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Posted by Mike Dunford on May 9, 2004 01:35 AM
In a recent news release, the Discovery Institute trumpets the results of two new surveys conducted by Arnold Steinberg & Associates. These surveys appear to follow along the same lines as an earlier Zogby International survey conducted for the DI.
In both Steinberg surveys and the Zogby survey, respondents were asked whether public school biology teachers should “Teach the scientific evidence for and against [Darwin’s theory of evolution]” or “Teach only the scientific evidence for it.” In all three polls, between seventy and eighty persent of those responding selected the first answer. This question is a very nice example of a question that is intelligently designed to produce the answer that the people commissioning the survey wanted to hear.
The pollsters did not ask whether or not those responding knew of any evidence against evolution. Instead, they asked a question that contained the presumption that such evidence exists. 1 Based on the results of their carefully worded survey, they then claim that this level of public support for teaching “both sides” means that the objections that they have to evolution should be included in public school science curricula. This, of course, adds the assumption that their objections constitute scientific evidence against evolution to the preexisting assumption that there is any such evidence.
For the record, if I was aware of any credible scientific evidence against evolution, I would support teaching about it in the public schools. However, the material that the Discovery Institute presents as evidence against evolution hardly makes the grade. The vast majority of this “evidence” appears to be derived from a single book. Scathing reviews of this book have appeared in the two leading weekly scientific journals 2,3, among other places (see here for a listing of a few of the rebuttals to Wells’ book).
In the recent news release, the Discovery Institute’s Bruce Chapman attempts to deal with that issue indirectly, when he says:
“The only way the Darwin-only lobby can spin these kind of survey results,” added Chapman, “is to claim that the public is just ignorant. But that view is untenable in light of the more than 300 scientists who have publicly expressed their dissent from Darwinism, to say nothing of the many scientific articles that have been published critiquing the theory.”
While I would not use the word “ignorant”, there is good reason to believe that the public is not as well informed on scientific issues as they could be. A 2001 National Science Foundation Survey revealed that less than half of the population is aware that electrons are smaller than atoms, less than half of the population can explain what DNA is, and only 20% can correctly explain what a molecule is. Under those circumstances it does not seem reasonable to assume, as Chapman seems to, that all (or even most) of those responding to the polls commissioned by his organization are well versed in the details of evolutionary theory.
Chapman’s reference to his list of scientists who “dissent from Darwinism” does little to support his position that there is significan evidence against evolution. For comparison, the National Center for Science Education’s Project Steve currently has over 400 signatories, all of whom (have PhDs in fields related to evolution, and all of whom are named Steve.
Like Chapman, I will also “say nothing” about “the many scientific articles that have been published critiquing the theory”. There is simply nothing that can be said about those articles except for the basic fact that they don’t exist. (Unless, of course, “scientific articles” is redefined to include articles from sources outside the peer-reviewed journals.)
These latest Discovery Institute surveys are really nothing new. Like those that have gone before them, they contain the presumption that the Discovery Institute’s argument is valid. It is hardly a shock when the Discovery institute concludes as a result of these surveys that their argument really is valid. In the future, one would hope that the Discovery Institute sets a better example when it comes to scientific integrity. Perhaps they could start by conducing surveys that do not depend on the wording of the questions to produce the desired results.
—Mike Dunford
Footnotes
1: (In a 2003 American Prospect article, Chris Mooney discusses the question-writing habits of Zogby; he also has recently commented on this most recent DI press release on his own blog.)
2: Coyne, Jerry A. “Creationism by stealth” Nature 410,745-746 (12 April 2001)
3: Scott, Eugenie C. “Fatally Flawed Iconoclasm.” Science, 292:2257-2258, (22 June 2001)
Trackback URL: http://www.pandasthumb.org/cgi-bin/mt/mt-tb.cgi/202
Comment #1968
Posted by PZ Myers on May 9, 2004 08:03 AM (e) (s)
If I were to answer such a poll, I’d give the same answer (teach evidence for and against), and I’m a thrice-damned liberal atheist evolutionist. As you note, though, that means finding evidence against it, which the Intelligent Design creationists have not done, and I’d also add that ID is not the scientific alternative to evolution.
Comment #1977
Posted by Leighton on May 9, 2004 10:04 AM (e) (s)
Does anyone know off-hand where the “300 scientists who dissent from Darwinism” figure comes from?
I googled and found this list, which proudly features Francis Crick as entry #2, but it has the following caveat higher up on the page:
Please note, though much time and research has gone into this page, it is always possible that there are some inconsistencies and false information on it. It is not intended to be taken as necessarily 100% accurate, although in my unofficial opinion, it is fairly close to it.
This may or may not be the source of the “300+” figure, but if it is, it’s awfully fishy that something with such a strong disclaimer could make it into a press release.
Does anyone know if this is actually the correct list?
Comment #1978
Posted by RBH on May 9, 2004 10:55 AM (e) (s)
There is also the U. of Cincy/Case Western Reserve survey of Ohio science professors, in which 93% responded that they knew of no scientifically valid evidence that challenges the fundamental principles of the theory of evolution and 2% said “Don’t know.” 4% answered “Yes.” Note that the poll included faculty at Bible colleges and institutions associated with evangelical and fundamentalist churches. 91% of the scientists responding said that ID is primarily a religious view.
And it’s not only ignorance about evolutionary theory in the general public that’s rampant. In a poll of the general public in Ohio (described at the same URL) at about the same time as the scientists poll, only 14% of the public answered “yes” to the question “Do you happen to know anything about the concept of ‘intelligent design’?” and 84% responded “No.” It’s noteworthy that the poll was taken when Ohio’s State Board of Education was engaged in a well-publicized dispute about whether to include intelligent design in the state science standards and ID disciples (including Jonathon Wells and Stephen Meyer) were making their pilgrimages to Ohio.
RBH
Comment #1979
Posted by cs on May 9, 2004 12:55 PM (e) (s)
Hi, I’m conducting a poll.
Do you think that news reports about the Discovery Institute should mention only the good things they do, or do you think the news reports should also note their numerous criminal activities?
Comment #1980
Posted by Grumpy on May 9, 2004 01:06 PM (e) (s)
Trouble with those surveys is that you can’t complain to the questioner if the question is too complex to answer. They must rigorously ask the same question for each participant, and nothing but.
Comment #1981
Posted by Andy Groves on May 9, 2004 01:55 PM (e) (s)
Paging Paul Nelson………paging Paul Nelson…….. your comments on this would be appreciated……. thanks……..
Comment #1982
Posted by Steve Reuland on May 9, 2004 04:39 PM (e) (s)
Does anyone know off-hand where the “300 scientists who dissent from Darwinism” figure comes from?
It comes from the Discovery Institute, here. It was originally 100 “scientists”, which includes numerous professions with little or no connection to biology, and they’ve since increased it to 300 worldwide, which is still pathetically small. Note that the petition that was signed doesn’t even express dissent from Darwinism; it just says “we are skeptical”, which is a rather noncontroversial statement. As with the poll, they greatly exaggerate what the petition actually says.
Comment #1983
Posted by Steve Reuland on May 9, 2004 04:41 PM (e) (s)
Does anyone know off-hand where the “300 scientists who dissent from Darwinism” figure comes from?
It comes from the Discovery Institute, here. It was originally 100 “scientists”, which includes numerous professions with little or no connection to biology, and they’ve since increased it to 300 worldwide, which is still pathetically small. Note that the petition that was signed doesn’t even express dissent from Darwinism; it just says “we are skeptical”, which is a rather noncontroversial statement. As with the poll, they greatly exaggerate what the petition actually says.
