#9 seems pretty cool.
but i’m sure to be disapointed.
I’m particularly interested in #9… ‘populations of great tits’.
@#3
You should be, as its a bird. So is a blue footed booby oddly enough.
I’m interested in finding out were I can find the population in #9. Any suggestions?
@earl
try one of the links below:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Great_Tit
http://www.rspb.org.uk/wildlife/birdguide/name/g/greattit/index.asp
http://www.britannica.com/EBchecked/topic/243822/great-tit
http://www.juggworld.com/
Does #9 come with photos?
I haven’t actually read the article, but it’s obviously completely wrong. All the evidence is just made up. Plus all that evidence just proves that God did it.
Happy monkeys are made from Tiktaalik.
If the editor is who I think it is, then yes. He did his PhD on fossil cows.
I’ve got a photograph of Grrlscientist and one of her great tits.
BUT WHERE ARE THE TRANSITIONAL FOSSILS!?!?!?!?
Not a Poe, do you have any physical evidence for your imaginary deity? Something that would pass muster with scientists, magicians, and professional debunkers as being of divine origin? Otherwise, how do we tell that you aren’t just giving us a line of BS? And Occam’s razor says BS until the physical evidence is confirmed.
It is my contention that the organization of these structures and processes and their assembly into a functional system required insight, and could not have been accomplished by random, accidental fortuitous occurrences.
Ho hum.
humm
interesting.
#15 is new? The idea of stress causing selection sounds awfully familiar, although I don’t recall the term “capacitance” being applied to it before.
-jcr
Excellent bit of “Poe”-etry, there, Dagoo…
Now all Dagoo has to do is to come up with a better [i]scientific theory[/i].
JCR, the recent lizards on the Adriatic island who developed cecal valves to help digest plant material I believe is an example. The regulatory genes for making the cecal valves were dormant with a primarily insect diet, but were turned back on when the diet had to have more plant matter.
No one will notice my fail with HTML when I link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B9h1tR42QYA
(Because everyone is busy pointing out that it has been already been posted.)
In addition, let me caution you that I am NOT defending irreducible complexity and/or intelligent design creationism Dagoo
It is my contention that the organization of these structures and processes and their assembly into a functional system required insight Dagoo
So, Dagoo, how do you reconcile these seemingly inconsistent statements?
He can’t. It is exactly the same thing the idiots at DI say but he knows what a drubbing those folks get and he wants to avoid it. Unfortunately he’s not saying anything different from them.
He he…you said “great”
Let’s see, who would I believe. Biologists, who have studied the matter for 150 years with no indication that the Theory of Evolution is wrong. And are known to be honest since science requires it. Along with the million or so scientific papers backing it up ToE in all facets. Or an unknown poster with no published theory.
That one is not hard to figure out. Dagoo is wrong until he proves himself right. Dagoo, your personal belief is irrelevant without the evidence to back you up. And it isn’t there.
Yes, lets look at the evolution of the eye. http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/evolution/library/01/1/l_011_01.html
“Dagoo”, aka Charlie Wagner, you can call yourself by a different name, but your thoroughly stupid composition style always shines through. Give it up man. Go do something valuable with your life.
I once worked with a chap who was a keen amateur ornithologist. He would regale us with comments such as “blue tits are more common in winter” and be surprised by the hilarity it caused amongst the rest of us.
Where’s wÒÓ† when you need him? Or does he just do boobies.
I had occasion to mention this one to relatives over the holidays.
Dammit Feyn, I was just going to ask about w00+ too. Holbach is MIA as well.
#25: Awesome video!
But wouldn’t it be easier to postulate that a race of super-intelligent Space Aliens simply created some species with primitive eyes and other species with more complex eyes? That way, the researcher in the video wouldn’t have had to spend all those years figuring out this “evolution” stuff.
http://www.rael.org/
*headdesk* Looks like a day for stupid posters. Or Poes. Sigh.
Dagoo must not have read the many, many, many books by biologists and zoologists that show the evolution of the eye and that it has developed 40 to 60 times independently.
This is a not a ‘fact’ at all. It is a false statement. A connection has been shown in viruses. Most anything else requires millions of years.
11* Dagoo…
Interesting post…pity Bertrand Russell apparently wrote the piece!
http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/loom/2009/01/03/ken-millers-guest-post-part-two/
Scroll down half way the piece is in two parts… Dagoo pasted the second part!!
Wired ran as story on this the day it was published. Most of the commentary was creationist babble. Someone noted that, of the first four comments, three were evolution deniers and that it was telling.
As for Dagoo, you really need to try a little harder to understand evolutionary theory. Your claim is not unique and has been refuted many, many times. You’re merely asserting (with different wording) that you believe that random mutation is always destructive and that there is no possibility that mutations cannot be benign or even helpful.
You’re asserting that you believe that natural selection means “survival of the fittest” and that your (limited) idea of what “the fittest” are causes evolution not to work. Evolution is not a design process. Genes can be conveyed to a species that do nothing, or very little. These kinds of differences can protect a species from predation – such as with the peppered moth, increase its sexual attractiveness for inexplicable (to humans) reasons – such as with the peacock, or be seemingly useless – eye and hair color in humans.
There’s an infinite number of selectors and none of them have to make sense (to humans). The most unusual selectors tend to produce the most unusual differentiation (such as the bizarre forms of life at the bottom of the ocean that contend with intense pressures, cold temperatures, and utter dark). Blind Cave Fish Can Produce Sighted Offspring is an example of a species in the process of becoming two divergent species, but not so far as to be completely genetically incompatible and the mutations incapable of reversal in as little as one generation.
Bury your head in the sand if you like and ignore all of the evidence of evolution merely because you don’t understand or like it. That won’t make it go away.
Beggars the question what Bertrand was on when he wrote that though….;-)
@NerdofRedhead at #13, I think NotaPoe was just being sarcastic of creationists in his comment at #8.
Dagoo, Nice cut and paste job asshole.
Dagoo sounds suspiciously like Charlie Wagner, right down to the particular faux-scholarly inflection of his sentence structure. But do we have proof that they are the same?
His argument is a failure of imagination, of course, on many levels. He fails to comprehend just how extensive variation is, how long and plastic DNA is, the sheer variety and number of mutations that are generated in the totality of even a small population in each generation. He fails to comprehend how efficiently natural selection can eliminate disadvantageous variants and preserve advantageous ones. Unsuccessful variants are removed and not repeated. Successful variants are preserved, and in each subsequent generation, amplified and modified as the basis for new variation. It’s an exponential process, like compound interest. Start with almost nothing but you get huge sums very quickly. And he fails to comprehend the huge enormity of time evolution has worked for, and enormous number of generations that have gone by, each one amplifying and modifying the successes of the past, and each even more successful modification being amplified in turn.
I am of the opinion that evolution is an inevitable emergent property of any imperfectly self-replicating process. (Selection pressure is automatically generated as a result of self-replication so long as resources are limited – as populations grow, the create their own environmental pressures just from the act of growing, even in the absence of external forces)
To stop evolution, now that would require something pretty extraordinary. Demonstrate a lineage of lifeforms that have not changed in any way over their history, and you might actually have evidence for a god.
Aseem, I am bad at identifying Poes.
Nifty, a counter-crocoduck.
#8 – What evidence are you talking about? Nerd of Redhead and I are two eager people to see the evidence. Post it and make our day!
When I first heard about tiktaalik, I read that scientists had been expecting to find such a fossil in that location (Canada, if I remember correctly) because of the type of rock found there, and its age.
Can anyone else provide a list of places where fossils of unknown species are presently being sought, in the form “scientists are looking for fossils of unknown species A, a transitional form between species B and C, at location D”? This would be a wonderful way to demonstrate to the creationists how science is actually conducted, particularly once those transitional species are later found.
‘But do we have proof that they are the same?’
Yes!…and possibly Bertrand Russell to boot!
http://www.charliewagner.net/casefor.htm
That was the link from the ‘BR’ piece on comment section of Panda’s thumb with the Casey Luskin take down…
I can’t really say that the cockroach hasn’t changed in any way since there are obviously several species of them alive even today, but they bear great resemblance to their fossilized ancestors. They seem to be as much evolutionary “winners” if ever there were.
They must surely be evidence of an all-powerful, all-knowing, all-loving deity. *wink*
strangest brew@34,
“Bertrand Russell” is also our old friend Bishop Pontoppodan – was that another alias of halfwit Wagner?
#45:
Yes, cockroaches and other “living fossils” do bear striking resemblances to their fossilized ancestors, but, keep in mind that the fossil record largely preserves morphology. There are many other ways for a lineage to change. Is their behavior the same? (Some species of cockroaches are social, were the first cockroaches social? If not, when did that behavior appear?) Are the neural networks in their brains the same? Is their biochemistry identical? (Are they using exactly the same pheromones as the first cockroaches, for example) Are their immune systems the same? (Highly unlikely, given that their diseases have surely been changing all this time).
Other examples abound. The modern coelacanth and nautilus live in the deep sea. Many of their ancestors were shallow water species. The modern horseshoe crab is quite a bit bigger than their known fossil precursors, and who knows if their blood chemistry was the same. The first sharks did not have lateral lines, and the hammerheads in particular are quite new. The list goes on.
Oops. Missed the *wink* at the end of post #45. But my points in #47 still stand.
Ralph @43
In response to “(Canada, if I remember correctly” please see
http://tiktaalik.uchicago.edu/finding.html
#20 Thank you for the link
Dagoo @11 Please stop posting, so I can learn more about science. If you cut and pasted your comments and are not the original poster’s alter ego, then you plagiarized; cheater.
I think it is uttelry stupid to present these as mounting evidence for evolution, as if evolution is always “being strengthened” by new evidence yet somehow will never be ultimately confirmed… you need to think about this in a little more depth, PZ. It’s Ok to fight creationism, but its pathetic, and misguided, to make every scientific advancement in evolutionary biology into an anticreationist conclusion.
amphiox, I agree, which why I was careful to state that one can’t say that they haven’t undergone any evolution. Of all of the species of cockroaches, only a few prefer to cohabit with humans.
The comment was merely aimed to suggest that, by the argument, the cockroach is closer to “godliness.” Fossils of them show up much earlier in the record than fossils of homo sapiens.
Ironically, if cockroaches are closer to godliness, then by associative property, the filthy little critters undo the old saying “cleanliness is next to godliness.”
This is all, of course, facetious. It’s meant to get the creationists’ skin crawling, but the effect is somewhat lessened when one of us misses the joke…
Um, HeWhoYouDespise, every scientific advancement in evolutionary biology is an anticreationist conclusion.
And theory of evolution is “being strengthened”. No scientific theory is too strong to accept additional validation.
HeWhoYouDespise said:
It’s exactly why evolution is a scientific theory and, therefore, better than a mere fact. Scientific theories rest upon mountains of evidence or they’re simply called hypotheses. In contrast, Intelligent Design rests upon no evidence and is worse than a fact.
Sure, it probably bothers the intellectually poor to watch the intellectually rich bathing in scientific facts. It’s probably excessive, and even a little obnoxious, but provide one indisputable scientific finding (i.e. you’ll have to do a lot better than posting a link to the Discovery Institute or Answers in Genesis) that supports ID and I’ll eat my words. Just one, pretty please.
Ward S. Denker #51:
Unfortunately, my web browser didn’t display the last line of your post until after I submitted mine #47, hence #48.
Alternately, though, we could argue that it’s possible that the designer abhors cockroaches, which is why, after making the first few, he couldn’t bear to tinker with the design again.
Or that he was very bad a making beetles, and had to try over and over again before he got one right.
But then, he seems to have had to try several times with humans, too, which is funny if humans are supposed to be made in his image. Must have had bad mirrors or something.
In addition to the composition style, I note that “Dagoo” was a minor character in Moby Dick. Charlie “Crackpot” Wagner has a prominent fetish with that book.
Yes. And “Bishop Pontoppodan” was mentioned in Moby Dick (in the context of the Kraken).
Meh, it’s not an anagram of “Charles Dexter Ward”.
Yes, we see. You are going with the Fallacies of Personal Ignorance, Ppersonal Incredulity, and General Lack of Knowledge of Biology.
You forgot to close your rambling post with a cheery, “You atheist Darwinists are all going to hell. Off now to bomb a family planning clinic for jesus.”
HeWhoYouDespise #50 wrote:
I assume you mean by this that the creationism-evolution controversy shouldn’t be mentioned all the time — it gets tiresome.
Trouble is, this website fights creationism — and “it’s Ok to fight creationism.” PZ provided a link to the article in Nature. You could go there. And then you could look up more references, from that site. And then you will be happy again. And there will be general contentment and rejoicing all around.
Don’t follow any links to Panda’s Thumb or TalkOrigins though. You will be distressed. They’re even worse than PZ is. If you can imagine.
I love the cartoon of Darwin on the last page of that fascinating publication…
It is interesting how some in the ID camp insist on the “complete certainty or it’s just faith” zero-sum argument, in that they demand the complete detailed evidence of every evolutionary step, all the way down to the identity of every gamma ray photon that flipped the base-pair that caused each and every point mutation, for the entire history of the lineage, all stacked one on top of each other, in a single fossil find.
But turn it around to their own cherished conceptions, and what level of rigor do they demand for those?
Hmmmmm. . . .
Charlie “Dagoo” Webster, arch-imbecile and loon-lord, whined:
and retched:
Clearly a vacuous distinction without a difference, like, “I’m not saying there are six widgets, I’m saying there’s half-a-dozen”. Utterly cretinous.
“Intentionally Muddled Science Education?”–We all know that COMMON DESCENT of all species from one or more very primitive forms of life is something we can say is true beyond all reasonable doubt. But can we say the same thing about the most commonly proposed “mechanism” for how this common descent came about? I.e., can we say that we know beyond all reasonable doubt that common descent of all the species came about mainly as a result of NATURAL SELECTION acting upon RANDOM MUTATIONS? I.e., is our level of certainty about natural selection acting uon random mutation as the primary mechanism of common descent at the same high level of certainty that we have about the fact of common descent itself? My suspicion is that it is not at the same level, but is at a somewhat lesser level of certainty. My suspicion is that science educators commonly muddle this all up, however, on purpose, in order to make science education more effective in eroding belief in fundamentalistic religion. I would welcome answers to my science question.
Re: “Gems from the Fossil Record”
For those who have no taste for the Darwinian Kool-Aid, each time some fragmentary fossil is ballyhooed as the latest discovery of a “transitional” form, it’s hard to keep from falling out of the chair laughing. Among other things, the confident assertions Darwinists make on the basis of the flimsiest of fossil evidence (such as the claim that a few skull bones show that Indohyus was an evolutionary ancestor of modern whales) brings the following to my mind:
“Contrary to what most scientists write, the fossil record does not support the Darwinian theory of evolution, because it is this theory…which we use to interpret the fossil record. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say the fossil record supports this theory.” – Ronald R. West, “Paleontology and Uniformitarianism,” Compass 45 (May 1968): 216
I have to wonder why the Darwinian faithful fail to realize that a neo-Darwinian hypothesis (such as land mammal to whale evolution) is not confirmed by interpreting the fossil record through the filter of neo-Darwinism. When the theory is used to justify an interpretation of the fossil record (as it routinely is), the interpretation cannot then be used to justify the theory. Logic is apparently not a strong suit in the Darwinian camp.
Anti-evolutionists persist in not understanding science.
Stupid fuckwittery is apparently the strong suit of the anti-evolutionary camp.
Jackie, got anything better than your long winded “is not”?
No, the fossil record was interpreted and that helped to come up with the current state of the ToE.
Care to present us one bit of research you have evidence to refute instead of just making a proclamation and name calling?
How about them pharyngeal jaws in zebrafish, as seen in PZ’s illustration? Minnows lack jaw teeth. They are basically pipette feeders, forming a sucking tube with the jaws and roof of the mouth. The squeeze bulb is the pharyngeal cavity. Expanding the opercula sucks water and food through the pipette into the pharyngeal cavity where it is delt with by the last lower pair of gill arches which have teeth on them. The arches push the food up against the basoccipital process of the skull and slice and dice or grind it, depending on which minnow. Suckers are similar, but have comb-like straining pharyngeal teeth. Many other fishes have pharyngeal jaws of one kind or another, even though they have jaw teeth.
Sastra @60 – WORSE than PZ!? Surely that cannot be. On the day someone is worse than PZ won’t a herald fly down on a gossamer cloud and announce the end of the world? This is shocking news.
Now I’ll go look. Tee-hee!
Last time Jackie was here it only took four posts to make her furious.
Disclaimer: I am not a biologist.