Comment #1984
Posted by Leighton on May 9, 2004 05:47 PM (e) (s)
Thanks for the link, Steve. I knew about their prior “100 scientists” claim (and on the list you linked to, I note several whose doctorates are in less relevant areas like philosophy). Is there also a list somewhere of the 300 dissenters worldwide (and if so, is it the link I stumbled upon?), or are they pulling the number out of thin air by making some kind of bizarre extrapolation?
Comment #1985
Posted by Kevin on May 9, 2004 06:09 PM (e) (s)
Since the poll was directed at the citizens of California, does that mean we can expect a push to include ID at the statewide level here?
Comment #1991
Posted by shiva pennathur on May 10, 2004 06:28 AM (e) (s)
The 300+ scientists who are “skeptical” of evolution include some rate scientists from many fields including life sciences. Apart from the terrific trio - Dembski, Wells, and Behe (throw in Johnson and it becomes the fab four) - there are notables such as Dale Schaefer at U.Cincy., the Nobel nominee (the list says so) Schaefer, Rob Kaita-Plasma Physis-Princeton, Walter Bradley-Texas A&M, Daniel Dix-Math-U.S.Carolina, etc. There are 100 names here http://www.discovery.org/articleFiles/PDFs/100ScientistsAd.p…. I have been through the homepages of some from the list who are practising scientists at universities. There are others who hold a PhD but are not practising scientists (such as Wells) about whom we know little. There are pages and pages to go thru, but already there’s a clear pattern - albeit unscientific. None of these scientists is doing any work on evolution much less ID or against evolution. Nobody has “discovered” much less published on intelligent design. Dale Schaefer for instance has a huge page full of quotes contrasting views of his corner of the social ring with those of the “other side”. For those biologists who have become skeptical about evolution, maybe they need a refresher course on research and theory from the folks of Project Steve. Being good scietists I am sure they will learn from the evidence.
Comment #1992
Posted by shiva on May 10, 2004 06:30 AM (e) (s)
<<The 300+ scientists who are “skeptical” of evolution include some rate scientists>> Sorry that should read <<….include some first rate scientists>>
Comment #1994
Posted by Frank Schmidt on May 10, 2004 07:01 AM (e) (s)
Brian Leiter http://webapp.utexas.edu/blogs/bleiter/… had a link Friday to Chris Mooney’s examination of an aspect of the phenomenon ww.americanprogress.org/site/pp.asp?c=biJRJ8OVF&b=67755. Briefly, the national news media know that the decibel level goes way down when they are “fair” which means publicizing any dissenting opinion, no matter how self-serving or contrary to the evidence.
Comment #2003
Posted by KeithB on May 10, 2004 09:59 AM (e) (s)
Hate to be pedantic here, especially about quantum mechanics, but do electrons even *have* a “size”? Isn’t this question based on “billiard ball” atomic theory?
Doesn’t that “size” change with energy level?
If so, there may be some electrons larger than say, a hydrogen atom.
Comment #2007
Posted by Jon Fleming on May 10, 2004 11:46 AM (e) (s)
The 300+ scientists who are ?skeptical? of evolution include some rate scientists from many fields including life sciences.
Actually the scientists are “skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life”, a statement with which many posters to this blog would agree, since the modern synthesis includes other mechanisms that contribute to accounting for the complexity of life. (I doubt that those posters would sign the statement because of it’s obvious propaganda purpose).
That skepticism is a very different thing from being “skeptical of evolution”. It is certain that some of the signers are not at all skeptical of evolution; see Doubting Darwinism through Creative License.
Nonetheless, it’s all just a game; reality is not decided by majority vote.
Comment #2021
Posted by steve on May 10, 2004 03:07 PM (e) (s)
Free online textbooks look like a really good thing for a number of reasons. I spent $500 this semester on old things which don’t much change (stat mech, fundamentals of economics, etc) But it does make it easier for backwards districts influenced by ID people to cut controvertial things. Click click, “Are you sure you want to send Darwin to the recycle bin?” Perhaps free common bio textbooks could be licensed such that they can’t be edited without permission?
Comment #2025
Posted by Steve on May 10, 2004 03:54 PM (e) (s)
CBS news just did a story on congress investigating degree mills. I wonder if it’ll become illegal nationally? Will we be able to sue Hovind to make him stop calling himself Dr.?
Comment #2026
Posted by steve on May 10, 2004 03:56 PM (e) (s)
Maybe we could get lucky, and draw one of those judges who likes giving creative shame-based sentences, and the sentence is that Hovind has to identify himself for six months as “I’m Kent Hovind, I used a fake degree to make people think I am educated”
Comment #2030
Posted by FRB on May 10, 2004 07:17 PM (e) (s)
The IDEA Club’s page on Project Steve (http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/steve.htm…) is really an indictment of how sloppy and dumb these ID folks can be when they are preaching to the converted.
For starters, it’s totally schizophrenic about its purpose:
All that matters is the evidence. And if you agree with us that evidence is all that matters, save yourself some time and don’t look at these lists
but only to the extent that it’s comprehensible …
(The main reason for questioning “evolution” (meaning evolution (dramatic change through the history of life) driven by Darwin’s naturalistic mechanism as the drivinfg force) actually get’s to the mechanism often sited as being one of the main driving forces of life’s diversity from an evolutionary perspective: random genetic mutation giving rise to various characteristics upon which natural selection acts.
All parentheses, apostrophes and spelling as in the original. Pathetic and disheartening. I assume that the site authors, Casey Luskin () and Reid Hankins (), are adults but I’m afraid to do look further for fear that I’ll discover they are teachers somewhere.
Comment #2031
Posted by Steve Reuland on May 10, 2004 07:41 PM (e) (s)
Hate to be pedantic here, especially about quantum mechanics, but do electrons even *have* a “size”? Isn’t this question based on “billiard ball” atomic theory?
Electrons have a mass. And their mass is much smaller than that of a proton or a neutron. As long as the question used the word “mass”, then there is no ambiguity.
Either way though, I think it’s safe to assume that those who got the question wrong did not do so because they were thinking in terms of quantum theory. ;)
Comment #2032
Posted by steve on May 10, 2004 08:45 PM (e) (s)
about IDEA’s page about just paying attention to the evidence, like I’ve said before, where do they get off thinking their evaluation of the evidence is worth anything at all? What would particle physicists say if a religious club got together, studied the evidence, and said that Quantum Field Theory is bad science? They’d say, sorry you don’t understand it, but that’s not our problem.
Comment #2033
Posted by steve on May 10, 2004 08:51 PM (e) (s)
Then their members would spend years arguing on Talk Particles, complaining of being suppressed in journals, asking for direct experimental proof that every particle in the universe obeys general relativity, claiming that “Nobody’s ever witnessed an axial vector current…” etc.
Comment #2035
Posted by KeithB on May 11, 2004 09:06 AM (e) (s)
As quoted above it said “size” rather than “mass.”
Comment #2036
Posted by Matt Young on May 11, 2004 10:07 AM (e) (s)
Regarding the comment by KeithB:
Size is an imprecise word; it is better to talk of the diameter. But never mind.
The diameter of, say, a hydrogen atom is the diameter of the wavefunction of the bound electron. The electron, however, is not the wave function, and the wave function is not the electron. The wave function tells you the probability of finding the electron at any point. The electron itself is presumably a small particle whose radius is roughly equal to the classical radius. Its diameter is therefore less than the diameter of the hydrogen atom.
Electrons are smaller than atoms.
Comment #2037
Posted by Mark Perakh on May 11, 2004 01:05 PM (e) (s)
Perhaps a little too far afield, so it may be ignored. The mass of an electron which is about 9.1*10^-31 kg is in fact the mass of a free electron. This damned guy we call electron can make a phisicist go crazy. As soon as an electron is in an electromagnetic field (as, for example, when it is in a crystalline lattice) it behaves in such a way as if its effective mass is rather different from the mass of a free electron. While I see nothing bad in asserting that an electron is smaller than an atom, the very concept of an electron’s size (or diameter - which implies a sperical shape) is quite ambiguous. Atoms, on the other hand, indeed have definite sizes (but not diameters because they more often tnan not are not spherical) - using the scanning tunneling microscope, many atoms have been “seen” and they indeed have a definite shape and size. I don’t believe, though, an electron can be ever “seen.” To see it photons have to be reflected from an electron, but if a photon encounters an electron, often the electron simply jumps to a higher energy level, absorbing the photon (like when an electron is in an atom), or Compton effect takes place wherein both the photon’s and the electron’s energies change, so it is a very tricky thing to devise a method for “seeing” an electron. Size can be in principle determined through scattering experiments (as Rutherford did with atomic nuclei) but I can’t imagine how it can be done with electrons. Of course, predicting what science will come up with in the future is impossible, but I guess to ever be able to define what an electron’s size is may be impossible in principle. Still, since atoms contain a nucleus plus sometimes scores of electrons, the answer to the question at hand can legitimately be given that electron indeed may be said to be smaller than an atom.
Comment #2041
Posted by Jack Shea on May 11, 2004 04:34 PM (e) (s)
Jon:
What are you referring to when you write: “…the modern synthesis includes other mechanisms (than random mutation and natural selection) that contribute to accounting for the complexity of life.” ? Does this “modern synthesis” include any ideas borrowed from ID?
Comment #2042
Posted by Jon Fleming on May 11, 2004 05:03 PM (e) (s)
What are you referring to when you write: ??the modern synthesis includes other mechanisms (than random mutation and natural selection) that contribute to accounting for the complexity of life.? ?
Things such as neutral drift or horizontal gene transfer. That’s not an exhaustive list, it’s not my area of expertise.
Does this “modern synthesis” include any ideas borrowed from ID?
No. You were kidding, right?
The modern synthesis predates ID by several decades, and ID has made no contributions whatsoever to science.
Comment #2043
Posted by KeithB on May 11, 2004 05:14 PM (e) (s)
“Modern Synthesis” was when evolution was given *solid* mathematical footing when it was wedded to genetics. Now they are both essentially the same field of study.
Comment #2052
Posted by shiva on May 12, 2004 06:35 AM (e) (s)
The creationist “science” movement isn’t targeting “Darwinism” alone. There is a thriving “Commonsense Science Movement” as well. Bob Lattimer one of the protagonists of creationist/ID/”science” in Ohio is close to the “creationist cosmology” folks as well and appears to believe in YEC. There was a big “creationist cosmology” confrence in Columbus, Ohio immediately following the Kavli-CERCA cosmology conference at the Case Physics Dept., Cleveland, in October 2003. While the Kavli-CERCA conference is available on streaming video for free, the “creationist cosmology” conference is available only on DVD for sale. Make what you will out of that. Dembski and the other “scientific” luminaries of the ID movement haven’t made known their views on this branch of pseudoscience. Maybe if there is heat to be raised and a similar chorus of “growing scientific evidence against Einsteinism/Bohrism/Heisenbergism” can be trusted to deliver foot-soldiers for assorted causes the folks at ID/DI might just jump on. That will be fun to watch.
http://www.creationists.org/Downloads/CCC2003%20Daily%20Sche…
http://www.youngearth.org/current_speaker.htm…
http://www.worldbydesign.org/cosmology2003/review.html…
http://www.commonsensescience.org/index.htm?info.htm~mainAlt… conservatives have no monopoly on pseudoscience many among them tend to make common cause with the ID/DI folks. There is no shortage of conservative columnists who overestimate their scientific talents. Like this one here
http://www.nationalreview.com/kopel/kopel040402.asp…
Comment #2056
Posted by Heather on May 12, 2004 08:22 AM (e) (s)
A quick reading of the list at http://www-acs.ucsd.edu/~idea/scidoubtevol.htm… showed me 37 names (a majority are biological/chemical educators) of scientists who were included on the list because they agreed with the following statement: “a critical re-evaluation of Darwinism is both necessary and possible.” Ummm, yes… Any true scientist evaluates, re-evaluates, and begins again. Any reasonable theory (and of course I list evolution among them) MUST stand up to re-evaluation. Can this even be counted as proof that these scientists are skeptical of Darwinism?
Comment #2057
Posted by Jack Shea on May 12, 2004 09:33 AM (e) (s)
Jon:
No, I wasn’t kidding. I was wondering if the obvious truth that information input is required for living systems to emerge and evolve was on the verge of being recognized by the hard-pressed majority of professional neodarwinian evolutionists. I now realize that the “modern synthesis” is decades old and remains the science of calculating the distribution of pre-existent genetic information and answers no “first cause” questions.
Thanks for the links you supplied. They have shown me that things are still the same, and that only the terms have changed to accommodate new levels of detail.
Neutral Drift: According to this hypothesis, most of the changes in DNA inside individuals are the result of “genetic drift” — random changes that go on all the time and aren’t steered by natural selection in one direction or another.
Horizontal gene transfer: “…the ability of Bacteria and Archaea to adapt to new environments most often results from the acquistion of new genes through horizontal transfer rather than by the alteration of gene functions through numerous point mutations
So, I see the “modern synthesists” have still not tackled the problem of where or how complex, ordered genetic information is derived but still fascinate themselves with shuffling the pre-existent deck. All reference to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics notwithstanding.
“ID has made no contributions to science”? Come on. At the very least ID has articulated some of the immense problems facing a strictly neodarwinian explanation for the origins of life and macroevolution.
Jack
Comment #2059
Posted by Batman on May 12, 2004 09:42 AM (e) (s)
Jack, you claim that,
ID has articulated some of the immense problems facing a strictly neodarwinian explanation for the origins of life and macroevolution.
This statement is false. “ID” has not “articulated” any “problems” with darwinism as an explanation for the origins of life and macroevolution. ID has contributed nothing to scientists understanding of evolution, although it has contributed to scientists understanding of how public policy decisions are made in this overwhelmingly Christian country.
To the extent it is comprehensible and not merely a contradictory mass of lies, “ID” stands only for the bogus proposition that because scientists weren’t around to video tape the evolution of every species that ever lived, scientists don’t have the “right” to keep creationists and their wacko ideas out of public schools.
Comment #2068
Posted by Steve Reuland on May 12, 2004 11:07 AM (e) (s)
So, I see the “modern synthesists” have still not tackled the problem of where or how complex, ordered genetic information is derived but still fascinate themselves with shuffling the pre-existent deck. All reference to the 2nd Law of Thermodynamics notwithstanding.
Jack, I suggest you try reading some (any) of the actual literature concerning the evolution of new information, new functional proteins, etc. A good place to start is with some of the references posted here. Your claim that the “problem” hasn’t been tackled is based on ignorance. It is not considered a problem at all.
“ID has made no contributions to science”? Come on. At the very least ID has articulated some of the immense problems facing a strictly neodarwinian explanation for the origins of life and macroevolution.
That’s not a contribution to science. Anyone can come up with laundry lists of problems — contributing to science means trying to solve them.
At any rate, the problems for Darwinian evolution that ID advocates come up with generally fall into two categories: Those that did not originate with ID advocates, and have in fact been addressed by scientists for a long time, and those that are simply bogus, and have been recognized as such by scientists for a long time.