My understanding is that there are several mechanisms of mutation, including autonomous random mutations, like transcription errors, and purely additive mechanisms like the incorporation of retroviruses and horizontal gene transfer (HGT), which ones actually happen depending somewhat on the type of organism. The selection mechanisms known to modern evolutionary biology include environmental survival pressure (traditional “survival of the fittest”) but also (at least) sexual selection and kin selection, which are generally understood to be included under “natural selection”. In summary, there are a number of (random) ways that variation is introduced and a number of (non-random) ways that the frequency of each particular variation in a population is either decreased or increased, so that “non-random selection acting on random variation” is still remarkably accurate for a snappy synopsis, even if the exact mechanisms are more complex than such a sound-bite can capture.
I’m open to correction, of course, but I’m pretty sure that the foregoing outline is reasonably accurate.
“every scientific advancement in evolutionary biology is an anticreationist conclusion”
Obviously not. If we, say, discover that bipedism in the hominid lineage is 7 My old rather than 4 my, or that a given group is polyphyletic rather than monophyletic…what is specially more anticreationist about that than the previous opinion? Ypu guys think like if we had a constant problem of “looming creationims” within science. Bullshit.
“Scientific theories rest upon mountains of evidence or they’re simply called hypotheses”
You’ve got it wrong. The way you’re thinking we’d have to cheer every falling apple as growing evidence for the theory of gravity. The validity of the theory of gravity is not “needy” for “more evidence”, nor is it being “strengthened” by observing more falling apples. It is already established. The same thing for evolution.
What? The lateral-line organ is, at the very least, a general gnathostome trait. Not only cartilaginous but also bony fishes have it, all the way to water-living amphibians. And then of course, it doesn’t fossilize well at all, normally just leaving its canals in the superficial skull bones that sharks don’t have. So where did you get that from?
While I am at it, cockroaches are not beetles — not even close –, and to say “the cockroach” is quite silly, given the vast diversity of cockroaches. Did you know that the termites are just another cockroach clade, to pick the most superficially striking example?
Jackie, you and the utterly unknown Mr West who published in an utterly unknown journal 40 years ago are postmodernists: you believe that any evidence can be distorted so far as to be compatible with any preconceived notion; in other words, you believe that there is no such thing as a falsifiable hypothesis, so that, in the end, there is no such thing as objective reality.
You and Mr West are both wrong.
Find me a single rabbit skeleton in a Silurian layer, and the theory of evolution will be in deep, deep, deep trouble. If you can’t see why, buy a clue and then ask us…
The fact that — so far! — all of the fossil record can at all be interpreted using the theory of evolution is nowhere near as unremarkable as you and Mr West believe. It clearly tells us something. If the theory of evolution were wrong, why haven’t we found Silurian rabbits long ago, or Ordovician whelks, or Cambrian birds?
Let’s see, Jackie cited an article in a travel magazine, probably an opinion piece. What an asshole. That isn’t even worth the paper it was printed on. Only science can refute science. Cite the primary scientific literature if you want to impress us.
Darwinist/Darwinism is a clear attempt to make it sound like a cult of personality. Darwin got it mostly right, but he also got many things wrong. Darwin is not a god of science. Science has no gods. Guess what Jackie, unlike your static religion, science added 150 years worth of improvement to the theory, the Theory of Evolution. If you are wrong about that, what else are you wrong about. Just about everything. Fail.
Seems that stating a belief in jeebus and papa is an anathema these days…folks tend to regard you as ever so definably juvenile in mental maturity…and guaranteed to bring howls of derision and mirth…
Best call it other wise…
How about following Creationism’s footsteps ……better call it Intelligent Design also…sounds rather posh and not all deity sycophantic…
A new religion for a new millennium…God is indeed great…err I meant the ‘intelligence of the design’ is indeed great!
Tis just a pity about the IQ level of the fans…but ya can’t have it all!
Jackie, you post indicates that you have no understanding of what “scientific interpretation” means. From your post, it seems that you think that, just like creationists, scientists start out with the conclusion, then look for evidence they can make fit with that conclusion.
In reality, first there was only the evidence, from which the first rough sketches of the ToE were developed. the more evidence there was, the easier it became to fine-tune the theory, as the conclusions were fit to the evidence. At some point the ToE became so precise that predictions could be made from it, i.e. “If the ToE is correct, then we should find a fossil A, in Layer B, in Region C.” And every time such a fossil is then indeed found, that strengthens the theory. on the other hand, when fossils are found that don’t agree with the current version of the ToE, then the ToE is modified to agree with the evidence to correct the mistake (one such mistake was the assumption that human evolution was linear, without any branching or dead ends).
Shorter answer: scientists don’t make the evidence fit the theory, they make the theory fit the evidence. therefore, your entire post is ignorant at best, blatant lying at worst.
Like your adaptations of Ronald W. West, Owlmirror! Anyone know about the guy? He was a biologist of some sort I think – google comes up with a journal special issue he co-edited in 1977: “Structure and Classification of Paleocommunities”, Brittonia 29:2. My guess is he was a “transformed cladist” – they had some very strange ideas about scientific method, notably that you can and should completely separate “pattern” and “process”. This would fit with the common and dishonest creobot tactic of quote-mining from disputes between evolutionary biologists and presenting the results as if the writers were denying the reality of evolution.
See the Indohyus thread for additional answers to Jackie’s stupid fuckwittery.
The theory of gravity is in fact being strengthened by every single observation of a falling apple. That’s because every such observation is an opportunity to falsify the theory. There is no such thing as “established”! There is such a thing as “established beyond reasonable doubt”, sure, but it’s impossible to define “reasonable”.
It’s just that, in the case of gravity, nobody notices, because the gravity deniers (they exist out there on teh intart00bz, honestly!) aren’t organized in politically active groups that want to “teach the controversy” about the theory of gravity, not even in the USA. With evolution that’s different.
What about Richard Lenski?
Jackie is double-dipping here. She resurrected the Indohyus thread from December 07 with an identical comment, and got a predictable smattering of responses from those of us who caught it in the ‘recent comments’ queue.
Jackie is obviously a glutton for punishment, as well as an unrepentant liar. Breaking a commandment and embracing a deadly sin in one fell swoop–impressive!
If that’s the case, why are you here on this site? Why aren’t you badgering creationists and ID proponents? Seems to me you’d just like someone to note your concern.
hmmm…. i should probably clarify something in my last post: so far, nothing has been found that completely contradicts the basics of the ToE, (like a Cambrian Bunny, for example) but little tweaks and corrections are constantly done on the more detailed branches of Evolutionary Theory. It’s not an immutable dogmatic stance, it’s constantly adapted to the evidence to explain and predict more accurately. And despite that flexibility, it’s basics still stand. that’s why it’s such a strong theory
OT but what the hell!
Hey Rev.BigDumbChimp, Pope of Vice – Are you going to divorce yourself from the Pope now that he is divorcing the Vatican from Italy?
Maybe another study that should be done is a comparative anthropological research on the evolution of Homo Sapiens Exploritus versus Homo (sub-)Sapiens Religio-Vacuuminum?
Excuse the silly ‘Latin’, but at times I think all who have been given the gift of wonder must have a much more exciting and stimulatoing life, always stumbling upon something new to explore and learn from, – versus those poor critters living under a rock in a self-imposed, religiously driven, prison of the mind.
So much to find out, – only one life to do it in!
Owlmirror:
1) “Contrary to what most scientists write, ballistics does not support the Newtonian theory of gravitation, because it is this theory…which we use to interpret ballistics. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say ballistics supports this theory.”
2) “Contrary to what most scientists write, illness does not support the Pasteur theory of germs, because it is this theory…which we use to interpret illness. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say illness supports this theory.”
Wrong on both counts. Evidence supporting both Newton’s theory of gravity and Pasteur’s germ-theory of disease can be adduced without appealing to the theories to justify interpretations of the evidence. The same independent inerpretation of the evidence can’t be said of the identification of “transitional forms” in the fossil record.
Owlmirror: “Stupid fuckwittery is apparently the strong suit of the anti-evolutionary camp.”
You’re projecting, but you do raise a question: Why do the defenders of Darwinism so routinely resort to adolescent name-calling and vulgarity in what they write? It’s as if their purpose in writing is to ensure that they’ll be ignored by all but those of a like mind. That’s not a promising rhetorical strategy for persuading people that neo-Darwinian theory is not the ridiculous thing that most people think it is.
In anticipation that PZ’s amen chorus will respond to this post with the supercilious vulgarity that is so characteristic of Pharyngula, I bid you farewell. I dare say that no one who hasn’t already taken up residence in the fever swamps of neo-Darwinism spends much time perusing the Pharyngula rants.
[citation needed](and not a travel magazine this time)
what kind of evidence outside the theory of gravity and the germ theory is there, that doesn’t exist for the theory of evolution?
Jackie said:
Richard Dawkins did away with this notion as early as page 13 in The Ancestor’s Tale.
– Richard Dawkins, The Ancestor’s Tale, emphasis his.
It’s not merely fossils that we have to go by. Molecular taxonomy is already redefining everything in biology.
You go on to say:
Hippos are related to whales, something that Dawkins also illustrates in The Ancestor’s Tale (pages 196-203). This was determined through molecular taxonomy. The fossil record also confirms this, indicating that the link between hippos and pigs is a bit more distant than originally believed.
How does molecular taxonomy work? Dawkins even simplifies this for us with an apt comparison in The Gibbon’s Tale (pages 123-136 of The Ancestor’s Tale). The Bayesian method and parsimony analysis are used to determine the level of likelihood (which is not a vague term, as explained on page 132) that certain variations of the Canterbury Tales are more like the original than others.
It’s acutally fairly graspable (even if you don’t have a mathematics background), if you read the entire section (13 pages). The same method is applied to genetic code, illustrating evolution brilliantly, and validating many earlier conclusions that merely used phenotypic (mostly, but not completely, morphological) comparisons to build the taxonomy trees.
We’ve seen how good you are at mining quotes, let’s see how good you are at reading books. Hop to it.
“There is no such thing as “established”!”
I, obviously, disagree.
You may want to think about the “reasonable doubt ” part. It is not a minor point , a footnote, as you are putting it. Science is not only about evidence at the level of the retina. Within a scientific framework, evolution IS established. Or do you have a SCIENTIFIC alternative
“The theory of gravity is in fact being strengthened by every single observation of a falling apple. That’s because every such observation is an opportunity to falsify the theory”
Haha.
Ask yourself why no papers are published saying “more evidence for newton’s theory from observing 100000 instances of falling apples”. Same thing for evolution. You have to read a blog or non-scientific source to see thess findings presented as “increasing evidence” for evolution”
Need more help? say you let go of an apple one day and it shoots to the ceiling.
Do you think that would make all observations that are condistent with the theory of gravity suddenly disappear?
.
We need a portmanteau of “coward” and “seagull”: I’m going with cowgull, for it also evokes the bovine fullness of the pantload customarily dropped.
WRONG!
Go ahead. Find this supposed “evidence” that can be “adduced” without appealing to the theories to justify interpretations of the evidence.
In my own case, it’s exasperation with someone grabbing a very selective (and wrong) quote from a 40-fucking-year-old travel magazine, and thinking that this one, single, completely unevidenced and wrong quote somehow has bearing on actual science, refuting the entire corpus of evidence-based scientific work on evolution.
If I wrote calmly and politely, would it convince you? If yes, then I apologize, and we can continue. If no, then fuck off.
Fixed that for you.
Some anti-evolutionsts just can’t stay away…
“In anticipation that PZ’s amen chorus will respond to this post with the supercilious vulgarity that is so characteristic of Pharyngula, I bid you farewell.”
Yeah, run home and cry to Mama.
IPA > Nose > monitor
Here is a quote from a comment posted by somebody calling himself Charlie Wagner:
Compare to Dagoo’s post:
Aw, the comments on #9 got buried before I could add one of the best scientific research paper titles ever:
R. A. Pettifor, C. M. Perrins & R. H. McCleery, “Individual optimization of clutch size in great tits.” Nature 336:160-162, 1988.
HeWho:
Do you have a point here? If this is all about how we supposedly look or are perceived by others when we display the latest evidences for evolution, then kindly take your misplaced concern elsewhere.
I should note that I made a minor typographic error in my attribution:
My apologies to professor Dawkins.
Perhaps the clever among you can determine how that specific typo came to be.
“If that’s the case, why are you here on this site? Why aren’t you badgering creationists and ID proponents? Seems to me you’d just like someone to note your concern”
I juts don’t like stupidity. This way of thinking makes evolution the mere antithesis of creationism. Evolution is fun and interesting quite beyond the creationist troublemakers. You give those fools far too much credit making it al seem like it’s about creationism
Jackie, people here respond with “vulgarity” when the level of willful ignorance and blind arrogance of the troll (you in this case) requires it.
So….
Fuck off unless you can provide us specific research that refutes other specific currently accepted evolutionary research. Coming in shot out of a cannon making claims without any empirical backing does nothing beyond supporting the fact that you are indeed boastful in your position as a ignoramus.
Thus spake Rev BigDumbChimp:
Sorry about that. If I ever meet you, I’ll be happy to buy you a replacement… IPA that is, not nose or monitor… those are a little outside my price bracket.
I hate to be pedantic, but Tiktaalik is unlikely to be the ancestor of the tetrapods (Neil Shubin stated that in his book “Your Inner Fish”, page 180). It is likely to be a con-ancestor, and share a lot of features with the real ancestor, which we would be extremely fortunate to discover, and which we would be unable to confirm as such with any certainty.
On a slightly non-related topic, William Shakespeare didn’t write the plays and sonnets normally ascribed to him; they were written by someone with exactly the same name.
maybe no-one told you, but rhetoric is irrelevant to science. it’s substance over style. even if all scientific papers were filled with the worst epithets possible, while creobots wrote the most articulate, polite, literary masterpieces, the scientists would still win.
I saw this and immediately thought that if the tits were so great they’d have automatic transmissions and wouldn’t need clutches. But then I realized this was a very silly joke.
stickshift > automatic
Just a quick pop-in to gloat that I am off first thing in the morning for 3 weeks in the Galapagos Islands and eastern Ecuadorian rainforest…envy me until I return at the end of the month. Happy Monkey and enjoyable pharyngulazation until then!
Jackie: ‘1) “Contrary to what most scientists write, ballistics does not support the Newtonian theory of gravitation, because it is this theory…which we use to interpret ballistics. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say ballistics supports this theory.’
Newtonian gravity theory predicts that solid objects, traveling in a certain velocity, will behave in a certain way (modified by air friction and such). They do, including ballistics.
We can then use our confirmation of these data to make future predictions of the behavior of such objects. How does ballistics not support Newton’s theory of gravity at the human scale?
Jackie: ‘2) “Contrary to what most scientists write, illness does not support the Pasteur theory of germs, because it is this theory…which we use to interpret illness. By doing so, we are guilty of circular reasoning if we then say illness supports this theory.”‘
We do not exactly interpret illness; we assert that if a premiss is such and such, it will behave in predictable ways. And it does. As we identify various complicating factors, as the data accumulate, we develop a better understanding of Pasteur’s theory of disease. The fit between the data and the theory supports the theory, yes.
Jackie: “Wrong on both counts. Evidence supporting both Newton’s theory of gravity and Pasteur’s germ-theory of disease can be adduced without appealing to the theories to justify interpretations of the evidence. The same independent inerpretation of the evidence can’t be said of the identification of “transitional forms” in the fossil record.”
The data supporting those two theories cannot be understood without those theories; and because we have had those theories for decades (centuries!), we have been able to take steps to test them, and as various predictions have been confirmed (or not) by more data, they have been refined.
Modern evolutionary science is supported by a vast wealth of data from numerous disciplines, including, but not limited to:
Fossil evidence sorted by time, corresponding to progression of early, simple forms to diversity of modern forms, with numerous clear transitional series.
Fossil evidence showing progression of whole ecosystems, with various types of fossils associated with only certain other fossils.
Fossil evidence corresponding to plate tectonics, magnetic striping, and other geological evidence.
The nested hierarchies of morphology, vestigial organs, biochemistry, genomes.
The fact that all of these nested hierarchies parallel the others is evidence in itself.
Behavioral sciences are illuminated by the understanding of common descent via modification.
Life is unified by a sharing of fundamental polymers, nucleic acids, protein catalysts, etc.
There are no other theories that fit all these data, and the ToE has been tested for 150 years now. It has been forced to modify to fit the data, and is all the stronger for it.
If people are rude to you, it’s because they are tired of informing you of why you are wrong, and being confronted with your determined effort to remain ignorant. Ignorance does not explain gods; ignorance does not mean you know more than professionals in the field; and the goal is not to win the fight, but to discover how the world works. I am also impatient with folks who prefer darkness to enlightenment.
Grrrr…
# 12 – “When Charles Darwin visited the Galapagos Islands, he recorded the presence of several species of finch that all looked very similar except for their beaks…..”