Comment #2083
Posted by Jack Shea on May 12, 2004 02:34 PM (e) (s)
Ask any chemist if RNA and proteins could have come about simultaneously by accident. Or simplify the problem and just ask if chlorophyll -which took a Nobel laureate to figure out- could synthesize itself. It cannot happen. Without information the process cannot drive itself. Energy and atoms alone are insufficient. Information, ie Design, is the required third ingredient and is visible in the world around us. Neodarwinism proposes that information arises from undirected chaos which is of course absurd.
Neodarwinism is just spontaneous generation shifted from maggots in meat and applied to molecules in ooze. Neodarwinism states that the molecules responsible for the generation and transmission of Life emerge spontaneously, randomly, from no information source, with no direction. Maggots from nothing, life-molecules from nothing, it’s the same thing. And just as absurd today as it was in the 19th century. The coding of genetic molecules is the source of Life and it did not, could not have come about by accident. We may search for the origins of the code but that the code is there is beyond dispute.
ID has articulated problems with neodarwinism. It has raised valid probability arguments, it has indicated the necessity of information as a parallel force with energy and molecules driving the origins and maintenance of living systems. ID has been brave enough to look at the complexity of the system under study and declare that accident is not the answer. Of course the system is intelligent. Look at the intelligence it takes just to unravel, let alone create it.
Jack
Comment #2086
Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on May 12, 2004 02:56 PM (e) (s)
Ask any chemist if RNA and proteins could have come about simultaneously by accident. Or simplify the problem and just ask if chlorophyll -which took a Nobel laureate to figure out- could synthesize itself.
Ask any evolutionary biologist if either of those things are stated by “neodarwinism.” The answer will be “no.”
It cannot happen. Without information the process cannot drive itself. Energy and atoms alone are insufficient. Information, ie Design, is the required third ingredient and is visible in the world around us. Neodarwinism proposes that information arises from undirected chaos which is of course absurd.
What is absurd are people who fell fit to critize stuff like “neodarwinism” without knowing what they actually are. Neodarwinism does not propose that information arrises from undirected chaos. (I challenge you to find a single reference that says otherwise.) What evolutionary biology does propose with good evidence is that the deterministic force of selection produces complexities and “information” in biology. Selection is a design mechanism; one that is blind, but one after all. This is what “design” advocates invariably fail to grasp. “Design” does not need a sentient, intelligent, or loving designer.
Comment #2089
Posted by Batman on May 12, 2004 03:23 PM (e) (s)
Neodarwinism is just spontaneous generation shifted from maggots in meat and applied to molecules in ooze.
Jack, as I recall the events which people once ascribed to “spontaneous generation” were imagined to have taken place over the period of days or weeks. Neodarwinism has the luxury of hundreds of millions of years. That’s a long time. Maybe longer than you can imagine which is why you throw up your hands and assume the prostrate position.
Maggots from nothing, life-molecules from nothing, it’s the same thing.
Not at all. Scientists have proven that maggots come from flies and that complex organic molecules can form under a variety of conditions from simple and common precursors.
“The coding of genetic molecules is the source of Life and it did not, could not have come about by accident.”
And you know this because ….?
“We may search for the origins of the code …”
Thanks for your permission.
ID has articulated problems with neodarwinism.
ID has “articulated” that because biologists haven’t videotaped the evolution of every creature that ever walked on earth, that biologists are suckers. Needless to say, biologists have so much evidence to the contrary that they have written ID theorists off as a bunch of goofballs, albeit goofballs with an annoying political and religious agenda.
It has raised valid probability arguments,
Huh? None of have ever published. What arguments are you referring to?
it has indicated the necessity of information as a parallel force with energy and molecules driving the origins and maintenance of living systems.
Please elaborate! This sounds fascinating.
Of course the system is intelligent. Look at the intelligence it takes just to unravel, let alone create it.
What’s intelligent about a sightless eyeball, Jack? Seems downright stupid to me. If your God did design all the critters, he must have been smokin’ crack when he did it. And why the obsession with bacteria????
Comment #2092
Posted by Steve Reuland on May 12, 2004 03:53 PM (e) (s)
I’m not sure why I feel compelled to respond to litanies of non-sequiturs, but here goes:
Ask any chemist if RNA and proteins could have come about simultaneously by accident. Or simplify the problem and just ask if chlorophyll -which took a Nobel laureate to figure out- could synthesize itself. It cannot happen. Without information the process cannot drive itself. Energy and atoms alone are insufficient.
Perhaps you are unaware, but unfathomable amounts of RNA are being synthesized every microsecond here on Earth. As as far as anyone can tell, it doesn’t require anything other than energy and atoms.
Your decision to add some mystic sense of “information” into the mix is not really pertinent unless you actual define what you mean by the term and explain specifically how it relates to biology. Information theorists do in fact define what they mean by information, and have shown how it applies to biology. But given their definitions, new information can evolve. Theoretical studies show how it evolves, and laboratory studies have shown it evolving right in front of our eyes. So I’m afraid you don’t have an argument of any kind unless you know something that information theorists and biologists don’t. And I somewhat doubt that.
Information, ie Design, is the required third ingredient and is visible in the world around us. Neodarwinism proposes that information arises from undirected chaos which is of course absurd.
The first statement is bizarre. How can “information” be visible? What color is it?
The second statement is a gross mischaracterization, which demonstrates a wilfull misunderstanding of neodarwinism.
Neodarwinism is just spontaneous generation shifted from maggots in meat and applied to molecules in ooze.
Acutally, that’s a much better description of ID, which as far as anyone can tell, implies that things just “poof” out of nowhere when a divine something-or-other wills it thus. Neodarwinism actually proposes a specific mechanism, which can be applied to the history of living things to unravel detailed causal pathways.
Neodarwinism states that the molecules responsible for the generation and transmission of Life emerge spontaneously, randomly, from no information source, with no direction.
No, it doesn’t say that at all. It says that those molecules come from other molecules, and that information comes from other information, which then changes over time. Or do you believe that scientists have been proposing all these years that you, as a human, arose spontaneously, randomly, blah blah blah?
ID has articulated problems with neodarwinism. It has raised valid probability arguments, it has indicated the necessity of information as a parallel force with energy and molecules driving the origins and maintenance of living systems.
It would be helpful if you would articulate some of the problems with neodarwinism, because you certainly haven’t done so here. What you have articulated (and not very articulately) is the fact that you don’t understand the first thing about neodarwinian theory. You see, the first step to articulating a criticism of a theory is to know something about that theory.
And by the way, ID most certainly has not raised any valid probability arguments. All such arguments (at last count, there was one) explicitly ignore neodarwinism in favor of some bogus strawman of totally random combination. But I guess that shouldn’t bother you, since you do the same thing.
Comment #2095
Posted by Jon Fleming on May 12, 2004 04:26 PM (e) (s)
Ask any chemist if RNA and proteins could have come about simultaneously by accident.
Ask any biologist if RNA and proteins must have come about simultaneously by accident to achieve abiogenesis.
Comment #2122
Posted by Jack Shea on May 12, 2004 10:57 PM (e) (s)
Reed: I know what neodarwinism is: “random mutation” plus “natural selection”. You are the one who doesn’t understand neoD. “Selection” does not, cannot produce information in a system. It just culls what is there. “Selection” is death, no more, no less. Where is the “evidence” you speak of? Just because the information and the complexity are there doesn’t immediately connote neoD as an “explanation”. ID and the laws of physics recognize that the complexity of the information precludes it from arising by spontaneous means.
Batman: You can take as much time as you like. The 2nd Law says it won’t happen.
Can RNA or clorophyll assemble themselves from “…simple and common precursors…”? No.