No he didn’t. He caught a number of birds that were so dissimilar that he thought they were entirely different species, and didn’t bother labelling them.. and they’re not really finches…. Why didn’t Nature read Sulloway before coming up with this nonsense? And of course it was the mockinbirds that he identified as differing by islands… perhaps appropriately.
Classic creobot troll. Leave crap. Get thoroughly refuted. Claim prejudice, declare victory, and leave. YYYYAAAAWWWWNNNNN.
Sven, enjoy your trip. Bring back pictures. Maybe PZ will let you post some.
Jackie… here’s something that you ought to reflect on, between now and the next time you grace us with your illuminating presence. That is that NOBODY is out there digging in the ground, looking for fossils for the purpose of bolstering the evidence for ‘evolution’. That sort of activity would amount to ‘gilding the lily’.
Fossils represent low-resolution ‘snapshots’ that each have a place in the mosaic picture that shows us how life on earth has developed and changed, over time. The challenge lies in determining where those pictures fit (think jig-saw puzzle), and the purpose is to continue to improve the resolution of the ‘big picture’… along with our understanding… on an ongoing basis.
Also, there is another little bit that you don’t seem to ‘get’. The way we talk about evolution gives the impression that we think that critters ‘evolve’… and that is a big problem. That is a good part of the reason that the scientifically-ignorant don’t get it… and why they have a hard time ‘believing in’ evolution. But we don’t think that critters ‘evolve’. One kind of critter does NOT give birth to another kind of critter. One kind of critter does NOT transform (itself) into another kind of critter. It is the genetic makeup of populations of critters that ‘evolves’… otherwise known as the gene pool.
Saying it a different way, so that it might be easier to remember… it is the gene pool that ‘evolves’… NOT critters.
If you make that into your mantra, then perhaps there is a chance that you may be able to contribute in the future… without making a complete ass out of yourself.
More tomorrow, just so much for now:
No, but it would mean that the theory of gravity had a gaping hole — that, in other words, it were wrong. Any succeeding theory would have to explain why apples almost always fall, but it still wouldn’t be identical to the current theory of gravity.
(Assuming, obviously, that all other possible factors can be ruled out, like someone having inserted a magnet into the apple and an electromagnet having been switched on in the room above mine at a convenient moment.)
I juts don’t like stupidity. HeWhoYouDespise
Odd, since you display so much of it. This is, among other things, an anti-creationist blog; what’s the point of coming and whining that it features anti-creationism? The anti-creationists here are well aware that there is far more to evolutionary biology – but the place to find most of it is in the scientific literature, which this blog isn’t. If you don’t like it, don’t read it, and we won’t have to read your inane witterings.
By the way, that really should be “HeWhomYouDespise”, old chap.
Creationists tend to think scientific theories are like religion. How do you decide which religion is truly one inspired by God? You look to see what its proponents are like.
If there is a founder, was he a wonderful person with great virtues? Then the religion might be true. What about the churches, do they have a welcoming atmosphere and charity projects? Then the religion might be true. And the followers — are they smiling and helpful and friendly? Then the religion might be true. “By their fruits, you will know them.” If any of this isn’t the case, then move on. The religion cannot be true.
Religious people have developed a tendency to think that style is substance. Recently, RickRoll posted part of a dialogue he had had with a Young Earth Creationist, who wrote the following to him, regarding a visit her kids had made to Pharyngula, and their reaction to the tone they discovered:
Though it’s a bit difficult to discern whose character is being discussed, its plausible to read this as admitting that, to the religious mindset, whether God exists — or evolution happened — is going to be discovered by finding out which group is “nicer.” There’s no reason to be an atheist if they swear at you. If evolutionists are mean to you, then you don’t have to look any further. You’ve got your answer on which view is correct.
I used to think this tendency on the part of the religious meant that we have to be very cautious at all times in how we present ourselves in doing philosophy, or science. I now think it means that sometimes religious people have to be told to grow up and get over this very bad habit of thought. They do know better, really.
“it would mean that the theory of gravity had a gaping hole — that, in other words, it were wrong”
Not really. Very weird, but you would not be able to conclude that quite yet until you know quite a bot more. This is why a simply instance of an apple falling is “increasing” evidence for garvity. That IS ridiculous. It is not something that “strengthens” the theory of gravity. I hope we can get that clear.
“Any succeeding theory would have to explain why apples almost always fall, but it still wouldn’t be identical to the current theory of gravity”
In other words, whatever you do, you would have to acknowledge the theory of gravity does not cease to be useful and scientifically valid in several domains and conditions. Specifying a domain in which a theory ceases to be applicable does not mean the theory is “wrong”. I guess you knew that.
thank you very much
Hi Sven (comment #105). I hear that January isn’t the best time to be visiting the Galapagos Islands (weather-wise). Are you seeing Mount Chimborazo (recognised as the world’s tallest mountain, if you take as the starting point the centre of the Earth), when you visit Equador? I’m just envious.
Wishing you safe, fun, and enlightening travels, Sven!
‘They do know better, really’
No doubt they do…but if confronted with evidence that is counter intuitive to their mind set or offers evidence of a no god required scenario..then it is simply ignored and the default setting clicks back in and brain is disengaged and convenient non-threatening assumptions frolic in the sun kissed downs of ignorance and bliss!…
Jeez, KnockGoats, if all you want to be is a mere anticreationist, suit yourself… but do you have to whine if someone is different from you? Do you think this is a MERELY antocreationist blog? If so, it would be pathetic, and I will say so if I bloody feel like it.
Troll Program #9
1. Post a long rant. All statements must contain at least one of the following:
(a) No evidence whatsoever
(b) Fallacious reasoning
(c) Intellectual dishonesty
(d) The theory of evolution being described as a religion. Do not be bothered by the fact that YOU actually follow a religion.
2. When people respond to rant complain about “tone” or “civility” or “insults”. DO NOT address the substance of any responses.
3. COMPLAIN further about the “tone”
CLAIM victory and leave
SHOW as much grace as one can running away with their tail between their legs.
WAIT 1 DAY
GO TO 1
I think you’re mostly right, Sastra. I was having a semi-drunken conversation with The Bloke the Canberra Brewer in the spa last night that bears on this. He is very much more astute at people skills than I am. (For my people skills, well, let’s say I identify a lot with “Bones”.) Anyway, he pointed out to me that most people incorrectly equate stupidity and ignorance. Pointing out ignorance has to be done very carefully and with extreme tact if you want the lesson to stick. It’s about face saving.
I think most people with a love of science are aware that ignorance is not a shameful sign of stupidity. You can’t do science if you don’t relish knowing that you are ignorant of some things, and then set out to find the answers. But that’s not the audience that we are trying to persuade.
Of course, PZ’s blog is not so much about persuading creationists. It’s more of a kick back, relax, point and laugh affair. I’m not criticising PZ for his choice here, I enjoy it a lot.
BTW: Rev BDC: I commend your taste in beer. Should you ever visit Australia, do contact me for recommendations.
Jackie, if you took your medication, you could:
1. Stop laughing
2. Sit in a chair without falling out and even walk around.
3. The voices in your head would quiet down.
Instead of merely lying, why don’t you explain why Archaeopteryx isn’t transitional. This is a bird with no beak, a jaw with teeth, and a reptilian tail. It is very old, mesozoic. There are 10 fossils, many complete. Wikipedia has an adequate description.
Or Tiktaalik, the fishopod with a largely complete skeleton. Or Lucy or any number of hominid fossils with care mostly complete and are our ancestors.
BTW, scientists don’t work by ranting and raving and screaming a lot. They collect data and analyze it. If you can’t do that, you are justing wasting valuable time that could be better spent finding your bottles of medication.
What HeWhoYouDespise@118 claims was said (shouting in the original):
But Sastra, the truth and behaving like jesus are the same thing.
You see, the truth is something bestowed upon a person, by grace, by virtue of having faith and the willingness to humble oneself before a higher power.
I mean, Evolutionists almost NEVER praise god (or even talk about the joy of praising god!) when they try to prove their points, so how can they possibly be truthful?
Really, you need to work on your logic.
Sheesh.
John@15 – RE evolutionary capacitance, you may be right that the concept has very similar antecedents, but the term was used specifically for hsp90 in Drosophila. Under stress, a heat shock protein mutant reveals differences in the behavior of the mutant proteins that it helps to fold. Hsp90 is particularly interesting in this regard because it usually chaperones signal transduction proteins.
To all – I’m starting to have difficulty differentiating Colbertesque sarcasm and genuine creationists, and I don’t think I’m the only one.
Ramblin Dude #122 wrote:
Well, Charlie Daniels talked about “Cowboy Logic” — maybe there are lots of different kinds of logic, designed to fit the different kinds of people so they can find their different kinds of truth.
Perhaps we can call those who consider “tone” and “attitude” of paramount importance in how they do research, advocates of “Mommy Logic.” As in “if you can’t say it nicely, then you shouldn’t be saying it at all.”
#123: “To all – I’m starting to have difficulty differentiating Colbertesque sarcasm and genuine creationists, and I don’t think I’m the only one.”
It’s called Poe’s Law.
I sometimes wonder if these trolls just come to take advantage of our SIWOTI syndrome, or they genuinely believe the nonsense they dribble.
Feynmaniac @ 118: lol at the Troll Program #9. It’s funny because it’s true!
Last week I sat down and wrote down every deceptive fundie debating tactic I could think of, and composed a much longer list:
http://gumbythecat.blogspot.com/2008/12/fundamentalist-debate-handbook.html
There is a kind of ‘logic’, or at least consistency in religious people equating tone with truth.
Remember for these people the truth is an act of faith, dependant upon feeling.
They’ve built up these coping mechanisms and we shouldn’t be surprised when they act within the paramaters of the reality they’ve created.
Sastra,
Well, I’m a bit suspicious of your pluralogistic leanings but you did invoke the name of Charlie Daniels, so I’m gonna cut ya some slack this time.
(And you were polite, so there must be something to what you say, even though it sounds perty librul.)
The differences being of course that evolution is in part a historical science so each new piece of evidence actually does strengthen the argument for evolution, and secondly that evolution is being continually marginalised in the greater community and thus needs defending that gravity simply doesn’t. Ironically enough, if those young earth creationists truly believe the world is 6,000 years old, then the calculations of gravity for distant objects is so far out that it must be denied.
Damnit, see how you are. You wait till I leave, then break into supercilious vulgarity. Now I’m a good dozen fuckwits behind.
Bye Sven! Have fun, I hope you had your shots. (My grandmother used to say that even if we were just going to the neighbors house.)
Sven
Oh yeah?
Well…well…I’m gonna…alright, I got nothin’.
I am absolutely sick with envy. Happy?
Enjoy the trip and tell us all about it when you’re back.
Do you think this is a MERELY antocreationist blog? – HeWhoYouDespise
No. (Well, actually, I don’t know what an “antocreationist blog” might be, but I’ll assume you meant “anticreationist”.) That’s why I said @110: “among other things, this is an anti-creationist blog”. It appears your reading comprehension needs a bit of work, along with your typing and grammar.
SvenDiMilo #104 wrote:
Ooh. Consider yourself envied. It looks like your Happy Monkey is coming up. Have fun.
Cruithe #128
Fun observation, interesting point, but I think you’re giving to much credit.
I see it purely as a copout.
In a comment above there is a link to a national geographic article (news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2008/01/080108-cave-fish_2.html) which describes the lack of eyes and pigmentation in blind cave fish as adaptations.
I can see that de-evolving the eye could possibly provide blind fish with an advantage in terms of energy, but what about pigmentation? Is that an adaptation or a side-effect?
SIWOTI!!!
Re: The Ronald R. West quote.
I was looking at the title, “Paleontology and Uniformitarianism”, and it struck me that that’s not really the title of something that would go in a travel magazine, which I would expect to be lighter and fluffier. So, I started wondering… and researching… What was this “Compass”? A magazine? A journal?
The problem is, the web is supersaturated with hits on the quote pasted above. This required a bit more finesse in searching.
A false lead was something called “Compass, a Jesuit Journal“. This looked potentially promising for something anti-evolutionary, but that doesn’t have the right publication dates (1983-1997) (and looks rather more concerned with social issues than with anti-evolution or the hard sciences).
Using scholar.google.com brought up more hits for things published in “Compass”, and again, I noticed rather technical palaeontological titles (although some, I suspect, were from the Jesuit magazine), and some citations were for “The Compass”. Hm.
Finally, I found that Sigma Gamma Epsilon is “The National Honor Society for the Earth Sciences”, and they publish a (rather minor) journal called “The Compass”:
http://www.uni.edu/earth/SGE/compass.html
Don’t bother clicking on “Index to Past issues”; it just says “coming soon!”. Bah.
However, this provided the information I needed to find the clincher. Googling on “Sigma Gamma Epsilon” and “Ronald R. West” found this:
http://www.digisys.net/users/hoppnrmt/transitionfossils.htm
Which shows that the quote is of course a fucking dishonest quote-mine.
And the link above explains the quote in its fuller context.
I wonder if that quote is on the TalkOrigins quote-mining project.
Owlmirror you can be down right scary at times.
Cougar. ;o)
Complex field
Fun question.
Just a guess but I would imagine that unnecessary features are lost in a similar fashion to necessary features being kept. Some mutations will arise that have no negative effect, so they will casually spread and become more common.
Perhaps someone will have a better explanation.
A side-effect. The failure of the cave-fish eye to develop has nothing to do with energy; it is the side-effect of a change in the genes for development of the face. The fish have adaptations that make it easier to find and eat food in the dark; since they are already in the dark, the fact that these changes cause a loss of sight is neutral.
PZ has written about cavefish eyes, more than once, even.
Owlmirror
I think he was asking more about the pigmentation.
I would imagine that the loss of pigmentation runs pretty parallel to the loss of eyes. Neither is needed.
It’s not as if the eyes are less necessary than the skin pigment.
‘the quote is of course a fucking dishonest quote-mine.’
I expect no less of the hystericals!
Without quote mining they have nothing to balm the spirits of the gullible…and irritate the bejabbers outta the rest of us!
Fine detective work, Owlmirror! However I must say that even in context, I find West’s statement and Hoppner’s explanation of it confused, as it is clear the fossil record could show evidence that, in conjunction with methodological uniformitarianism, would render “Darwinian evolution” untenable: for example, the oft-mentioned Precambrian rabbits, or less drastically, the simultaneous appearance of some novel and complex structure in mammals, sharks and crustaceans.
Re Danio@80
Jackie is obviously a glutton for punishment, as well as an unrepentant liar. Breaking a commandment and embracing a deadly sin in one fell swoop–impressive!
In the light of this observation:
She resurrected the Indohyus thread from December 07 with an identical comment
Jackie’s also guilty of necromancy, which is clearly verboten according to 1 Samuel 28.
I say we build a bridge out of Jackie!
Scientific American also dedicates is Jan 09 issue to Evolution.
http://www.sciam.com/sciammag/
One of the first searches I made was for it in site:toarchive.org
No dice.
Owlmirror, excellent digging to find the Ronald West quote. Sometimes the talents of people here are very impressive.
#73:
I wasn’t trying to imply that cockroaches are beetles. (I’m no entomologist, but I do know at least that much!) The beetles comment was separate from the cockroach comment.
As for the lateral line comment, I stand corrected.
And a random piece of scientific serendipity while doingmy research (tinted electron microphotographs):
http://nanographicarts.com/
I think Shermer put it best when he said (paraphrasing) “that science may start out tautological, but it never ends there.” While there is some circular logic to it, the fact that we can make predictions of what there is to find in the fossil record (whale ancestors, tiktaalik, archaeopteryx, etc.) shows the predictive nature of the process. We expect to find a fishapod in rocks 375 million years old, we expect to find feathered dinosaurs and dinobirds, we expect to find mammalian-reptiles or a certain spread of marsupials. The power of prediction is what makes the fossil record an acceptable form of evidence and how we can say it validates evolutionary theory.
Well then it looks like you have something to contribute to the site when it comes back online.
“The differences being of course that evolution is in part a historical science so each new piece of evidence actually does strengthen the argument for evolution”
As Mayr pointed out, it’s only a cosmetic difference between historical and experimental, whether you are wearing a labcoat or collecting data on the field. The hypothetic-deductive method is used. Predictions are made, ideas are confirmed or discarded. Only very ignorant people (such as creationists) think you must have been there to see it.
There is no such thing as an epistemological rule that says that historical theories can’t ever become established, and thus are in constant need of “further evidence”. Consider continental drift. It is completely correct to say the existence of the supercontinent pangea is established. So is evolution; so is the fact that cetaceans descend from mammals.
Don’t concede any terrain to creationists that they don’t really have: That’s my point.
“and secondly that evolution is being continually marginalised in the greater community and thus needs defending that gravity simply doesn’t. Ironically enough, if those young earth creationists truly believe the world is 6,000 years old, then the calculations of gravity for distant objects is so far out that it must be denied”
You must be clear about something: Theis social circumstance is entirely separate form the actula epistemolgicla statts of evolution, which is established and NOT in need of “increasing support”.
If you present every evolutionary study as growing evidence against creationism, you create the false sensation that evolution is something that is will never be established for sure…you’re CONCEDING in a way that fuels the very debate.
Some of you may see how my point is not minor, amere “expression of concern” of no ineterest to this blog? If we are to fight creationism effectively, we first have a lot to discuss among ourselves.
I actually agree that it’s confusingly worded, and possibly even still wrong, but nevertheless, the author is absolutely not in support of the argument that creationists try to force upon it.
HeWhoYouDespise:
Such concern is touching but unwarranted. I’d say PZ is pretty damn effective already.
Agreed, but put on the creationist hat for a minute. If there’s a theory that supposedly explains life in it’s current state without God, a process that has been going for 3.5 billion years, surely they would want a bit more than pointing to a dinobird or a fishapod as proof. Don’t get me wrong, I’m completely in agreement that the evidence for evolution is overwhelming and we should not have to be having this discussion. Evolution is the only idea that explains the evidence, and can account for life as it is today – it really should be a non-issue.
Again, from the creationist perspective it would be. I’m sure you’ve heard the “were you there?” Ken Ham form of argument, like it or not we are stuck operating within the confines of the society just as Galileo was 400 years ago. Thankfully we don’t have to try and demonstrate heliocentric orbit anymore, it’s now part of our understanding of the world.
Now why isn’t evolution part of our societal understanding when heliocentric orbit is? That’s a question that needs to be answered because until we can get evolution as common knowledge as the process of life we need all the pieces we can to keep the idea afloat. Just under 15% of americans accept the theory of evolution the way over 99% of scientists understand it. There’s a failure somewhere along the lines.
Agreed.
Interesting way of looking at it. But science is a tentative understanding of reality and evidence does change the way we view certain processes. Like continental drift, that’s now superseded information because the new evidence showed that our understanding was slightly out. Science to me at least is all about fuelling debate and about getting as much evidence as possible to draw your conclusions off.
If this were a murder case and we had CCTV footage of the murder taking place, while that may be a conclusive piece of evidence, it doesn’t hurt to also show that the murder weapon has the murderer’s fingerprints on it, that his DNA was left at the crime scene, that his clothes had the blood of the victim on it, that he was spotted by several eyewitnesses leaving the room, etc. Would the defence turn around and say “you know, if you were sure of my client’s guilt, why would you keep showing more and more evidence to support it?”
“I would imagine that the loss of pigmentation runs pretty parallel to the loss of eyes. Neither is needed.” – ggab, #142
…just as species of octopuses lose “their defensive ink sacs — pointless at perpetually dark depths…” – http://sciencenotes.wordpress.com/2008/11/10/octopus-had-antarctic-ancestors/
Thanks PZ. This shall be forwarded to my high school’s biology and intro science teachers.
I’m not so sure this is entirely correct… Is not every use and confirmation of science growing evidence for its truth?
For example, there are relativity deniers out there; one of the counter-arguments against them is the GPS satellite system, which uses relativistic calculations in order to function properly. It isn’t necessary to use that one specifically, but it helps emphasize: “Yes, the science is still true.”
And I think the same goes for Tiktaalik; the fossil was found where it was predicted it should be geologically and palaeontologically, and provides further support to the transition between fish and amphibians. Tiktaalik isn’t necessary in and of itself to support evolution, but being recent, it helps emphasize: “Yes, the science is still true. (Dammit.)”
It might be pandering to a human psychological flaw (recency illusion, or something like that), but is not thereby useless.
HeWhoMustBeDespised (or some such name) #153
Nothing can be established for sure. Science doesn’t work that way. However, certain things are so strongly supported that it is unreasonable not to consider them correct. Evolution is one of these. Since we aren’t writing professional scientific papers, we’ll say things like “evolution is proven true,” even though this is, strictly speaking, not true.
Don’t worry your pointy little head about us giving creationists any openings. They usually argue their points so poorly that it’s not hard to send them scurrying back under their rocks. As for quote mining and the like, they already quote mine Darwin, Stephen Jay Gould, and anyone else they can grab. Owlmirror showed in this thread that Jackie and other creationists were quote mining Ronald West from 40 years ago. For that matter, some creobot could quote mine me from the paragraph above, e.g. “evolution is proven…not true.”
What do we need to discuss amongst ourselves?
Bullshit = Bullshit.
There. Done.
Patricia
“Bullshit = Bullshit.
There. Done.”
When you put it that way, it seems so…right.
ggab and OwlMirror — thanks for the responses.
OM — The link was very helpful. All I have to say is: Evolution is NEAT!
complex field
Don’t realy feel like I was much help but…
“Evolution is NEAT!”
Amen!!!
“put on the creationist hat for a minute. If there’s a theory that supposedly explains life in it’s current state without God, a process that has been going for 3.5 billion years, surely they would want a bit more than pointing to a dinobird or a fishapod as proof”
If you DO put the creationist hat on, you will know that a little bit more, or a lot more, makes no difference. There is tons of fishapods, dinobirds,walking whales, etc. But if you simply prefer a non-scientific explanation, none of that matters. This is why it is unfitting to see all of that as evidence against what is basically an unscientific, unworthy alternative.
“Now why isn’t evolution part of our societal understanding when heliocentric orbit is? That’s a question that needs to be answered because until we can get evolution as common knowledge as the process of life we need all the pieces we can to keep the idea afloat. Just under 15% of americans accept the theory of evolution the way over 99% of scientists understand it. There’s a failure somewhere along the lines”
Because most americans simply prefer a non-scientific explantion and don’t give a rats ass about the evidence. I think, if you act like you are still grappling for more evidence against their views, it doesn’t help.
“Interesting way of looking at it. But science is a tentative understanding of reality and evidence does change the way we view certain processes. Like continental drift, that’s now superseded information because the new evidence showed that our understanding was slightly out”
A very common problem in amateur scientific thinking is the excessive emphasis on the “evidence” rather than the “reason” part of science. Theories are though out: then the evidence falls in. The “evidence” for continental drift was actually there all along: just look at how the continents fit into each other. What was important was the development of the THEORY: A shift in the way of thinking.
“Science to me at least is all about fuelling debate and about getting as much evidence as possible to draw your conclusions off”
You left out the part where scientists get creative and actually THINK up a new way of explaining previously incoherent, disperse facts.
“If this were a murder case and we had CCTV footage of the murder taking place, while that may be a conclusive piece of evidence, it doesn’t hurt to also show that the murder weapon has the murderer’s fingerprints on it, that his DNA was left at the crime scene, that his clothes had the blood of the victim on it, that he was spotted by several eyewitnesses leaving the room, etc. Would the defence turn around and say “you know, if you were sure of my client’s guilt, why would you keep showing more and more evidence to support it?”
The situation with evolution is a bit different. It is more comparable with refuting the unscientific notion that a ghost committed the murder. Would you say that all that is “increasing” evidence that a ghost did not commit the murder? Certyainly, evidence showing who, how, when, etc committed the murder is incompatible with the hypothesis that a ghost committed the murder. But would you make THAT your main conclusion? Don’t you think that is kind of silly?
Thankyou ggab. I’ve about got my pantalets in an uproar tonight with the fundies running amok here. *stomps dainty foot*
Better mix a pitcher of sangria…
Dagoo:
Never say never.
Both of these quotes come from “Introduction to Evolutionary Biology” by Chris Colby and from the TalkOrigins
Archive.
Dagoo:
Perfectly true. Random gene changes produce evolution. In fact, all evolution drills down to mutation (too lazy to
find quote from AcDec evolution packet.)
See “Climbing Mount Improbable”. Mutation is a random force, (and so is genetic drift), but natural selection is
not. The (sexually) fittest survive to reporduce another day.
Also: Evolution is not predetermined. Due to random things like genetic drift and mutations and semi-random things like gene flow, if you were to set up a planet exactly like earth, it probably wouldn’t end up anything like it.
Finally, random question, but how much evolution did you learn? High-school level or beyond? Because, quite
honestly, my HS biology teacher taught about .005% of evolution. There is a lot to the theory that not many
laypeople know.
(finally, actually reading some scientific papers yourself may help)
Tom South:
Please read about Lamarck, Jean-Baptiste. Then read about antibotics.
Jackie:
When you can tell the difference between two types of bacteria using only a couple basic tests (like cultures, staining) then you can talk medical theory.
Until then, reading about junk DNA may help you out. Until then, beware of the fallacy of Sedgwick (that would be rejecting some evidence because it does not fit with your world view)
I leave you with this quote from “The Voyage of HMS Beagle” by Sherri Chasin Calvo:
Emphasis mine.
And technically, the name of the current theory is the “Modern Synthesis”, right or not?
(Note: I’m not a biologist, nor a historian.)
For some maybe, but not all. There’s no point in trying to convince the Ken Hams or the Kent Hovinds of the world, but to the vast majority they are simply ignorant of the processes involved and the evidence that there is – partly down to the Ken Hams and Kent Hovinds of the world misleading them.
And I think for the most part you are wrong. Most people will be persuaded by evidence if they know of it’s existence. What seems to be the real struggle is not parading Tiktaalik but it’s the dichotomy between the bible and science – that you can’t accept one without rejecting the other.
The opposite to what you are saying is that we present the case without looking at new evidence, and that’s that could be put down towards arrogance; something we have to deal with already. So I think your part is just wishful thinking and contrary to the spirit of science.
Of course reason plays a role, that’s not on trial here. It’s to do with the way we present evidence. And as time has gone on we have found more and more evidence to support evolution. It doesn’t mean that evolution is weaker without this evidence, but it does mean that we are finding better and better examples to actually take the case to the public.
Yes I would say that. The concept of a ghost committing the murder is absurd, but showing quite conclusively through many lines of evidence that it was a man is increasing the evidence. Take a second murder. One where there’s no substantive evidence at the scene, no witnesses, no suspects – people just don’t know anything about the murder other than some strangulation marks on the neck. The idea of a ghost strangling the man is a lot more substantial as there is an absence of explanation. To us it’s absurd one way or the other, but in one’s ignorance and their beliefs a ghost could be a culprit.
If his widow comes forward later and confesses the murder, it’s an explanation that takes the ghost out of the picture. Few would maintain that a ghost did it after that confession.
“Tiktaalik isn’t necessary in and of itself to support evolution, but being recent, it helps emphasize “Yes, the science is still true. (Dammit.) It might be pandering to a human psychological flaw (recency illusion, or something like that), but is not thereby useless”
I see your point, but it is necessary to use the right language to provide an actually correct perspective. Rather than saying this is “increasing evidence for evolution”, I would rather say this is an “example”, “instance” or “prediction”, based on our ESTABLISHED KNOWLEDGE of evolution. The difference may seem subtle but is actually quite important. Similary, every falling apple is a perfect example, instance or prediction of the theory of gravity, but it is by no menas “increasing evidence for the theory of gravity”
Oh, certainly not as the main conclusion. But I don’t think anyone is saying that anyway.
However, if it is the defense attorney’s entire case that a ghost committed the murder, then by damn, the evidence linking the human murderer to the crime is going to be asserted as being both against the man, and (secondarily) against the ghost defense.
Speaking of courts-of-law, it occurred to me that some aspects of some creationism arguments are sort of like the defense lawyers saying, not that a ghost did it, but that an omnipotent God murdered the man for his own mysterious reasons, and for equally mysterious reasons, decided to do so in such a way as to frame the accused. Perhaps the murder victim isn’t even a real person, but was rather a body created ex nihilo, fatal(-appearing) trauma and all. It’s all just God testing our faith in his mysterious power.
It all comes down to one’s presuppositions about the evidence.
“What seems to be the real struggle is not parading Tiktaalik but it’s the dichotomy between the bible and science – that you can’t accept one without rejecting the other”
I completly agree. So, its actualy NOT about parading the evidence, isn’t it. It’s more of a cultural-social problem (a very anglo-american one, for that).
“The opposite to what you are saying is that we present the case without looking at new evidence”
Whether evidence is “old” or “new” is just a historical accident. Consider if tiktaliik had been discovered by a pre-evolutionist, say Baron Cuvier.
I’m not saying we don’t talk about the evidence. A theory withoutb facts is ajuts an empty frame. I’m saying, it is the ESTABLISHED scientific theory of evolution that brings coherence to evidence, old OR new, and that nicely predicts much of the evidence still to come. This is quite different from saying “new evidence increasingly supports the theory of evolution”. This creates the false sensation that the theory of evolution is still in need of evidence. Evidence is the CHEAPEST thing ever for evolution! It doesn’t matter if you heap another 10 million tons of it, as much as it it doesn’t matter for the theory of gravity that you drop 10 million more tons of apples
As if we did not have enough excellent “old” evidence already…there’s freakin tons of it.
Think about your trial example. If you act like you actually NEED more and more of all that extra evidence, next trial you have, when accesory line of evidence #45 doesn’t show up, the culprit’s lawyer will jump: “AHA!!!! No saliva drops!!! You’ve got nothing”
” that could be put down towards arrogance; something we have to deal with already. So I think your part is just wishful thinking and contrary to the spirit of science”
Oh, yeah? Pffft.
“Take a second murder. One where there’s no substantive evidence at the scene, no witnesses, no suspects – people just don’t know anything about the murder other than some strangulation marks on the neck. The idea of a ghost strangling the man is a lot more substantial as there is an absence of explanation. To us it’s absurd one way or the other, but in one’s ignorance and their beliefs a ghost could be a culprit”
C’mon. You’re making it too easy. Obviously, there’s a scientific expalantion, and a non-scientific expalantion there.
How much “evidence” do you need to tell which is which?
He Who You Despise #172 wrote:
But I think there is also a certain amount of psychological leverage in framing discoveries in terms of “amazing new breakthroughs in science!!!” The public is geared towards looking for, and expecting, and respecting, “amazing new breakthroughs in science!!!!” It grabs their attention, and fits in with our prior tendency to think about the future in terms of huge leaps of progress, and of ourselves as on the cutting edge.
Breathless excitement is not always a bad tactic for changing minds.
Kel – Yes, you got to the bottom line with the American fundies, they simply don’t know that there is no evidence for gawd.
What happens on the rare occasion that they actually look for evidence of god? Dan Barker, Hector Avalos… and me, to name a few. We find out there is no god. It hurts much worse than Santa, and you cry longer.
But once we get over it, well, you see what happens for yourself.
When one says “there are no transitional forms” or “evolution has not been seen in action” then there are evidential points of contention. Many of the arguments for creationism and against evolution involve the ‘e’ word. Maybe the reason they don’t accept evolution is because of their belief in God, but that still doesn’t mean that the arguments we see are grounded in what the evidence says. This is in effect a victory for us.
I agree it doesn’t matter when the evidence is found from a scientific point of view. But from a historical point of view it does. If we discover Tiktaalik in 2004, what is the harm in saying that Tiktaalik was predicted by the theory? It fits the theory no matter when it’s discovered, I agree. But our vantage point is that Tiktaalik is a 5 year old discovery and is just one of an increasing pile of accumulating evidence. The fight may have been over long ago, but 100,000 is greater than 99,999.
We aren’t acting like we NEED more evidence, we are building an overwhelming case where any one of those pieces of evidence could be missing and you’d still have the case wrapped up. But that does not mean we shouldn’t act like we are finding new evidence all the time just because the evidence we have now is already conclusive enough.
The problem with creationists is that they believe that their answer is a scientific one too…
HeWhoYouDespise
I don’t agree.
The numbers of people who question evolution are high not because (I believe) they are hardcore creationists (though, it’s true they are predisposed to it); they are people who have been seduced (or at least puzzled) by creationist propaganda. How many times have I heard people ask, “So how do you explain the fact that there’s evidence of a world wide flood,” or that radiocarbon dating has been proven invalid (or something just as idiotic). These people are ignorant but not necessarily fanatical, and they will be swayed by compelling evidence.
Creationists have successfully caused confusion, and often, even anger in “most Americans” who are simply scientifically ignorant, by bombarding them with bullshit. We need to counter this by not only constantly adding new evidence, but by using every factual thing at are disposal . . . everything . . . because many are listening and trying to piece things together; they just need educating. There are many out there who are reachable and can be persuaded that those “evil scientists” are not lying to them, after all.
We need to point out constantly that that evolution is a time-tested theory that doesn’t need anymore evidence to cement it into place–and–lookit here, here’s even MORE evidence!
(Which is exactly what is happening–finally.)
It’s already 2009, time to move those goal posts!