“ID has “articulated” that because biologists haven’t videotaped the evolution of every creature that ever walked on earth, that biologists are suckers.” ID says no such thing. It just says “look at the laws of physics and chemistry…today”.
“Needless to say, biologists have so much evidence to the contrary that they have written ID theorists off as a bunch of goofballs, albeit goofballs with an annoying political and religious agenda.” –The “evidence” which biologists conveniently ignore is that the 2nd Law prohibits the formation of the complex molecules required for life without the addition of information. Without the “information” provided by organic chemists to the “dumb stuff” of their chemical precursors nothing would happen. There are something like 50 complex steps required to derive chlorophyll, a relatively simple molecule. RNA and proteins are another matter entirely. RNA will only form from instructions. The only question then is not “if” RNA was originally coded with “intent” but “how”.
Steve: “Perhaps you are unaware, but unfathomable amounts of RNA are being synthesized every microsecond here on Earth. As as far as anyone can tell, it doesn’t require anything other than energy and atoms.” – Please! RNA is information incarnate. It is synthesized every day not by its own accord but by the information stored within DNA. Once a system is set rolling, it rolls. The question is how it starts rolling in the first place. You’re just begging the question.
“Acutally, that’s a much better description of ID, which as far as anyone can tell, implies that things just “poof” out of nowhere when a divine something-or-other wills it thus. Neodarwinism actually proposes a specific mechanism, which can be applied to the history of living things to unravel detailed causal pathways. “–Have you guys read any ID? Or is it too scary? NeoD proposes a specific mechanism which is demonstrably incorrect, actually unscientific. It violates the laws of physics, probability, common sense, the observed world and its laws.
“No, it doesn’t say that at all. It says that those molecules come from other molecules, and that information comes from other information, which then changes over time.” –Pre-existent information can be shuffled around. But new information driving complex systems does not come about accidentally. It can’t.
“Or do you believe that scientists have been proposing all these years that you, as a human, arose spontaneously, randomly” – That is what scientists have been proposing. “I” am a process of random mutation, the culmination of millions of years of accidental gene shuffling. “I” am still here because natural selection has not killed me.
“you don’t understand the first thing about neodarwinian theory.” What’s there to know? The principles are astoundingly simple. They just don’t fit the facts.
“ID most certainly has not raised any valid probability arguments.” You don’t have to go just to ID to get these. There are dozens of estimates of the probability of the random formation of RNA from the ooze and they arrive at effectively zero probability.
Jon: “Ask any biologist if RNA and proteins must have come about simultaneously by accident to achieve abiogenesis.” Ask them if they’ve ever seen it happen in a lab. It doesn’t. Unless information, ie labwork, is applied to the process.
Why does it take so much human intelligence to unravel the complexities of a system which has supposed to come into existence through no intelligence whatsoever?
Jack
Comment #2125
Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on May 12, 2004 11:37 PM (e) (s)
Reed: I know what neodarwinism is: “random mutation” plus “natural selection”. You are the one who doesn’t understand neoD.
As an evolutionary biologist who studies selection, I can assure you that I am not the one with the misunderstanding.
“Selection” does not, cannot produce information in a system. It just culls what is there. “Selection” is death, no more, no less.
False, selection is differential reproduction of heritable traits, no more, no less. No death needs to be involved. It is easy to think about it only in terms of survival, but such is an inaccurate picture.
Mutations are noise, potential. Selection filters this noise and produces information.
Where is the “evidence” you speak of?
You can start by reading an introductory textbook in evolutionary biology.
ID and the laws of physics recognize that the complexity of the information precludes it from arising by spontaneous means.
Unfortunately for your argument, evolutionary biology does not state that complexity arrises spontaneously. In fact, Darwin’s entire point was how a gradual, iterative process can produce complexities through only slight modificaitons.
Nature non facit saltum.
Comment #2130
Posted by MakeMineRed on May 13, 2004 06:38 AM (e) (s)
Jack -
The only scientific rule you rely on to dismiss neodarwinism, based on your statments here, is the 2d Law of Thermodynamics. Your interpretation of that rule is incorrect. You are correct in inferring that information requires energy; however, you fail to realize that this energy is released by natural processes at all times.
MakeMineRed
Comment #2133
Posted by Jack Shea on May 13, 2004 07:26 AM (e) (s)
Reed:
Are you making up your own neodarwinist definition? What additional terms of definition do you have that the rest of the world is missing?
“Selection” is death, whether you want to call it that or not, either through relative nonfunctionality, elimination by the herd, reproductive failure. Weaker traits/organisms “die” in favor of stronger. “Death” is the only weapon in natural selection’s arsenal.
As an evolutionary biologist studying selection you should know better than to try to pass off an old dog with a new name. “Natural selection” as “Differential reproduction” is a linguistic con. It’s like “fighting war for peace”. Read some George Orwell to learn how neologisms mask, not reveal truth. It is the last refuge of the scoundrel. Selection does not engage in reproduction in any way. It is a process of elimination, not a process of reproduction. Organisms not selected against may continue to reproduce. But “selection” has no active role to play in this reproduction. All the reproducing originates genetically. Or are you proposing some form of Lamarckism?
Mutations are, indeed, noise. Which is why living organisms are designed to mitigate against their irruption. As an evolutionary biologist you must be aware of the heroic adherence to original form which fruit flies have maintained over billions, perhaps trillions, of generations of deliberate mutation. Somehow these little heroes always remained fruit flies. Not a bluebottle or gnat emerged from the onslaught. In a neodarwinist world, where there is no inherent design in Nature, selection would have nothing but noise to work with. And it would be a freakish world indeed. In the world we see, however, natural selection has a wonderfully variegated array of more or less perfectly formed creatures to carve with its knife. Not a bizarre series of “hit or miss” aberrations formed in a blind cave but beautifully designed examples of the genius of Nature at work.
Are you referring to the “gradual, iterative process” of the Cambrian Explosion? Or do you allow that punctuated equilibrium, saltation, quantum speciation, hopeful monsters (take your pick, they all mean more or less the same, viz that the “gradual iterations” idea is dead in the water) might be the answer? As with much in the neodarwinian “just so” fantasy world, punk eek etcetera are merely linguistic cons. They are wild guesses, stabs in the dark. They purport to “explain” by the simple process of giving a new name to an old idea. The “old idea” being that Life literally explodes into existence, fully formed, perfect. Creationism anyone? Scientifically, these purported explanations are facile and empty. There is no “science” other than “we observe that this is the case –organisms emerge fully formed into existence with no obvious immediate significant precedents”. There is no explanation of the physics and chemistry of the genetic processes involved, which is where neodarwinist evolutionary theory will make its final stand. And it will be final. Our detailed understanding of the staggering informational complexity of living organisms has brought evolutionary biology face to face with the laws of physics, chemistry and the principles of mathematics. Neodarwinism is already dead and it is only neodarwinists who haven’t woken up to the fact.
Human intelligence is a subset of the Intelligence expressed in the natural world. Scientific intelligence is entirely derivative of the thing which it studies –the natural world. Is it possible to call any scientific discovery or theory “intelligent” when it is in toto merely a partial, fragmented, frequently incorrect representation of a natural system which the secondary, derived human scientific intelligence has labelled “unintelligent”? Food for thought.
Comment #2134
Posted by Jack Shea on May 13, 2004 08:11 AM (e) (s)
MakeMineRed:
I realize that “energy is released by natural processes all the time”. I realize that in accordance with these energies a certain degree of self-assembled complexity can and does take place at molecular levels. “Life”, however, represents a different order of energy management from simple chemistry. The complexity of living systems is many orders of magnitude greater than the complexity of inorganic systems. Within the boundaries of non-living chemical self-assembly there are definite limits to what can and cannot be achieved. Self-synthesis of RNA, chlorophyll, etc, is outside those boundaries. That is a fact, one which only the most insanely religious neodarwinists will attempt to deny (though deny they will!). Taking this as fact, any theory purporting to explain the origins of life (which will of necessity then have a bearing on the subsequent evolution of life) must recognize that an additional and unique form of energy is required to drive RNA synthesis, etc. “Information” is this higher-order energy. Where this Information comes from is ultimately unanswerable and is not my point. My point is that without the addition of “Information” inorganic molecules are incapable of self-assembling into even the “simple” molecular systems which characterize all living organisms -which are of course far from simple. I invoke the 2nd Law only because Life is such a magnificent albeit temporary and illusory thermodynamic lawbreaker that it suggests that some form of energy-organization (Information) must be present in order for things to get moving in the first place. Nothing in the energy structures of inorganic molecules possesses this organizational capacity.
Jack
Comment #2137
Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on May 13, 2004 09:58 AM (e) (s)
“Selection” is death, whether you want to call it that or not, either through relative nonfunctionality, elimination by the herd, reproductive failure. Weaker traits/organisms “die” in favor of stronger. “Death” is the only weapon in natural seletion’s arsenal.
False. Try a diallelic fertility selection model with parameters w11=0.9 w12=1 w22=0.9.
As an evolutionary biologist studying selection you should know better than to try to pass off an old dog with a new name. “Natural selection” as “Differential reproduction” is a linguistic con. It’s like “fighting war for peace”.
What new name? Darwin, who first described the theory of evolution via selection, described it as differential reproduction. The point that you have missed is that selection is the result of differential reproduction, not of death. Death leads to differential reproduction, but it is not the only one.
As an evolutionary biologist you must be aware of the heroic adherence to original form which fruit flies have maintained over billions, perhaps trillions, of generations of deliberate mutation. Somehow these little heroes always remained fruit flies.
Yeah, so what? In the last few million years since humans, chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans have diverged from one another we all have remained great apes, primates, eutherians, mammals, amniotes, tetrapods, gnathostomes, vertebrates, chordates, deutrostomes, bilaterates, animals, eukaryotes, and biotes.
In the world we see, however, natural selection has a wonderfully variegated array of more or less perfectly formed creatures to carve with its knife. Not a bizarre series of “hit or miss” aberrations formed in a blind cave but beautifully designed examples of the genius of Nature at work.
I take it you’ve never been to a hospital pathology lab and seen the bizarre aberrations that get miscarried. For animals, selection is strongest during development. That is why you don’t see to many bizarre aberrations in nature; they perish before you have a chance to see them.
They purport to “explain” by the simple process of giving a new name to an old idea. The “old idea” being that Life literally explodes into existence, fully formed, perfect. Creationism anyone? Scientifically, these purported explanations are facile and empty. There is no “science” other than “we observe that this is the case -organisms emerge fully formed into existence with no obvious immediate significant precedents”.
Once again you are wrong. Punctuated equilibrium is not a theory about biological processes. It is an application of evolutionary theory to explain the pattern of the fossil record. See this post of mine for more detail.
There is no explanation of the physics and chemistry of the genetic processes involved, which is where neodarwinist evolutionary theory will make its final stand. And it will be final.
LOL Can’t you come up with something original? Creationists have been predicting the imminent demise of evolution for over a hundred years.
Comment #2143
Posted by Jon Fleming on May 13, 2004 04:58 PM (e) (s)
Jon: “Ask any biologist if RNA and proteins must have come about simultaneously by accident to achieve abiogenesis.” Ask them if they’ve ever seen it happen in a lab.
Irrelevant, and non-responsive. I was pointing out that you are attacking a strawman argument.
It doesn’t.
Yet.
Unless information, ie labwork, is applied to the process.
Ah, the old “intelligence was within ten miles therefore intelligence caused it”. You are predictably boring.
Why does it take so much human intelligence to unravel the complexities of a system which has supposed to come into existence through no intelligence whatsoever?
Why should it not? What reason do you have for that comment other than personal incredulity?
That’s what we call “assuming the conclusion”; you assume that non-intelligent processes cannot do things that intelligence cannot easily figure out, and from that assumption you derive a conclusion that is identical to your assumption. Most impressive.
Comment #2144
Posted by Pim van Meurs on May 13, 2004 06:10 PM (e) (s)
Jack: Where this Information comes from is ultimately unanswerable and is not my point.
Luckily enough science has real answers to these questions, although it may come as a shock to some creationists.
Check out the work by Schneider or Adami
Evolution of biological information
Adami: evolution and biocomplexity
Pay special attention to the papers on
Evolution of biological complexity
The Evolutionary Origin of Complex Adaptive Features
While ID seems to appeal to ignorance, real science seems to be doing all the hard work.
Comment #2147
Posted by Adam Marczyk on May 13, 2004 08:46 PM (e) (s)
For further examples of how information can arise through a process of random mutation and selection, see my article:
Genetic Algorithms and Evolutionary Computation
Also, for an example of information arising in randomly formed RNA sequences (something this creationist poster seems to think impossible), see this post on talk.origins by Howard Hershey. In a millimole (about a thimbleful) of random RNA sequences, RNA enzymes showing a range of biologically interesting activities consistently arise.
Does any of this explain definitively how life began? No, it does not (and to be thorough, it is worth noting again that the origin of life is a separate field of science from the theory of evolution, and neither stands or falls on the success of the other). However, what it does show is that scientists are still searching for the answers, and progress is constantly being made. Creationists, by contrast, are in a rush to declare that we will never understand certain things simply because we do not fully understand them at present. Just think of how many scientific advances would never have come about if this deplorable attitude had existed in the past!
Comment #2151
Posted by Heather on May 14, 2004 06:29 AM (e) (s)
Jack Shea wrote “There is no explanation of the physics and chemistry of the genetic processes involved” Jack, if you are truly interested in learning about the chemistry and physics involved in gene mutation, follow this link: http://www.talkorigins.org/pdf/molecular-genetics.pdf… to an article called Plagairized Errors and Molecular Genetics by E. E. Max. Pay particular attention to the diagrams and to the entire section labled “DNA Basics.” I relearned quite a bit that I had forgotten. Very interesting.
Comment #2152
Posted by MakeMineRed on May 14, 2004 08:55 AM (e) (s)
Jack:
<< “Life”, however, represents a different order of energy management from simple chemistry.
“Life” still uses simple chemistry; its management has evolved.
<<Within the boundaries of non-living chemical self-assembly there are definite limits to what can and cannot be achieved. Self-synthesis of RNA, chlorophyll, etc, is outside those boundaries. That is a fact, one which only the most insanely religious neodarwinists will attempt to deny (though deny they will!).
Sez you! Look, Adam had it right in his comment. And look at this story regarding RNA: http://www.carlzimmer.com/articles/2004/articles_2004_Before… .
<<Taking this as fact, any theory purporting to explain the origins of life (which will of necessity then have a bearing on the subsequent evolution of life) must recognize that an additional and unique form of energy is required to drive RNA synthesis, etc.
It’s not a fact.
<<“Information” is this higher-order energy. Where this Information comes from is ultimately unanswerable and is not my point.
Seems to me that this is your point. You are questioning the origin of life here, not evolution, as Adam pointed out above.
<<My point is that without the addition of “Information” inorganic molecules are incapable of self-assembling into even the “simple” molecular systems which characterize all living organisms -which are of course far from simple.
See Adam, above.