“I believe that at some time well before 2059, the bicentennial year of Darwin’s ‘Origin of Species,’ perhaps as early as 2009 or 2019, there will be another celebration that will mark the demise of the Darwinist ideology that was so triumphant in 1959.'” Phillip Johnson, “How to Sink a Battleship,’ in Mere Creation, ed. By William A. Dembski, (Downers Grove, Ill.: InterVarsity Press, 1998), p. 446-453, p. 448.
Of course, Johnson would whine that we all know the journal Nature is “in the tank” for Darwin.
1. We live in a dynamic universe, where change is possible things will change.
2. We live in an imperfect universe, mistakes will happen.
That is what makes evolution possible, things change and mistakes are made. But keep in mind that there are things that are not possible. There are limitations on what can occur, for there is one final truth to consider. . .
3. We live in a universe with limitations, there are things you can’t change.
“They are people who have been seduced (or at least puzzled) by creationist propaganda. How many times have I heard people ask, “So how do you explain the fact that there’s evidence of a world wide flood,” or that radiocarbon dating has been proven invalid (or something just as idiotic). These people are ignorant but not necessarily fanatical, and they will be swayed by compelling evidence”
If they were able to be convinced by simple pseudocience, what makes you think they will take the time to be learn what is factually correct? Since you KNOW that they are ignorant, don’t you think you may do better by confronting them with the fact of their religious motivations?
At #127, GumbyTheCat wrote:
Here’s my shorter version of a scientist vs. creationist debate:
S: Science
C: God did it!
S: 13 billion years, plus or minus
C: Six days!!
S: 3.5 to 4 billion years
C: 6000 years!!!
S: Logic
C: I have faith that God did it.
S: Applied critical thinking
C: God did it!
S: Evidence
C: The Holy Bible says God did it.
S: Scientific studies
C: My study of The Bible says God did it
S: Predictions based on ToE
C: I predict you’re going to hell!
S: Testing of theories
C: God did it!
S: Correction of errors
C: Errors? What errors? God did it. God did it! God did it!!
*I’ve been posting as bastion for a while, but decided that I ought to identify just what I’m claiming to be a bastion of. I decided that this week I’m a bastion of sass. Next week? Who knows? I may be the bastion of something else.
The creationist position seems to me to be an argument from authority. For atheist scientists, the issue is reality vs. widely-accepted delusion.
Convincing random creationists that the delusion that they have suppressed rational thought for a very long time to maintain would seem to be difficult, if not impossible, since creationists do not recognise the authority of scientists.
Improving US scientific literacy depends on convincing pastors to be patriotic, and stop undermining science education. This is likely to be difficult for scientists to achieve, but supporting and promoting the likes of Hector Avalos would seem to be a good thing.
But when increasing support keeps to arrive, we can’t help that!
You seem to believe that support for a theory accumulates till the support bin is full and the theory is established. But that’s not how it works. There is no maximum of support that a theory can have! It can go to infinity and beyond, to quote-mine Buzz Lightyear.
Or how would you define “established”? If “established” doesn’t mean “proven” — and it can’t, because science cannot prove, only disprove –, then what does it mean?
On the other topic, I think the vast majority of creationists is capable of being convinced by evidence. From my experience in teh intart00bz, more or less all creationists honestly believe that the professional scientists who have worked on the issue for decades are just as ignorant as they are; they honestly believe that knowledge they don’t have doesn’t exist. Even people like Behe appear to fit this description. Actual fideists, who knowingly believe against the evidence, are extremely rare, if any exist at all.
From Canada
Well a lot here in this list is wrong. Yet one point.
This ancestor to a whale. For this creationist its fine that cleary water mammals were once land creatures. They took to the seas after the biblical flood because the seas were devoid of life greatly. So finding creatures that are half way between whales and land whales is desirable. Not there was intermediate steps but rather many kinds of whales etc including land based ones and near shore ones and sea going ones. The diversity was not a result of evolution but quick adaptation to fulfill Gods order to fill the post flood earth.
Finding leggy whales is not evidence or a gain for credibility of ToE.
From Australia
Please stop taking out of your arse Mr Byers, I’m tired of seeing shit smeared all over this blog.
*183
‘Well a lot here in this list is wrong.’
Yep creationists have trouble looking in mirrors!
‘Yet one point.’
Yes!… again there is not a lot to chew on for those of the creationist ilk..that is why they manufacture points ad infinitum when the old ones run dry!
‘This ancestor to a whale. For this creationist its fine that cleary water mammals were once land creatures.’
‘Pragmatism never sits well with deluded morons…they only do it cos there is no other road to haunt’
‘They took to the seas after the biblical flood because the seas were devoid of life greatly.’
Apart from the point that according to the nonsense it was a global flood…those critters were already swimming before they ‘took to the seas’
That was quite some adaption..in 40 days depending on the interpretation in the compendium of fairy tales….a land mammal adapted to water….(well actually it would have to adapted in minutes not days!) hmm! quite some feat…suppose it was a godwotdidit moment!…or just making summat up to fit the delusion!
‘So finding creatures that are half way between whales and land whales is desirable.’
In your scenario that would be unrealistic to say the least…as well as betraying your creationist indoctrination!
‘Not there was intermediate steps’
Then why do the creationists whine about Transitionals and especially in the case of a whale?..actually there are!
‘but rather many kinds of whales etc including land based ones and near shore ones and sea going ones.’
Ahh a scraping of goal posts being shifted….begad!…we is back to the kinds argument well that is typical creationist piffle smelling of a load of leviathan poo old chap!…
‘The diversity was not a result of evolution but quick adaptation’
What is adaption if not an evolution?
‘to fulfill Gods order to fill the post flood earth.
Well if he could control his temperament a tad better it would not be an issue!
‘Finding leggy whales is not evidence or a gain for credibility of ToE.
Ahh! the true colour show through at last…
Creationist must now fear that a transitional form …might actually exist…(actually it does anyway it is called stylishly Ambulocetus natans ) after years of baiting evolution scientists with the cry of ‘where are the intermediates with early leg proof?’
Now it seems tis not a biggy ask…those goal posts have visited every part of the field so often that they are getting giddy!
Pathetic delusions manufacture pathetic desperate claims!
Get a grip or an education…one or the other!
Robert Byers (#183):
Hmm. This has the interesting consequence that the geological column from the early Eocene upwards was all deposited in the 4,000 odd years since the flood (since the earliest whale ancestors are found in Eocene strata, and according to you these are post-deluge). One wonders how you manage to explain the extent and variety of these strata (i.e., Eocene and post-Eocene) if they were laid down in so short a period of time, yet weren’t laid down by the flood.
Monumentally wrong. Evolution predicts, without knowing in advance what the fossil record actually holds, that we should expect to find whales with legs. In contast, your scenario is just a flimsy ad hoc rationale for what the fossil records has been shown to contain. Creationism doesn’t predict whales with legs, because the presence or absence of whales with legs in the fossil record are both equally likely given creationism. So, since the fossil record bears out the predictions of evolution and not those of creationism (because creationism doesn’t make any predictions either way), the discovery of whales with legs constitutes evidence for evolution – because that’s what evidence is.
From Melbourne
May the force be with you
Also from Canada
Mr. Byers please keep your citizenship to yourself. Your ignorance is a personal thing and shouldn’t be used to tarnish the reputation of the rest of us.
‘the presence or absence of whales with legs in the fossil record are both equally likely given creationism’
That is typical Creationism edging their bets…they like to be aware of where to drag the goal posts next and they have the bare faced audacity to claim that the reincarnation of Creationism in ID is a ‘Scientific’ based assessment…except they do not asses anything… unlike real Science…only spout the dogmatic fairy tale that has would them up into such a tight knot that they are gasping…and grasping…for straws…or strawman argument!
#180 Bastion; That’s too (vulgarity) funny. I’ve clipped and pasted this in my mail program as a signature. Can’t wait to use it :-).
ENOUGH! Byers, your fucking fairy story, which you seem to take so seriously, if true, would show your god to be a horrendous fuckwit! A monumental retard! A colossal moron!
The entire flood fairy story requires you to believe that this fuckwit god decided, less than a few thousands years after creating his pet humans, that they just weren’t working out and he had to kill them all, except Noah, his sons and their wives. And instead of letting all the humans die of old age, or of a virus, or simply poofing them out of existence, he decided to flood the entire world for about 150 days. The entire world. Killing all the animals except for those collected by Noah and his people. Just to get rid of humans.
And because of this asinine, stupid, ridiculous decision, the story says, Noah had to collect animals from ALL OVER THE WORLD, build a boat, float around for 150 days, then, somehow, after the flood ended, return the Koalas to Australia, Sloths to South Africa, Killer Hornets to Japan, Finches to Galapagos, etc. etc. etc. fucking etc. because they sure as fuck ain’t swimming there! This ignores the fact that after 150 days under water, there would be no plants for the herbivores to eat, the carnivores would starve from lack of prey, that the freshwater and saltwater fish would all be dead and/or helplessly out of their intended environments, and, oh, that every human would be traceable through their DNA to Noah’s three boys.
Oh, but your fuckwit of a god used his magic to make the legged whales turn into swimmers. Wow.
Think reason I don’t have to make excuses, like you do, for this fuckwit god.
Well, have fun believing in this retard god. Have fun collecting additional “proof” that this retard god actually did the asinine things your childish “holy” book says he did. But the adults, well, they’re going to tell you to go away and play quietly while the real work gets done.
Mark Twain : “Our Bible reveals to us the character of our god with minute and remorseless exactness… It is perhaps the most damnatory biography that exists in print anywhere. It makes Nero an angel of light and leading by contrast.”
One of the authors is our old friend Henry Gee.
Now that was an interesting thread!
Byers, you are an
IDIOT
Maybe PZ should work on making Byers posts more intelligent. Have them disemvoweled when he posts. That can’t make them any less coherent.
Every time I read “From Canada’ at the beginning of one of Byers’ little shit smears the scene from strange brew pops into my head
doug: i’ll take you to the looney bin!
bob: take off, eh, take me to the brewery!
“You seem to believe that support for a theory accumulates till the support bin is full and the theory is established. But that’s not how it works. There is no maximum of support that a theory can have! It can go to infinity and beyond, to quote-mine Buzz Lightyear”
It is stupid to see the truly never ending accumulation of instances and replicas as “increasing support”, for the same reason I said it is stupid to say every falling apple “increasingly suppports” gravity.
“Or how would you define “established”? If “established” doesn’t mean “proven” — and it can’t, because science cannot prove, only disprove –, then what does it mean?”
*sigh* Not again this crap. Of COURSE science can prove. Of COURSE there is such thing as established theory. You amateurs guys who think you’ve got science down in falsationism always end up conceding undue space to stupidity. I’m not going ot explain jyself further on this point. I will just say that, within science, there is no doubt that evolution is proven and established. Yes, gravity too. Pffft.
HeWhoYouDespise,
I think you make a fundamental (ha!) error in talking about “creationists” as if they are all the same, a solid block of convinced biblical literalists. They are not. Most of those who answer polls in ways that indicate scepticism about evolution will never have considered the matter deeply. If they attend fundamentalist churches, they’ll have been told “evolution is a lie” and accepted it, but without necessarily feeling it’s integral to their religion. Even if they are not churchgoers, they will be aware there is “controversy”, and likely have concluded that there is real doubt, there are two equally sincere and educated sides debating… For all these people, there may be specific pieces of evidence that would convince them, or at least shift them somewhat. For example, they may well have been told that there are “no transitional forms”. Now it’s simple fact that we now have much better fish-to-tetrapod and land-mammal-to-whale sequences than we did a few decades ago. Why not use them? You can see how much they bother even the real hardline nutters like Robert Byers and Jackie, by their desperate scrabbling here.
If they were able to be convinced by simple pseudocience, what makes you think they will take the time to be learn what is factually correct? HeWhoYouDespise
Well in some cases here, it’s likely to be experience.
By the way, you’ve been debating reasonably for some time – so why the stupid nym, and initial blast of contemptuous hostility?
HeWhoMustBeDespised
That’s not how science works. Science doesn’t prove anything and you saying “*sigh* Not again this crap.” doesn’t show anything other than your ignorance.
Goodbye.
Hm, sorry, given #196 I take back my statement that you’re debating reasonably – even though I agree with you that science can and does prove.
I’m not sure what HeWhoYouDespise’s agenda is. All I can say is that he has an attitude.
The philosophy of science, debated for years by people smarter than I am, indicates that nothing in science can be proven, only falsified. In reality, things can be proven within the limits of our instrumentation. I emphasized the latter, because at one time we were lucky to measure elements to parts per million levels. Now, we can measure some elements, like mercury, to parts per trillion levels. So something that was mercury free in the old days now has 10 ppb of mercury. So I find it difficult to be “absolute” about scientific proof.
Still, I can make a compound using a series of standard reactions that give a known outcome. I can then characterize the compound using mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance (carbon and hydrogen), 2-D NMR, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy. If they are all consistent with the proposed structure, it is reasonable to say I have proven the structure of the compound.
What makes you think they are more predisposed to being swayed by philosophical arguments and assaults on their religious motivations?
We must do both.
For the most part, the “many” that I’m talking about aren’t “convinced” by simple pseudoscience (they’re not all like Byers). Yes, they are preconditioned to favor this brand of pseudoscience, but more because they are ignorant and misinformed, not necessarily because they are fanatical. And it will take a long time to filter the facts into their consciousness because, I agree, they aren’t willing, generally, to investigate.
The classroom for these people isn’t just church; it’s casual conversations around the water cooler. This venue has been dominated over-long by the systematic misinformation campaign from the dark side. We need to counter this with facts–new as well as old–and not just a competing philosophy or overall worldview.
They’ve also been told that evolution is a dead theory, that it’s on it way out, and they are waiting for this to happen. “Not so,” we say triumphantly. With every new finding that comes along, evolution is only further supported. We must show this.
From Austria
So you accept the theory of evolution — except the word. Like how Obama, Kerry, and Austria’s conservative party are for gay marriage — as long as it isn’t called “marriage”. The only real difference is that you believe it happened much, much faster than the scientists think, cats giving birth to dogs, Indohyus giving birth to Rodhocetus, Rodhocetus giving birth to Basilosaurus, and Basilosaurus giving birth to the whales (including dolphins, which include the porpoises and killer whales) that survive till today.
You know what? You are being hypocritical to yourself.
It’s also staggering how ignorant you are about sedimentology, geology in general, and basic physics. Here is a long, long, long list of all the long-winded petty extra miracles that the Flood would have required; here is a great piece on radiometric dating from a Christian perspective.
From the first link:
(Emphasis in the original, though it may not have been italics.)
So, I’m wrong, and you refuse to explain why? What do you want me to do, accept your statement by an argument from authority?
Go cheney yourself, really.
How?
Beyond reasonable doubt, yes. But you can’t define “reasonable”.
A practical definition of reasonable: sufficient enough for our clients and the federal agency who might review my work to conclude I am right. And probably a court of law. (Decisions must be made, and they can’t get overly worried about the last 0.0001% for absolute certainty or no decisions are ever made.) Again, within the limits of our instrumentation. Absolute proof? No.
“Now it’s simple fact that we now have much better fish-to-tetrapod and land-mammal-to-whale sequences than we did a few decades ago. Why not use them?”
I don’t say you don’t, much like you can show “old” data such as the nicely documented origin of ammmals. What I’m saying is that you must present these as examples and predictions of evolution, a theory that is established within science, while avoiding phrases like “new evidence supports the theory of evolution” which wrongly conveys the notion that the tehory of evolution is yet to be established within science. Alas, some of you seem to think evoution (or anything!) can never be established or proven… dudes, the epistemological debate is way more sophistacated and profound than adhering to such simplistic verbal slogans.
“Not so, we say triumphantly. With every new finding that comes along, evolution is only further supported. We must show this”
Why not say instead that every new finding conforms to the established fact of evolution? Honestly, the way you talk about it, people may wonder if yet more evidence is still needed.
“The philosophy of science, debated for years by people smarter than I am, indicates that nothing in science can be proven, only falsified”
Err…no. There has been no such unanimous conlsuion form the part of the philosophy of science. You probably mean just Popper…the pooper.
“Still, I can make a compound using a series of standard reactions that give a known outcome. I can then characterize the compound using mass spectrometry, nuclear magnetic resonance (carbon and hydrogen), 2-D NMR, ultraviolet-visible spectroscopy, infrared spectroscopy. If they are all consistent with the proposed structure, it is reasonable to say I have proven the structure of the compound”
So, now you CAN prove in Science, after all? I guess you are a little bit muddled, aren’t you.
@#96:
Dvorak keyboard?