<<I invoke the 2nd Law only because Life is such a magnificent albeit temporary and illusory thermodynamic lawbreaker
Huh? Life doesn’t break the 2d Law. Entropy increases whenever life is created.
<<that it suggests that some form of energy-organization (Information) must be present in order for things to get moving in the first place. Nothing in the energy structures of inorganic molecules possesses this organizational capacity.
An RNA world is the prevalent hypothesis for what came before the DNA world, and scientists are working on the questions this proposes. Seems to me that your argument will become more constrained over time.
MakeMineRed
Comment #2197
Posted by Jack Shea on May 14, 2004 04:42 PM (e) (s)
Reed:
False. Try a diallelic fertility selection model with parameters w11=0.9 w12=1 w22=0.9.
Ouch! Blinded by science! Is the answer 42? No, it’s microevolution. No one denies the principles and mathematics of heredity, genetic drift, population genetics, etc.
…..Somehow these little heroes always remained fruit flies.
Yeah, so what? In the last few million years since humans, chimps, bonobos, gorillas, and orangutans have diverged from one another we all have remained great apes, primates, eutherians, …..
“Diverged” in theory. There is no evidence of any sort. Fruit flies and bacteria should have shown much greater tendency to speciate than they have. They show no such tendency despite many years of observation.
For animals, selection is strongest during development. That is why you don’t see to many bizarre aberrations in nature; they perish before you have a chance to see them.
And there are brilliantly intelligent procedures taking place inside living organisms to make sure that things run smoothly and aberrations are held at bay. Organisms are resistant to mutation. They know it wreaks havoc. This is a profoundly intelligent system.
See this post of mine for more detail.
…….And it will be final.
LOL Can’t you come up with something original? Creationists have been predicting the imminent demise of evolution for over a hundred years.
We’re patient. I take the Einsteinian perspective: “There are those who believe nothing is a miracle and those who believe everything is a miracle. I am of the latter persuasion”.
From you: “Evolutionary biology does not explain where the first self-replicating system came from, due to the simple fact that evolution cannot happen until after the first self-replicator comes into existence.”
Still begging the question. The first self-replicator is the first step of evolution. It represents a new chemical paradigm –biochemistry, with its unique laws and potentials. Experience and observation teach us that once major paradigms are established –the four forces for example- they do not vary. This seems to be an overriding law of Nature, which thrives on indulgent pattern held in place by rigorous order. The principle seems to be one which utilizes simple basic units to produce complex effects, simple unit equations blossoming into extravagantly ordered arrays of those units. With the emergence of self-replicators “simple” inorganic chemistry enters an entirely unique domain –Life- an organic world where the old laws remain inviolate while at the same time new laws with new potentialities come into existence.
The interface of these two legal systems, set and subset, is where neodarwinist evolutionary difficulties arise. The recognized laws of inorganic chemistry do not include the potential to generate energy-as-replicable-information on the scale of complexity required by even the simplest self-replicating molecule. There seems to be general agreement on this. Put another way, it is impossible for the first step on the road to evolution to have been taken accidentally. The specific type of energy required –complex, replicable information- is not present in chemical soups. Therefore chance cannot have had any significant role to play in the formation of the first self-replicating molecules.
Since it is axiomatic that once Nature has established the initial boundaries of any system it does not vary those boundaries, it is fair to assume that the initial foundational procedures for living systems –molecularly-bound, complex, transferable information arising from a source other than the inorganic molecules comprising the system- will inevitably be carried through all subsequent living systems. Thus, if chance had a minor role to play in the formation of the first self-replicators it will continue to have a minor role in all subsequent evolution. Once first principles are established it is Nature’s way to continue to enlist these principles for all subsequent developments within the limits of the system.
Life precedes and defines Death. Without Life, Death does not exist. Death cannot exist on its own. “Death” in fact can only be defined in terms of Life. When certain aspects of a living system cease to function an organism “dies”. When certain aspects of a dead system cease to function (lose their “deadness”) an organism does not “live”. A living organism is never described as “a not-dead organism” but a dead organism is frequently described as “non-living”. Death is, therefore, a secondary attribute of living systems. Death has no properties of its own whereas Life has abundant properties. Death is merely the absence of a quality; Life is the manifestation of a quality. Death comes from Life, Life does not come from Death.
Is it logical, then, that a secondary attribute of living systems would be given the primary role in shaping those living systems? Is it possible in Nature that the failure of Life, the cessation of Life, plays the role of the principal sculptor of the shape and continued existence of life on earth?
Comment #2198
Posted by Jack Shea on May 14, 2004 05:03 PM (e) (s)
……it has indicated the necessity of information as a parallel force with energy and molecules driving the origins and maintenance of living systems.
Please elaborate! This sounds fascinating.
I think the Sun has a big role to play. Light as a conveyor of information. The five elements which make up 98% of the Sun’s mass are the five elements at the root of all living systems. The importance of chlorophyll, the first photoreaction. Heliocentrism taken to the max. But the wonderful Persian poet Hafiz writes about “the Sun beyond the sun”.
………Of course the system is intelligent. Look at the intelligence it takes just to unravel, let alone create it.
What’s intelligent about a sightless eyeball, Jack? Seems downright stupid to me. If your God did design all the critters, he must have been smokin’ crack when he did it. And why the obsession with bacteria????
Sightless eyeball? I guess you mean the Blind Watchmaker. I don’t know. I mostly see eyeballs that see. For some reason the Universe wants to watch itself through our eyes. Who knows? Light plays a big role in any case. “Obsession with bacteria”… Umm…I don’t know.
Comment #2201
Posted by Leighton on May 14, 2004 05:11 PM (e) (s)
Jack, FYI, your posts would be a lot easier to parse if you used the quote tags.
Comment #2202
Posted by Sean on May 14, 2004 05:11 PM (e) (s)
“Diverged” in theory. There is no evidence of any sort.
Wrong. The analysis of DNA sequences of extant organisms is great evidence for divergence. Unfortunately, it’s not videographic evidence which is the only evidence you are likely to accept (please let us know if there is any other type of evidence that you would accept as a legitimate “sort” of evidence to support divergence).
Fruit flies and bacteria should have shown much greater tendency to speciate than they have.
This is an interesting statement. Can you back it up?
(1) How was the complete lack of any “tendency to speciate” in bacteria OR fruit flies shown? and, uh, which species of bacteria or fruit flies are your referring to when you make this statement?
(2) What “tendency to speciate” *should* fruit flies and bacteria have shown? i.e., at what rate should fruit flies speciate? at what rate should bacteria speciate? and, uh, do these rates apply to all species of bacteria and fruit flies, regardless of the environments in which they live?
(3) How did you determine the appropriate “tendency” in (3)?
Comment #2203
Posted by Jack Shea on May 14, 2004 05:22 PM (e) (s)
Jon:
Not personal incredulity, just a recognition of what actually comprises the mind. Scientific truths are measured against a pre-existent entity, the very entity which happens to be the role of science to understand. Science is the craft of discovery. Inventions follow of course but they are derived from principles which are accurate descriptions of the natural world. The natural world itself, therefore, is the superset of the subset human mind. Scientific thought approximates the reality. The scientific mind is composed of partial reflections derived from that reality. The “intelligence” then, is something which is already there, already exists as the natural world. The scientific mind is merely its reflection, not its creation. Without the natural world the scientific measure of that world could not take place. Whereas we know that the natural world has long predated human perception of it.
So where is the original intelligence?
Jack
Comment #2204
Posted by Batman on May 14, 2004 05:34 PM (e) (s)
Sightless eyeball? I guess you mean the Blind Watchmaker.
No, I mean where is the intelligence in putting eyeballs in species that can’t see with them? It’s like putting your toilet upside down above your bed. That’s not intelligent. It’s idiotic. It’s random.