—
Martin
David Marjanović, OM,
How can science prove? We’ve been over this before IIRC. Can members of populations of organisms x and y produce fertile offspring? If they can, this can be proved by getting together a female of one and a male of the other under appropriate conditions, and letting them get on with it. More generally, a lot of science is about what is possible (as in the example just given), or what happened in the past (were South America and Africa ever joined: yes, and the proofs lie in the detailed matches between the rocks on each side of the Atlantic, the demonstration that they are still moving away from each other, etc.) OK, it is conceivable that God fertilised the female of population x, or created the universe five minutes ago, which would mean these conclusions are false. But equally, it’s conceivable God intervenes to fool us every time we construct a mathematical proof: for the examples I’ve given, only an event which brought the whole project of rational enquiry, including mathematics and logic, into doubt, would bring them into doubt. So if you admit that proof is possible in mathematics, it’s possible in science.
When we move to universal generalisations in science (e.g those encapsulated in laws of physics, or Nerd’s example of the products of chemical reactions), you have a better case. It’s always possible that we will discover conditions under which these generalisations hold – so as Nerd says, we have to add “within the limits of instrumentation, and the range of conditions we have been able to test”. Nonetheless, once we add (or assume) those caveats, it is still reasonable to talk about proof – because again, the only other events that would cause us to revise our conclusions would be such as to bring the entire rational project into doubt.
Now, if you disagree with any of the above, what, specifically, do you disagree with?
Re: proof of theories in science…
abb3w points to the Arthur-Merlin protocol as a proven method at arriving at what might be called probabilistic certainty; provisional proof as best can be arrived at given a lack of certain (mathematical, logical) proof (or at least, I think that’s what it means).
But note that the protocol is iterative; one can continue to to approach closer and closer to a probability of 1 (certainty) without ever actually reaching it!
So I think within this model, finding newer evidence improves one’s certainty of the proof; each new piece adds an additional few 9s to the end of a long string of .9999999999999 (etc) ( which string is not continued infinitely).
Or something like that anyway. Information theorists (or abb3w), feel free to correct.
under which these generalisations hold ->
under which these generalisations do not hold@207
HeWhoYouDespise,
Your attitude of smug superiority is getting in the way of the points you’re making. If you really want to convince people here to change how they present new findings, you’ll drop it. FWIW, I agree with you on that point, as well as your point about proof.
If people didn’t have silly ideas about the possibility of absolute certainty we could safely talk (sometimes) about science proving things. “Prove X” would just be taken as “satisfy the conditions to accept as X as true in the context” (which is after all what proving something in court already is)
Even in maths or logic there is truly absolute certainty (although it gets the closest). I don’t even mean stuff like Gödel’s theorems, just the fact that all reasoning is done by fallible thinkers. It’s possible that when I read a false proof my brain will be struck by cosmic rays in such a way that it makes me think I have read a valid proof (and that the same happens to everyone else who reads it).
It’s a nuisance that “bring about absolute certainty” is what people often take “prove” to mean. We’d be better off if the concept of absolute certainty was completely forgotten.
Thanks PZ! I think I’ll use this as a launching pad for my school’s Darwin Day event.
FYI Newtonian physics has already been overturned by Einstein’s General Theory of Relativity. Read up one it, perhaps starting with Hawking’s A Brief History of Time. Newtonian theory is close enough that NASA and aeronautical engineers continue to use it. They know that it’s “wrong” but it’s so close and easier to work with that they continue to utilize it.
Also, it’s not Pasteur’s Germ Theory. True, Pasteur performed the experiment that disproved the only other “completing theory,” spontaneous generation. But it was a German scientist named Robert Koch who constructed a rigorous set of experiments that eliminated every possible explanation for a sheep coming down with Anthrax other that that the Anthrax bacterium caused the illness. Tying a specific disease to a specific organism remained an essential bit of evidence/verification for germ theory.
The more important point is that the arguments against evolutionary theory focus on analogies, comparisons, metaphors, similes, etc. These are tools of inductive reasoning. Please try eliminating an explanation and do so based on verified evidence. And if you ever do set foot into a library, try looking up “Sophistry.”
Byers: “So finding creatures that are half way between whales and land whales is desirable. Not there was intermediate steps but rather many kinds of whales etc including land based ones and near shore ones and sea going ones. The diversity was not a result of evolution but quick adaptation to fulfill Gods order to fill the post flood earth.”
Wow. I never looked at it that way, thank you. The early arteriodactyls didn’t *evolve into whales, they adapted. At last we can reconcile the evidence with the bible: humans, and other existing organisms, simply *adapted from the earliest life, over three billion years ago!
Yes, that’s what I said, “Evolution is only further supported.” I think you’re being excessively nitpicky here, but I see your main point, and I agree that science must not be defensive and apologetic when dealing with non-science, especially the overly prevalent mythological nonsense in this country.
However, it is also part of our job to educate the nonscientifically minded that everything in science is qualified by an implicit “As far as we know at this point.” I disagree that it hurts our cause to humble and cautious when dealing with what seem like certainties. That humility and caution is truthful; it is scientific; it is instructional.
I guess “only further support” could refer to a questionable theory, also, so I take back my equivalence.
But I still hold absolutely to my second paragraph, so I don’t have a problem with what PZ posted.
@#206, MartinDH… You got it! *cookie*
Crap.
To be very precise: PZ has posted many time on the need for the lay public to appreciate the difference between the popular notion of theory (guesswork), and the scientific use of the word. This is also part of educating the public, so that when the very scientific phrase:
is used, laypeople have a greater understanding of what it means, and it doesn’t cause the knee jerk reaction of “Aha! It’s only a theory!”
It comes down to further educating the public in matters of science, and with this in mind, it seems clear that his phrasing was well thought out and purposeful. You are, of course, free to disagree with the approach.
Don’t confuse the fact with the theory. The theory explains the fact (the observation that descent with modification happens).
I agree with comment 215.
So it’s not an argument from authority you want us to accept, but an ad hominem one? Have you cheneyed yourself yet? Did you like it?
Whether they can do so is a fact, not a law or hypothesis or theory. Here is the definition of “fact” I use.
Yes, and the word “prove” with it. Indeed, this word is extremely rare in scientific papers (except those by historical linguists).
Artiodactyls.
Whether they can do so is a fact, not a law or hypothesis or theory. David Marjanović, OM
Of course it is. That does not change the fact that it is something science can prove, which you keep insisting cannot happen. So is the previous connection between Africa and South America – although the latter might also be considered a theory, as it makes sense of a broad range of observations in geology and biogeography. The point is, the statement “Science cannot prove, only disprove” is plain false.
I think of “prove” in the sense it is used in “a proving ground”, ie a testing ground. So, were I to say I have proven an hypothesis, I would mean that I tested the hypothesis in some meaningful way(s), and the hypothesis passed those particular tests. Actually, I would say that I had supported the hypothesis, not that I had confirmed it. I go along with Popper’s idea that the job of science is to discover and correct errors in our thinking. But then there is Kuhn’s point that progress from ignorance to knowledge does not necessarily proceed in the direction of truth.
Anyone expert on the “theory of instrumentalism”? As I understand it, an observation using one instrument is not the same as an observation using another instrument. One is happier if the two observations agree, of course.
It’s not something that science is needed for at all. It’s too small for science. A single observation isn’t science, and neither is a single experiment ( = arranged observation under controlled circumstances) by itself.
Facts aren’t proved, they are discovered…
That is part of a theory, and while it’s of course proven beyond reasonable doubt, it isn’t proved. It’s an x-th-level inference from observations. That the distance between Africa and South America keeps increasing at a speed of a couple centimeters per year, on the other hand, is a fact.
We have been over this proof in science stuff, but the fact is, that in the normal sense of the word proof, we simply do NOT do it in science, peoples’ vigorous assertions on blogs to the contrary notwithstanding. As most commonly used, “proof” implies a guarantee that a result is True with a capital T (yeah, yeah, people always nod toward reasonable doubt with respect to legal proof, but what folks are really talking about when they say proof (legal or science) is a belief that something is TRUE). There is no mechanism in science for such a guarantee. Science is asymptotic with respect to truth. If you drop a pen on Earth a billion times, all you do is continue to increase our confidence that the next run of the experiment will produce the predicted result (the pen hitting the ground). You cannot EVER guarantee it. You simply can’t (if you think you can, then please, show me a paper demonstrating this–I’m a scientist, and am willing to admit the possibility of being wrong…). You can become so confident of the predicted result that seriously arguing that it won’t happen is really dumb, but that is different than a guarantee of the result. Science offers no mechanism for the guarantee. Period. Everything in science is tentative. Theories are tentative; laws are tentative; FACTS ARE TENTATIVE. We always have to leave open the possibility that we have gotten something wrong, regardless of how foolishly small that possibility is. The error bars might be so small so as to make the whole discussion pointless except in a theoretical sense, but if we abandon that theoretical possibility as a possibility, no matter how remote, we have moved out of the realm of science.
“If you drop a pen on Earth a billion times, all you do is continue to increase our confidence that the next run of the experiment will produce the predicted result”
Don’t you think there is something profoundly stupid about that? For a philosopher, OK. But for a scientist, and even your regular folk, such an experiment is just a collossal waste of time. This is why scientists NEVER say that more falling apples increase our confidence in the theory of gravity.
“You cannot EVER guarantee it”
A philosopher cannot. I, as a scientist, predict with 100% confidence that, under normal conditons, next time you drop your pen, it will fall. GUARANTEED
“you can become so confident of the predicted result that seriously arguing that it won’t happen is really dumb, but that is different than a guarantee of the result”
I suggest you do not entertain really dumb possibilities in science. At least, not if you’re planning to be a GOOD scientist.
“Everything in science is tentative. Theories are tentative; laws are tentative; FACTS ARE TENTATIVE”
Certainly some are but others certainly aren’t. I don’t like people who think fact, law and theory are clearly demarcated things or correspond to definitons somehow written in stone. They are not. I will agree though that while theories can be argued to be facts, they are also expected to explain large sets of data. Established theories (newtonian mechanics, relativity) do precisely that and they do NOT not lose their validity or become less a part of the scientific establishment because other theories perform better in certain domains (quantum theory, relativism). They have strenghs and weaknesses. The theory certainly is not ABSOLUTE: But it is not wrong or discarded either. It’s still good stuff. You just have to acknowledge where lie its limitations. Thus is why established theories are never going to be completely overturned, even if they are no longer the hottest new theory.
Some of you seem to think that “everything is tentative” because anything can be overturned by “new evidence”.You think somehow, “evidence” for the looniest possibility may just suddenly pop up.
I don’t think that way at all. Science is not about possibilities, that truly infinite domain is for the philosopher. Science is much more vulgar, if you want. Science is about what is useful NOW in terms of understanding mechanisms, of HOW. This inmediately pushes out of the picture a lot of “possibilities”. If you play by these rules, you can tell, with absolute confidence, and requiring no further evidence, that reproduction from a previous species is the SCIENTIFIC explanation for the origin of Homo sapiens.
“The error bars might be so small so as to make the whole discussion pointless except in a theoretical sense, but if we abandon that theoretical possibility as a possibility, no matter how remote, we have moved out of the realm of science.”
Error bars. hehehe. Very scientific
In my opinion, entertaining any stupid possibility is the way to stray out of science. Science must only entertain possibilites that are useful to science. This is why we don’t entertain creationism as an explanation for the origin of human beings even if you think it is unscientific not to keep the possibility open (you’re dead wrong, of course) ID provides no detail of how, and thus is pathetically useless, and unpredictive, whereas evolution is the established theory, becasue, it works like a charm.
Booze has proof, science has evidence.
Do teach us, learned master.
Like phlogiston and epicycles are still part of the scientific establishment? (They perform well in certain restricted domains.)
?
How do you know which possibilities are going to turn out useful? (Excluding obvious duds like creationism.)
I think that last is an utterly unfair distortion of the Popperian stance. No-one is suggesting any such nonsense.
I think it could be argued that insisting on falsifiability and the inapplicability of “proof” to science helps strike the right balance and will keep the process of science exactly on the right track going forward: One the one hand, open to new ideas &mdash as long as they are based on empirical evidence and are empirically falsifiable — and thus avoiding the calcification of knowledge into dogma; and on the other hand, keeping woo and superstition out. Really, how can such nonsense sneak in with the stringent criteria demanded?
I acknowledge that this is something I’m still thinking about; indeed, that many scientists and philosophers are still thinking about. But it will take a better argument than “Oh, noes, you’re leaving the door open to creationism!” to settle the matter.
Problem of induction?
If John Knight shows up now to argue philosophy again, I’m blaming you!
I thought he only shows up if I say “problem of induction” three times backwards in front of a mirror.
LOL, WUT?
“Do teach us, learned master”
Aw, Ok. Take that poor guy who thinks africa+southamerica is only an infere4nce but is not actually proven. What the fuck does he mena by that? Somethign pointles, most probably, but if yoiu take his wording seriously, he must be thinking in some truly dumb alternatove, such as massive disoersal of strata and not very mobile organisms across vast extenses of the ocean. Not an idea a succesful scientists shoudl bother himself about. When we say ‘reasonable” doubt, it menas the alternative is usally really, really dumb.
“Like phlogiston and epicycles are still part of the scientific establishment? (They perform well in certain restricted domains”
If they still performed better than any other theory in those restricted domains, they could still be a legit part of science. But I doubt it.
“How do you know which possibilities are going to turn out useful? (Excluding obvious duds like creationism”
When they are predictive, or at least, heuristic.
“I acknowledge that this is something I’m still thinking about; indeed, that many scientists and philosophers are still thinking about”
Well, me too, of course. Obviosuly science is a human endeavour full of nuances, and I am not Mr Know-it-all on amtters epistemological.
But I’ll tell you what. I am NOT still thinking whether wahles descend form artiodactyls is a proven, fact or not. I am NOT still thinking whether continental drift is fact or not. And NO, i am not seriously considering tomorrow some fantastic evidence will just overturn evolution for ID. I don’t have epistemology all figured out: but I’m definitely beyond some of the more simpisticc versions of it.
And yet just a few years ago according to Philip Gingerich “Everything we’d found was consistent with a mesonychid origin. I was happy with that…”
If you are right that we shouldn’t entertain other possibilities, why was Gingerich wrong?
Seeing David Marjanović characterized as a “poor guy” cracked me up.
Uh, no. Really. Absolutely not.
hehe. Well, I was already long ago on the artiodactyl side on that one, considering the molecular phylogeny, the ruminant stomach of cetaceans, the artiodactyl calcaneum of early whales… the mesonychid alternative was based mostly on teeth, a highly homoplastic trait,but I guess it was still respectable (specially since they are not so far off from artiodactyls themselves). That is, until Indohyus, of course. Hehehe.
For the point, consider I said “terrestrial mammal”.
But then WTF does Mr Mrjanovic mean, that this is not actually proven? What are his alternatives? Its just AWFUL stupid, sorry.
Although the Darwinists are loath to admit it there are two distinct propositions in TOE;
1) Life evolved through a natural process of change from more primitive life.
2) The process is neo-Darwinian “Random Variation, Natural Selection”
It is easy to demonstrate that the second proposition is false and doing so in no way contradicts the first.
The informal observation made by many is that the larger an evolutionary change the less likely there is to be a plausible neo-Darwinian explanation – often expressed as a belief in micro evolution but not macro evolution. Here is a mathematical form of the demonstration.
Evolution can be analysed at the genetic level or at the organism level – genotype or phenotype. In this case we use the genotype level as more mathematically tractable.
Genetic changes occur over a wide range of magnitudes, from the trivial change of a base pair in a non-coding part of DNA to extreme merging of cells as seen in mitochondria, chloroplasts and nucleated cells. These changes obey the standard pattern of changes – lots of very small ones and very few large ones. Strictly speaking one should compute the power spectrum but there is a short cut. Note that a small change in general imparts zero or little advantage to the organism so that many generations are required to settle the issue of the change being incorporated in the genome or not. Conversely large changes tend to be resolved quickly – typically a few percent of seeds do not germinate, eggs do not hatch and pregnancies miscarry because of a large genetic change that does not even get to one generation.
Small changes are numerous and therefore the interval between changes is small although the time to resolve is large. Large changes are rare and therefore the interval between changes is large although the time to resolve is small. At some magnitude of change there must be a crossover point where the time between changes is equal to the resolution time – probably about the gene fragment level – and this can be used to define micro and macro evolution. The situation is somewhat like e-mails – if you get 10 messages a day but only look at your inbox once a day there will be a queue of messages. If you get only one per day and look every hour the inbox will usually be empty. Neo-Darwinism relies on the queue or pool of unresolved genetic changes. In much the same way that sorting an inbox by time, subject or source will bring different messages to the head of the queue a change in environment will favour a different set of changes. This part of the theory all works fine – the only requirement is a spread of small changes. Random change works well and many small changes do closely approximate to random distributions.
The problem case is macro evolution. Because there is no pool there can be no sorting of the pool. Each change must be evaluated as it arises within whatever environment exists at the time. Were these changes random, as required by neo-Darwinism, they would occur at times utterly unrelated to any contemporary change in environment or lack of change in environment. They would simple be changes that became accepted within the genome or not. The crunch point is that this makes the process a genetic lottery and one of the basic rules of lotteries is that if you have more tickets you are more likely to get a prize. Random change comes with an inevitable bias toward more populous species – and the range in population sizes is large – much more that trillionfold. There are many factors that can affect the rate at which large genetic changes occur and get taken up – animal or vegetable, tropic or arctic, large or small. However if you look at a change such as the addition of a gene to a genome you find that after about 650 million years the spread of gene count after all the above sources of variation have been included has most of the advanced species gaining between 15,000 and 30,000 genes. This is a tiny spread and leaves absolutely no room for a variation with population size. The simplest resolution for the discrepancy is that the assumption of random change must be incorrect.
This conclusion in no way affects the arguments for evolution. It is trivially easy to come up with alternative models for evolution. Any model that has some rare global environmental change that leads to genetic change, directly or indirectly through some stimulus/response mechanism will reproduce the narrow spread in the gene counts and provide a more accurate description of macro evolution. There is no theoretical difficulty with this approach – all the required precedents occur in antibiotic resistance in bacteria. It is just that such models are incompatible with evolutionary theory as currently taught and published.
I get it, we should just ask you which theory is beyond doubt ;)
Eh, whale and ruminant stomachs are not homologous afaik. Looks like you reached the right conclusion based on partially wrong assumptions.
“shrug” If you ask everybody’s opinion or wait for consensus to make up your own you are not going to fare well in science. Consider dinobirds. To this day, you will find published articles by guys like feduccia, hinchliffe. And guess what: that’s another fact I am not wondering about, whether birds are dinosaurs. Obviously, they are.
And of course the foregut of cetaceans is homologous to that of artiodactyls…specially now that we know cetaceans ARE artiodactyls, what evidence would you have that it isn’t?
Apparently not on matters orthographical or grammatical either.
That’s a bit different claim from cetaceans having a “ruminant stomach”. Using this kind of sophistry you could say that humans have a ruminant stomach too. Saves you from ever having to admit you are wrong, I guess.
Yeah, you’re dumb. Check out this link…for your own good
http://www.ultimateungulate.com/Cetartiodactyla/Rumination.html
Um, are you claiming that whales ruminate just because there is a page on rumination under “Cetartiodactyla”? Ruminantia is a different suborder, dude.
jeez…even dumber than I thought. haha
Maybe someday, you’ll understand
Maybe after you get some sleep and sober up you’ll make a coherent argument.
Sheesh.
Distressing as it is to find myself on the same side of the argument as a smug git like HeWhoYouDespise, he’s basically right.
It’s [that members of populations x and y can interbreed] not something that science is needed for at all. It’s too small for science. A single observation isn’t science, and neither is a single experiment ( = arranged observation under controlled circumstances) by itself. – David Marjanović, OM
Showing that members of populations x and y can interbreed may be the outcome of a considerable amount of experimentation – you may need to get the conditions just right, and doing so may require arbitrarily extensive and theoretically deep knowledge. It may also be part of a larger programme of research – say, into mechanisms of speciation. A new species may have turned up, and a question arisen as to how it did so (see the case of the hemp nettle Galeopsis tetrahit in the talk.origins item on observed instances of speciation). That’s not science?
What conceivable alternative to the theory (and fact) that Africa and South America were once joined could possibly explain all the observations we now have – which did not also bring the whole scientific enterprise into doubt?
The attempt to draw a sharp line between fact and theory in terms of whether inference is involved is itself doomed. As a one-time cognitive scientist, I’m well aware that perception itself always involves inference.
Really, on this point HeWhoYouDespise is right – philosophy of science did not stop with Popper (nor Kuhn); and while working scientists, and non-scientists interested in science, don’t need to know the details, they really should be aware that “science doesn’t prove; it only disproves” is just plain wrong.
There’s also of course the elementary logical point that if science cannot prove, then neither can it disprove, because if you disprove proposition P, you automatically prove proposition ~P – whatever the content or epistemological nature of P. If anything is obvious and beyond dispute, surely that is?
Juts for the education of some of you, Cetaceans have a stomach just like that of a ruminant, with a large, specialized foregut chamber where bacterial fermentation takes place. This “ruminant” stomach was a nice hint of the artiodactyl affinities of cetaceans, and to say it is not homologous now, faced with the current evidence is , well, stupid.
Obviously, when I say cetaceans have a “ruminant” stomach I do no imply that whales are chewing their food and moving it back and forth… at least, not any more. But Indohyus probably did.
Crystal clear now? Good.
The closest living relatives of whales aren’t the ruminants, but the hippos, which don’t ruminate. From what I gather whales and hippos do have rather complex stomachs but saying that they have a “ruminant stomach” is just jumping to conclusions. What I meant was that the arrangement of the cetacean stomach is not homologous to the four-chambered true ruminant stomach, or do you have some sources that say otherwise?
Since it appears that camels have independently evolved a sort of pseudo-ruminant digestion, and it’s perfectly possible to be an artiodactyl without a complex stomach and/or rumination, it’s rather hasty to say that any other hypothesis besides yours (the ancestors of whales ruminated?) is stupid.
Now where’s David Marjanović to sort this out?
Based on what? Argumentum ad rectum?
Unless you’re a constructivist/intuitionistic logician, in which case you reject LEM and PBC.
Emmet,
I’ve forgotten most of the little I knew about intuitionist logic – but I rather think the whole Popperian approach would collapse without the law of excluded middle!
I’m not sure. To be honest, I don’t know enough about either philosophy or logic to form an opinion worth a hoot (not that it usually stops me), but from what little I know of IL, it is a very active research area that has progressed considerably from being little more than a curiosity thirty years ago to being a useful tool in automatic theorem provers and the like, with a considerable chunk of mathematics now being recast in intuitionist/constructivist terms. My own experience of constructive finite model theory was that it was very difficult: I think LEM/PBC is hard-wired into my brain. I’ll take another run at it some time, though; it’s very interesting trying to figure out what the philosophical ramifications are, and the theory is difficult enough to give my frontal lobes a worthwhile workout: you can never have too much logic!
Windy, stop embarassing yourself. That expanded foregut is homologous. If you want to quibble because I said “ruminant stomach”, fine… I guess you need it, having being humiliated and all, hehehe.
And of course, there’s a good chance that Indohyus ruminated. Consider, what do you think the most recent common ancestor of ruminants looked like?
Emmet,
Yes, an ex-colleague of mine has used intuitionist propositional logic in constructing proofs about a region-based formalism for spatial representation – the boundaries of regions corresponded to the “gap” left by dropping the LEM; but I admit I never grasped all the details.
Nick,
Your former colleague might know one of my former colleagues, a GIS wonk who uses category theory, particularly institutions, for the same thing (formal spatial and spatio-temporal knowledge representation). I’m interested in CT (for something different), but it’s really quite inaccessible unless you have a patient expert on hand to ask questions — I haven’t grokked it yet, although I’ve laid some groundwork that’s helped a lot since my previous look.
Emmet@254,
Quite likely! I’m interested in CT myself (both for itself – as an alternative to logic+set-theory for a foundation to mathematics which actually bears some resemblance to how mathematicians think – and as a possible tool for describing relationships between formal ontologies and/or simulation models), but have never had the time to get far into it (less than you I think, since the term “institutions” isn’t familiar).
TBH, I only heard of (Goguen-Burstall) institutions because my colleague was using them and used me as a kind of sounding-board because I had at least some interest in it. Goguen (who died @65 ~2½ years ago) was an interesting guy; if you haven’t seen it, his website has a lot of interesting stuff on it, including Goguen’s Semiotic Zoo. I remember some of his algebraic semiotics stuff being very interesting, although it’s a few years since I looked at it.
I’m humiliated because you can’t keep your terms straight? Whatever. (Your spelling seems to be improving though.)
It’s certainly possible that an expanded foregut derives from a common ancestor, but then again expanded foreguts appear in lots of different groups of animals, how can you be so sure that it isn’t convergent?
According to this article (Langer 2001) there are significant differences between cetacean and other artiodactyl stomachs. I don’t agree with his criticism of the hippo-whale connection but he seems to know something about the stomach anatomy.
It probably looked very similar. But I don’t care about its looks, I am asking on what basis do you attribute shared derived characteristics to it.
Besides, according to Evolution of Artiodactyls, it might have been on the small side for a ruminating animal:
“Larger (greater than 10 kg) artiodactyls also became apparent at this time [Eocene]. A ruminating type of foregut fermentation is not possible at a smaller body size; smaller animals have relatively greater metabolic requirements and so must consume relatively more food, but the long passage time required for full rumination mitigates against this.” (p 285)
BTW, doesn’t the time frame suggest that the ancestors of the whales were already in the water by the time early ‘ruminants’ actually developed rumination? Might seem nitpicky but I’m just trying to point to some hasty phylogenetic conclusions.
“It’s certainly possible that an expanded foregut derives from a common ancestor,”
I accept your apology
“how can you be so sure that it isn’t convergent?”
Hello? It’s called parsimony.
“how can you be so sure that it isn’t convergent?” – windy
Hello? It’s called parsimony. HeWhoyouDespise
Hello? Parsimony is a reasonable basis for a hypothesis; it is not a good reason to be sure that a common feature is shared derived rather than a result of convergence.
HeWhoyouDespise,
Have you considered that the reason you are despised may be that you so obviously despise everyone else?
In this case thinking about convergenece is just stupid, given that you KNOW cetaceans are artiodactyls from molecular and morphological evidence. All their relatives have the foregut, Hippos and ruminants.
By the way, get over my nickname. ARe you Mr nice all the time? No, right. So, don’t be a freakin hypocrite. Almost everyone here is a dick. AND, it’s OK!
We don’t want this to be a pointless boring conversation of milquetoasts patting each others shoulders, don’t we
And yet, the parsimonious inference is that the continents don’t move — until you find the evidence of their motion.
Come on, be empirical: Do you have more data in support of this inference?
But is there genetic and molbio evidence that the foregut develops in the same way in all members of Cetartiodactyla and Artiodactyla, given their highly divergent morphology and diets?
See, your original wording was “the ruminant stomach of cetaceans”, not “multichambered stomachs with foreguts similar to ruminants and other artiodactyls”. Are you going to retract your original wording or no?
The reason I think it’s worth quibbling over is that it goes back to your argument that science can be “proved”. And because from my admittedly casual knowledge, gut development can change relatively rapidly in evolutionary time. Even among Cetacea, “The number of stomach chambers reported ranges from three to 12; however, most species have a four-chambered stomach structure (Tarpley et al. 1987).” (itself from “Gastrointestinal Microbiology”, Mackie, White, Isaacson 1997) (emph mine)
That seems, to me, a large amount of variation in stomach development within a single order.
But what do I know? Show me how I’m wrong.
And who spit in your beer?
“See, your original wording was “the ruminant stomach of cetaceans”, not “multichambered stomachs with foreguts similar to ruminants and other artiodactyls”. Are you going to retract your original wording or no?”
Err…no
You guys really think science is all about being anal, huh?
It’s also about having the balls. I say cetaceans have a ruminant stomach because it gets my point across, that this was good reason to suspect artiodactyl affinities, and for all i know it perfectly could have once been used in rumination
“The reason I think it’s worth quibbling over is that it goes back to your argument that science can be “proved””
I said for the purpose of my argument to consider I said cetraceasn came forma terrestrila mamal. Are you telling me this is not proven?
Since I am also belssed with the virtue of having BALLS, I’ll tell you right away that it is PROVEN that cetaceans are artiodactyls. Jeez. Seriously, you bguys are going to succeed in boring me to death.
HWYD, being precise is not “being anal”, it is a methodological requirement in science.
BTW, are you dyslexic or just habitually careless? :)
Was rumination present in Indohyus? THAT, of course, is not proven, but that it was is a perfectly good possibility…the kind a good scientist muts take pretty seriously.
Does that mean, then, that nothing can be proven in science That would be pretty goddam retarded, wouldn’t it.
One thing is to be inprecise, another is to think it is a convergence, or, as windy said “Using this kind of sophistry you could say that humans have a ruminant stomach too”
So, OK, I may be imprecise….but that is way better than STUPID
You have yet to show that you’re not STUPID.
Nothing is proven in science? That’s stupid.
Then how do you explain camels? Your own source puts camelids at the base of the artiodactyls. I’m curious how you get a nice clean parsimonious appearance of rumination, the “ruminant stomach” or the “foregut” out of that. Either there was convergence or some reversals occurred.
I’m talking about the expanded, ruminan-like foregut, which is the moprhologicla trait that reflects the artiodatyl affinities of cetaceans, not rumination itself. Obviously, cetaceans do not ruminate. Honestly, it’s boring that you keep talking again and again as if we were talking only about “true rumination”. I already said it’s not clear whether “true” rumination was present at the origins of cetaceans, but I insist it’s a pretty good possibility.
If an expanded foregut is absent in Suidae, this morphological trait may be convergent between camelids and cetaceans+ruminants, or secondarily lost in Suidae. But there is no evidence for convergence between ruminants and cetaceans. And you DO need evidence to support an unparsimonious possibility.
@ Dave Finn #237
The fact that a whole bunch of ill-educated, religious nutters are biased to reject something doesn’t make their objection reasonable nor the something untrue.
Liar. It’s not really mathematical at all and contains additional errors anyway. Your “argument” more closely resembles Zeno’s (ancient!) paradoxes – and, in reality, those are non-problems too.
Note this carefully as it becomes important later when Dave plays his dishonest switcheroo game.
And he’s already at his dishonest switcheroo game in the very next paragraph! Note that it could be a trivial change of some sort in the genome (the level at which he claims to want to look) which then leads to the phenotype including cell types with different numbers of copies of the genome.
From there on, just about every single sentence/assertion of his which follows is a little bit false. Sometimes they are quite plainly false. Many are false through playing switcheroo on definitions/rules. Others are false by selectively ignoring exceptions which are inconvenient to him (in destroying his argument). Some are (also) false in the context of an argument by being non sequiturs.
You guys really think science is all about being anal, huh?
It’s not all about being anal, but it’s a lot about being anal. You’d know that, I suspect, if you had actually done any science. Based on what I have observed so far, my hypothesis is that you have not.
Another dick…see? It’s full of ’em
Josh can perfectly well be a scientists…but a rather stuoid one. Obviosuly, you’re wrong. I DO make science.
I’m a dick because I responded negatively to you giving me attitude?
Nice.
And that’s the second time you’ve called me stupid. And why? Because we have a disagreement about the nature of proof in science?
Also nice.
Do you call your colleagues stupid when they give papers at conferences that disagree with what you think?
You make science? What kind of science do you “make?”
Since I am also belssed with the virtue of having BALLS
– HeWhoYouDespise, the STUPID sexist.
Ovaries, then. Some kind of gonad. hehehe
I work in evolution, natural History. Not quite your field, huh, Josh? Perhaps you’re closer to the numbers? And yes, you ARE stupid, guessing who’s scientists and who is not based on adhesion to a simple premise like “we do nto prove in science”. Simply, not all scientists will agree with that wording. Neither will all philosophers of science. Live with it.
Ovaries, then. Some kind of gonad. hehehe HeWhoYouDespise
Still crass and STUPID – do you not know some people have to have their gonads removed as treatment for cancer?
From your general unpleasantness and the repeated “hehehe”, I picture you as an ill-mannered, mean-spirited individual whose greedy and insanitary habits have resulted in obesity, strong body odour of stale sweat, bad breath and dandruff, and whom everyone avoids if at all possible.
Actually it is quite my field, thanks.
…guessing who’s scientists and who is not based on adhesion to a simple premise like “we do nto prove in science”.
False statement. Natural history might be your field, but apparently reading comprehension isn’t your forte. My prediction that you weren’t a scientist wasn’t based on our disagreement about proof in science. It was about your professed contempt for precision. Try again.
Simply, not all scientists will agree with that wording. Neither will all philosophers of science. Live with it.
Yes, quite right. We disagree. But instead of just disagreeing and trying to have a rational discussion about it, you appear to be making the leap that all of those scientists who don’t agree with your wording are stupid. Nice. Keep trying and they’ll give you an honorary creationist membership.
This is why scientists NEVER say that more falling apples increase our confidence in the theory of gravity.
False statement. I’m a scientist, and I have said things like this. Next.