To paraphrase Zappa, “If the sightless eyeball is dumb, then God is dumb and maybe even a little ugly on the side.”
“Obsession with bacteria”… Umm…I don’t know.
There are more species of bacteria by far than any other organisms on the planet. I assumed you realized that because you seemed to have some idea of the expected rates of speciation of bacteria. Perhaps I was wrong.
Comment #2205
Posted by Jack Shea on May 14, 2004 05:35 PM (e) (s)
Sean:
Fruit flies and bacteria should have shown much greater tendency to speciate than they have.
It seems that creatures like to hang onto their original form. As if there are limits in what the template will allow. There seems to be a barrier which mutation is not allowed to cross. Fruit flies stay fruit flies. Bacteria stay bacteria.
I have never come across any articles contradicting this but that doesn’t mean they don’t exist.
Jack
Comment #2207
Posted by Sean on May 14, 2004 05:45 PM (e) (s)
Jack you are avoiding the question.
You said
Fruit flies and bacteria SHOULD HAVE SHOWN much greater tendency to speciate than they have.
And I’m asking you how much speciation SHOULD they have shown and how did you determine this speciation rate? I’d like the expected rates for fruit flies and bacteria and I’d like to know what you base those calculated rates on.
creatures like to hang onto their original form.
Really. Are domestic dogs “creatures”?
Comment #2219
Posted by Reed A. Cartwright on May 14, 2004 09:49 PM (e) (s)
“Diverged” in theory. There is no evidence of any sort.
Fruit flies and bacteria should have shown much greater tendency to speciate than they have. They show no such tendency despite many years of observation.
Interesting claim. Care to back it up? How much tendency to speciate should fruit files and bacteria have shown?
And there are brilliantly intelligent procedures taking place inside living organisms to make sure that things run smoothly and aberrations are held at bay. Organisms are resistant to mutation. They know it wreaks havoc. This is a profoundly intelligent system.
Who is “they?”
The first self-replicator is the first step of evolution.
The formation of the first self-replicator is not the first step of evolution, for the logical fact that evolution cannot occur until after the first replicator does. It is like saying that the first part of Hamlet was the birth of Shakespeare.
The recognized laws of inorganic chemistry do not include the potential to generate energy-as-replicable-information on the scale of complexity required by even the simplest self-replicating molecule.
What scale of complexity is that? Please list the “recognized laws of inorganic chemistry” in toto and demonstrate how they are relevant to the origin of organic life.
Put another way, it is impossible for the first step on the road to evolution to have been taken accidentally. The specific type of energy required –complex, replicable information- is not present in chemical soups. Therefore chance cannot have had any significant role to play in the formation of the first self-replicating molecules.
So you are saying that “complex, replicable information” is a type of energy? I sure don’t remember that in my physics class. Got any scientific citation for the existence of the energy of “complex, replicable information?” Furthermore, got any reference that such energy is not present in “chemical soups.” And finally, got any reference that such vital energy is necessary for life?
Comment #2279
Posted by Dave on May 15, 2004 11:37 PM (e) (s)
I don’t know for certain, but I think that I read that the signatories in Project Steve can come from any branch of science (computational science was mentioned as a fringe group), so long as they are doing peer-reviewed active research. It may be that they are required to be doing something related to biology (please correct me if I am wrong).
Comment #2306
Posted by Jack Shea on May 16, 2004 07:23 PM (e) (s)
Sean:
And I’m asking you how much speciation SHOULD they have shown and how did you determine this speciation rate? I’d like the expected rates for fruit flies and bacteria and I’d like to know what you base those calculated rates on.
One would expect something if macroevolution is happening all the time. But there is nothing. There can be no “expected rate of speciation” because speciation has never been observed to take place. There are no ground rules or observed fluctuations in rates, there are no “rates” at all because there is no documentation of “speciation” as a process. There is absolutely nothing to go on. So to project a “speciation rate” could only be a wild guess. At the moment the projected speciation rate would have to be zero, since that is what all available experimental evidence has invariably shown to be the rate of speciation.
Really. Are domestic dogs “creatures”?
Yes, and a good example. Despite the intensive breeding over thousands of years of dogs, horses, cattle, cats, etc, there is not a single instance of any of these animals beginning to branch out into new species. The phenotypic variety of dogs is very extensive…but they are all dogs and can all interbreed. So when Darwin tells me that a bear can turn into a whale I look to Nature to see where this might be occurring in primary stage alterations within species. It doesn’t seem to be anywhere.
Comment #2309
Posted by Jack Shea on May 16, 2004 07:43 PM (e) (s)
Reed:
Really now? (with a link to a Talk.Origins article on hominid fossils)
Fossils do not reveal speciation as a process. They are hearsay information at best and subject to such wide ranges of interpretation that they are unreliable and discountable as scientific evidence of speciation as a process. If I dig up the graves of every dead dog on earth I can put together a very plausible scenario of obvious speciation from the skeletal evidence. But of course all I am doing is projecting geneological and “evolutionary” developments based on structural similarities. The eohippus and hominid purported evolutions, as indeed all fossil analyses, are not and can never be evidence for speciation or evolution. They reveal structural similarities between related organisms, no more, no less. The idea that fossil records could prove speciation is a lingering 19th century conceit, and is equivalent to suggesting that we in the 21st century will be able to fully understand the nature of light once we fully perfect prisms. The fossil record is a catalogue of shapes. Speciation is a reproductive, generational process. The means which we have to study if and how speciation occurs are not found in fossils. If there are means, they are better found in the innumerable studies of populations of small-scale organisms which reproduce in very short time frames and which can therefore be studied over very many generations. Drosophila and bacteria have been used for such studies. Speciation has never been seen to occur. Before you try to peg me with a request to list every such experimental study let me just say that if unarguable speciation had ever occurred within any Drosophila or bacterial study the event would have been trumpeted on the cover of every single science publication on earth and every doubter of the neodarwinist creed would have been beaten into submission with the findings. If this has happened I have missed it.
Who is “they?”
Do I have to parse sentences for you? “They” are organisms. “They” are holistic systems with a comprehensive genetic awareness of “their” correct form, “they” are biologically self-referential synchronized systems that are programmed to resist radical mutative alteration. The burden of proof is on neodarwinists to show that this is otherwise. So far the available evidence shows that mutation is inimical to organisms, not evolutionary.
The formation of the first self-replicator is not the first step of evolution, for the logical fact that evolution cannot occur until after the first replicator does. It is like saying that the first part of Hamlet was the birth of Shakespeare.
You are quite right. The first step of evolution predates the first self-replicator by whatever length of time it took to lay the groundwork for the first self-replicator to emerge. The intelligence shaping the Universe does not appear out of nowhere when life gets going. It is there from the very beginning, inherent in all creation. “Life” is but one of its innumerable manifestations. The intelligence present in atoms forms elements, the intelligence of elements forms molecules…you get the idea. Scientific intelligence is nothing but a relatively impoverished facsimile of the sheer genius of the universe itself. The word “genius” applied to the universe is, of course, an injustice. The capacity of the universe for endless reformation of its essential ideas seems to be
Comment #1960
Posted by Jeremy Stangroom on May 9, 2004 02:52 AM (e) (s)
“While I would not use the word “ignorant””
Why not?
That survey shows that some 30% of respondents think that the Sun goes around the earth!
And there was a survey here in the UK a while back which showed that about the same proportion of people didn’t know that hot air rises.
And during the GM debate over here it emerged that a large minority of people (I can’t remember the exact figure) thought that living things only had genes if they had been interfered with by genetic engineers! Which is quite funny, really… kind of.