As I understand it, what the falling apples really do is continue to increase our confidence in the Law of Gravity (the description of the observations), but each apple (if it does what we expect it to do when dropped) also represents an observation that the Theory of Gravity can explain. Scientific theories remain valid so long as they can explain all of the relevant observations regarding the pertinent phenomena. So yes, each of those apples brings our confidence that we know what the hell we’re doing closer to 100%. Is that useful for gravity as this point in time? Not all that much, considering the staggering amount of data we have that supports gravity (law and theory), but the principle remains important for other theories (e.g., Plate Tectonics). But since you “make science,” shouldn’t you already know all of this?
Certainly some are but others certainly aren’t.
This point was made to rebut my assertion that all facts are tentative. I remain convinced that all facts are tentative. Even if we cannot conceive of how a particular observation could be invalidated, this does not mean that it cannot ever be invalidated. To assert the contrary is creationist-level arrogance. If I’m wrong in this, show me some science that refutes my position. Or, your could just type your next assertion in ALL CAPS. That usually works well around here.
Thus is why established theories are never going to be completely overturned, even if they are no longer the hottest new theory.
False statement. Theories are overturned. Expanding Earth has been thrown onto the scrap heap of science.
I will agree though that while theories can be argued to be facts, they are also expected to explain large sets of data.
The second part of this statement is accurate. The first isn’t. Theories aren’t facts. Theories explain facts. I’m sorry if you don’t like that words have definitions in science and that we try hard to be precise about these definitions, but it’s one of the cornerstones of what we do. Precision is just as important in science as accuracy. If that bothers you, then perhaps you should blog comment about something that isn’t science. You wrote: I don’t like people who think fact, law and theory are clearly demarcated things or correspond to definitons somehow written in stone in the same comment where you used theory incorrectly. That’s telling. That you’re aggressively asserting your position but appear to misunderstand the scientific definition of theory suggests that you perhaps might want to tone down the attitude at least a little bit.
A philosopher cannot. I, as a scientist, predict with 100% confidence that, under normal conditons, next time you drop your pen, it will fall. GUARANTEED
And right there you stare directly at my point, but don’t see it. What are “normal” conditions? HOW do you GUARANTEE that the conditions are “normal?” You’ve thrown a qualifier in there that absolutely makes my point. What are normal conditions if not the set of assumptions that bring our confidence in obtaining the expected result toward 100%? If you have another definition, offer it up.
I talked about dropping the pen. In order to try and make your case, you modified my example experiment so as to hold conditions at something you called “normal.” YES, exactly. If the conditions remain the same, then we can be pretty sure of the outcome of this particular experiment. IF you can be sure of holding “normal” conditions. But how do you do that? What are the conditions? HOW do we hold them constant and know we’re holding them constant? How do you guarantee it? That’s what I was talking about with error bars (insert your snicker here). All of these things affect uncertainty; make error bars larger or smaller. If you think that you can guarantee that experimental conditions are going to remain the same every time you drop the pen, then I have to suspect that you haven’t done very many experiments.
And yes, in this case (dropping the pen), the parameters of “normal” are large enough for the result to almost certainly not change even though the conditions are not held constant (so pen dropping gets demoted to a poor example in some ways), but your presumption that you can guarantee that “normal” conditions are going to remain constant is ridiculous.
No matter how much evidence we have to support a conclusion, that conclusion could, in theory, be incorrect. If you disagree with this, show me some papers supporting your side. Provide me with some citations (not websites; real science). I’m interested in a discussion, not arguing with a creationist, so please stop acting like one. Falsify what I wrote in my comment #223. So far, you have not done this. And since what you’re offering contradicts what I was taught over the course of 12 years of higher education in science, I’m not that interested in your opinion or your assertion. I’m not being dogmatic here, and I’m willing to consider any argument, but from my perspective as a professional scientist, you’re the one making the outrageous claim (that science proves in the sense that proof more or less describes truth). I’m willing to entertain it, but you or Nick or someone is going to have to actually provide me something that I can chew on. Give me some article citations. Some book citations. IN SCIENCE. We’re not talking about logic here, and science has moved beyond Popper in many ways. Show me some science that demonstrates that we prove things in the manner in which you seem to be talking about proof. Show me something that demonstrates that I can guarantee a prediction rather than just increase my confidence about it. I’m excited to read these things. Offer them up. I’ve been hunting around since we started this thread of conversation, but what I’ve found is very unsatisfying. Point me toward some solid references.
This is why we don’t entertain creationism as an explanation for the origin of human beings even if you think it is unscientific not to keep the possibility open (you’re dead wrong, of course)
You’re trying to put words in my mouth, but are doing it poorly. I never even hinted that creationism was a possibility that we should entertain. I was commenting about proof in science. Period. Those aspects of traditional Christian creationism that are falsifiable largely have been (e.g., the flud). The parts that aren’t falsifiable are not scientific, so I don’t care much.
ID provides no detail of how, and thus is pathetically useless, and unpredictive, whereas evolution is the established theory, becasue, it works like a charm.
YES. And? This additionally wasn’t at all what I was arguing. Works like a charm presumes the ToE is perfect (it isn’t; nothing in science is), so I don’t like that phrasing, but otherwise I agree with you. Next.
I said it is stupid to say every falling apple “increasingly suppports” gravity.
And you’re entitled to the opinion that it’s stupid. But guess what? Science doesn’t care about your opinion. You can think that it’s stupid to say that every falling apple increasingly supports gravity, but so far you’ve offered no demonstration of how that “stupid statement” is false.
Consider dinobirds. To this day, you will find published articles by guys like feduccia, hinchliffe. And guess what: that’s another fact I am not wondering about, whether birds are dinosaurs. Obviously, they are.
And again, “obviously,” they are, right now. Aves sits within Dinosauria according to how most biologists currently classify organisms. To presume that this is a demonstrable fact that will never change is to be completely ignorant of how we study evolution and more importantly, how we currently classify organisms (and it’s akin to the faithful asserting that nothing can ever overturn cladistics). That birds are dinosaurs is NOT a fact. It’s the result of lots of facts. There is a difference, and the distinction is important. To call any taxonomic or phylogenetic placement a fact belies a very poor understanding of how both taxonomy and systematics are done. Biological classifications are each based on numerous observations. Taxonomic placements are not observations themselves. If you think that this distinction is hair-splitting, then please stop talking about science and start talking about football or something, because you’re not helping. Part of the reason we have so many problems with the creotards is that we tend to be so fucking sloppy with word choice when we’re talking amongst ourselves. Word choice is important in science. If you’re not going to at least make an attempt to be precise about it, then please talk about something that isn’t science. We have some real battles to fight against irrationality and you’re not helping.
And please don’t call them dinobirds. It’s like referring to members of Dromaeosauridae as “raptors.” It makes you sound like an amateur; which isn’t a bad thing unless you’re trying to convince professionals of your authority.
And additionally, asserting that we have elevated the hypothesized historical connection between Africa and South America to the level of observation (which several of you have argued) belies a misunderstanding of our current understanding of geology.
It’s a little like trying to accelerate to the speed of light. Initially, any piece of evidence at all which gets you away from your at-rest zero is very significant. Eventually though, when you’re most of the way there, tiny little touches (like yet another falling apple) hardly make any difference to your level of confidence (speed). But 100% of it isn’t actually achievable (without being something else entirely – which is stuck being completely confident but also quite unable to think).
Just for those quoting people. This makes the formatting much easier to read and decipher for the rest of us hamsters churning the wheels.
<blockquote>Text you want to quote here</blockquote>
carry on
sorry, that will look like this
Knockgoats, I’m truly sorry to hear you lost your balls to cancer. I hope you can take pills or something. Back to Josh.
“I’m a scientist, and I have said things like this”
That each falling apple increases our confidence in gravity, huh?
Shame on you.
“I remain convinced that all facts are tentative”
Please consider that “truth” of yours to be tentative, too
“Theories aren’t facts”
So, its completely wrong to say evolution is a fact? You’re too anal, man. Loosen up, for the sake of common sense. as i said, it’s silly to think that defintions of fact and theory are written in stone.
“Theories are overturned. Expanding Earth has been thrown onto the scrap heap of science”
That’s hardly a theory, that is, at level with evolution or gravity. The key is that theories remian scientifically useful and predictive over a broad range of data and situations, even if they are found not to be so useful in specific domains. This is why a single instance of a non-falling apple would not decrease our confidence on the theory of gravity, but rather would beg an explanation.
“If you can be sure of holding “normal” conditions. But how do you do that? What are the conditions?”
As far as falling pens go, the room you’re sitting in is “normal conditions”, and I guaranteee, if you let go, it will fall.
“If you disagree with this, show me some papers supporting your side. Provide me with some citations”
Hehe. Again, very “scientific” of you, huh. You will find no such papers about confidence in gravity increased by dropping pens, mostly because this is simply stupid idea of yours, that no scientist cares about. But I’d recommend you read up on the epistemological literature, for instance, about contradictions between truly sound theories in physics, which nevrtheless remain valid.
“To call any taxonomic or phylogenetic placement a fact belies a very poor understanding of how both taxonomy and systematics are done”
So, if i say humans belong withinmammals is a fact, I’m demosntrating my very poor understanding of both taxonomy and systematics. Nice way of talking out of your ass.
“Aves sits within Dinosauria according to how most biologists currently classify organisms. To presume that this is a demonstrable fact that will never change is to be completely ignorant of how we study evolution”
What’s the difference with saying that humans sit within mammals? Please, do elaborate.
“And please don’t call them dinobirds. It’s like referring to members of Dromaeosauridae as “raptors.” It makes you sound like an amateur; which isn’t a bad thing unless you’re trying to convince professionals of your authority.”
Anal, anal, anal. I don’t give a rats ass how I look to you. If you’re smart, you’ll get what I’m saying. yes, despite any of these dreadful “imprecisions” . For now, I’d much rather use the word “dinobirds” than act like if all the evidence for the dinosaur-bird link could just go up in thin air tommorrow. Now THAT, is stupid. And ignorant.
So, its completely wrong to say evolution is a fact?
Not if you’re talking about the fact of evolution. But the fact of evolution (the observation that life changes over time) doesn’t explain anything. For that you need the theory of evolution. Try studying evolution with only the fact and see how far you get.
…it’s silly to think that defintions of fact and theory are written in stone.
I never said they were. You on the hand don’t seem to care about the definitions at all, never mind whether or not they evolve with use (which is not the point I was discussing).
That’s hardly a theory, that is, at level with evolution or gravity.
Yawn…which is…wait for it…why it now rests on the scrapheap of science.
“asserting that we have elevated the hypothesized historical connection between Africa and South America to the level of observation (which several of you have argued)
The earth is round. That is a fact, not an observation: if I simply look, I see it flat, for the most.
“belies a misunderstanding of our current understanding of geology”
No, dumbass. What we have is an epostemolgical disagreement. Everyone here understands the geologicla part of this. Moron.
“We have some real battles to fight against irrationality and you’re not helping”
Hmmm…maybe you should not worry so much about that and make sure you have your basic epostemology right, first
Knockgoats, I’m truly sorry to hear you lost your balls to cancer. HeWhoyouDespise
As I’ve noted before, reading comprehension is not your strong point, any more than typing, grammar, or constructive discussion. Oh, I get it – you have no concern for the feelings of others, so you assume everyone else is the same. Wrong again.
KnockGoats, has HWYD ever given a reference from a legitimate third party to back up his assertions? Or is he just being obnoxious?
Knockgoats,
I’m truly sorry i hurt your feelings. Maybe some day we can go for a walk along the beach as the sun sets, have a good long talk and straighten out things between us. hehehe
Good for you but I wonder who calls their field “natural history” anymore? And how can someone who works in evolutionary science scoff at “numbers”?
I work in evolutionary genetics and I’m certainly touched by your childlike faith in the truth of the results from my field, though ;)
Maybe if you didn’t insist on conflating “ruminant” and “artiodactyl”.
On the basis of what? This is not a rhetorical question, I’m genuinely asking if you have any data or references for this.
I accept your apology about convergence ;)
It’s at least as unparsimonious to say that there is a “good possibility” that the ancestor of cetaceans ruminated, when this requires that not only did the hippos lose this ability but that the chevrotains became secondarily primitive ruminants.
And did you miss that I quoted a scientific article which argues that there isn’t a close resemblance between the ruminant and cetacean stomachs?
I’m truly sorry i hurt your feelings. HWYD
You didn’t. Another reading comprehension failure.
As this statement is sometimes just not true, it’s not key of anything.
jeez, Windy.
So, you’re insisting that the expanded foregut showed up independently in cetaceans and ruminants, even though cetacenas, hippos and ruminants have it…
“I work in evolutionary genetics”
Oh. I see. Maybe that’s why you can’t tell you’re sticking unwarranted extra steps of evolution.
“I’m certainly touched by your childlike faith in the truth of the results from my field, though”
Nope. You’ve got a good share of pure bullshit there.
Josh, grow some balls for once, and tell me
Is it a fact that humans belong within the mammals?
I don’t think there’s any meaningful difference. But you might do well to contemplate Reptilia for a moment. Are you honestly so unimaginitive that you believe there is no possiblity that we might ever learn enough about biology that Mammalia as we currently understand it gets punched full of holes? Are you serious? Is your worldview really that small?
And yes, I maintain that if you say that humans sitting within Mammalia is a fact, you’re displaying a poor understanding of taxonomy, systematics, and most importantly, facts. The classification of Homo is just that, a classification. A cladogram is not a fact.
“And yes, I maintain that if you say that humans sitting within Mammalia is a fact, you’re displaying a poor understanding of taxonomy, systematics, and most importantly, facts”
Nuff said. You’re an idiot.
No, “The earth is round” is an imprecise attempt at describing the shape of the planet.
Perhaps you should provide your source for fact in science. As I understand it, we consider facts to be observations with associated errors. See, for example, B Gower, 1997, Scientific Method: A Historical and Philosophical Introduction. Routledge.
So, using a fairly normal scientific definition of fact, elevating the hypothesized historical connection between Africa and South America to the level of observation belies a misunderstanding of our current understanding of geology. I didn’t think I need to define fact for you since we were supposed to be talking about science, but okay.
Of course I am. Now, continue to be a good little creationist-mimick. You’ve declared victory without actually offering any substantial evidence to support any of your claims, or falsify anyone else’s points. You’re almost there. Now go home and congratulate yourself.
No, I’m not insisting anything, I’m saying you can’t dismiss the possibility, especially in the case of such a vaguely defined character as an “expanded foregut”.
So do you when you hypothesize a ruminating Indohyus. I’m just wondering why one is obviously “stupid” and the other is a “good possibility”.
“No, I’m not insisting anything, I’m saying you can’t dismiss the possibility, especially in the case of such a vaguely defined character as an “expanded foregut”.
Vague? It’s pretty straightforward.
“I’m just wondering why one is obviously “stupid” and the other is a “good possibility”
By “rumination”, you actually mean merely the “chewing the cud” part, since the key part of foregut fermentation, is present in both Hippos and cetaceans. This prescribes foregut fermentation too for Indohyus. Since Indohyus was a berbivore closely resembling living basal ruminants (tragulidae), it’s reasonable to think it could have chewed its cud.
In contrast, your “undismissed possibility” demands assuming no expanded foregut was present in the common ancestor of ruminants and cetaceans+hippos…for no good reason, as far as I can see.
It has been hypothesized, but is it actually shown to be common in cetaceans outside of baleen whales that are specialized to digest crustaceans?
I disagree, but appreciate that you are actually presenting arguments for your case now. Superficial resemblance does not tell us anything about whether Indohyus ruminated. And while it’s possible, it’s more parsimonious that chewing the cud originated in Ruminantia, instead of originating earlier but being lost in hippos and the whales.
As for digestion itself, according to molecular evidence cetaceans don’t have ruminant-like versions of certain digestive enzymes:
“we put forward the hypotheses that these ancestral molecules were glycoproteins and that ruminant(-like) digestion with less glycosylated RNases has independently evolved three times in true ruminants, tylopods, and hippopotamids. By the aforementioned criteria the hippopotamus RNase should behave similarly to the ruminant enzymes, whereas the camel X, the toothed whale, and the ancestral Pecora and Cetartiodactyla RNases seem to be typical nonruminant enzymes” (Kleineidam et al 1999 J Mol Evol 48:360-368.)
Again, I’m only arguing that this possibility is not completely ridiculous, not that convergence must have occurred.
And again, it wasn’t papers about that hypothetical experiment that I was asking you about. But of course, we again run into that reading comprehension issue that KnockGoats was commenting on.
It wasn’t my idea, but thanks for the credit (I guess). And we’ll just let the demonstrably false statement after the comma hang there.
Interesting. That was a good hypothesis in 1999…now, it’s pretty evident that ruminant-like digestion with less glycosilated RNases could have been present in the common ancestor of hippos and ruminants, and thus secondarily lost in cetaceans (no big surprise, since they are obviously secondarily non-herbivores)