Evolution

[bobclean]

Does anybody else find it a huge backward step in thinking and logic that in the US (Kansas), schools must now teach that evolution is just a theory, and that the universe is so complex there may be 'intelligent design' (ie a creator). <A target='_blank' href=&quot;http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/4419796.stm&am p;quot;>http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/441 9796.stm</A>

I naively thought that in the modern world of science and technology that myths were assigned to the dustbin of historyt. Apparently not. Superstition and hokum is obviously alive and kicking in the USA. What next? Maybe teach them the earth is flat?

[Clanad]

Contd.

Lastly, it is equally incumbent upon the creationist to determine their belief in 'young earth' vs. 'old earth' branches. Again, I would defend the latter, but have a difficult time with the former...

The decision by the Kansas school board expands the student's horizons of inquiry, rather than limits it. Is the Theory of Evolution so sacrasant that it cannot even be questioned?... I think not... that would be the first time in American history that an educational idea would have been granted Civil Rights, in my humble opinion...

[finex]

But Clanad, simply quoting Darwin entirely misses the point. The theory and science behind evolution has, for want of a better word, evolved.

Darwin postulated that changes came about very slowly and were passed on by successful changes leading to a breeding preference. Hence the phrase, "survival of the fittest".

In his time, Darwin had absolutely no concept of DNA, genetics and random cell mutations, yet we now know that these are fundamental to how traits are passed on to offspring.

Imagine what would happen if you could go back 300 years and demonstrate a Television, or a Walkie-talkie radio to people. They would assume that an evil spirit was hiding in the box and burn it. Yet today a TV is an absolutely mundane item to be found everywhere.

This is the situation that the ID proponents are in now. They cannot understand how something could have come to happen, so therefore it must have been the "designer" that did it. Yet history has shown us countless examples of "magic" and "spiritual events", that we have later come to understand through scientific discovery.

What is basically comes down to is this: Because we don't understand everything about life yet, is it more likely that:

a) We will gradually learn more through scientific study, and will come to understand things we currently have no explanation for, or

b) There is nothing to learn because a supernatural all powerful designer did it all by magic.

I know where I stand :-)

[Clanad]

In an addendum, finex' view that irreducible complexity neccesarily is "...the contention... etc." doesn't consider the facts in evidence. The observation that even the simplest of organisms, i.e., single celled protozoa, etc., are so extremely complex and that any attempt at reduction of that complexity destroys the cells ability to exist, much less function, is factual and flies in the face of Darwin's ability to explain their origins...

I find it sadly amusing, but equally confounding, that the argument about intelligent design never really discusses the ideas inherent in its view, only that, since it might allude to a Designer, and that fact alone, is enough to throw it out in the dust pan of derision...

[Clanad]

Apologies, if required, finex, but the facts are that the basic tenents of classic Darwinism are still the basic sum and substance of the evolutionists views. No one that I read, from the evolution corral, propose disregarding Darwin's original ideas. The fact that additional information from DNA is now available, should, at least in the classic sense, support Darwin, but is not in evidence.

There is not one uncontested example of speciation to be found anywhere. Darwin stated that there would be inumerable examples of transitional forms once the geologic column were more thoroughly examined. Not the case... as I stated previously, museums and laboratories world-wide are filled with fossils and still we are left bereft clear concise evidence of even one transitional form. Darwin contended that, by this time, some 150 years later, we would be inundated with such evidence. Understand, please, this is only one example of the weakness of the Theory under question by scientists of all persuaions today, not the knuckle dragging, fundamentalist creationists alone...

[mibn2cweus]

It appears to me that "Intelligent Design" is an idea of irreducible complexity!

[kempie]

Clanad - I find it sadly amusing, but equally confounding, that the Designer you have in mind is not Allah.

Perhaps Kansas school board can expand the students' horizons of inquiry by teaching about Islam and the belief that their God is the One God, the very same God that you believe in, but a belief which Christians choose to throw out in the dust pan of derision...

[Clanad]

Sadly, kempie, you haven't read the simple statement that the Kansas school board will insert in their textbooks...

TOPEKA, Kan., Nov. 8 (AP) Though the standards do not specifically require or prohibit discussion of intelligent design, they adopt much of the movement's language, mentioning gaps in the fossil record and a lack of evidence for the "primordial soup" as ideas that students should consider.

The other states that call for critical analysis of evolution - Minnesota, New Mexico, Ohio and Pennsylvania - do so only in broad strokes, in some cases as part of a standard scientific process. (Emphasis added).

Nor, obviously, have you examined my defense in this thread else you would find that no where in it have I referenced anything other than a Designer... whose identity isn't defined or suggested by the school board either...

[kempie]

Clanad - My statements, or rather my reworking of your previous phrases, was an indication that I am well aware that you have a preconceived notion of who/what the Designer is, a conclusion that is not self evident in the notion of Intelligent Design.

The Designer could be any deity (-ies) currently worshipped, no longer worshipped, aliens or any manner of "other being" but the only reason you are in defense of it is because you see it pointing to your God and in your philosophy no other explanation of Designer will fit.

I am able to embrace ID as a theory and grant it as much validity as Evolution because I do not have the blinkers of a religion dictating to me the identity of the Designer.

My second point expands on the notion that the biggest cause of religious intolerance (read ignorance) is religion itself.

[Clanad]

kempie, your willingness to embrace Intelligent Design as a possible alternative to evolution is admirable... and really all that the Kansas school board and at those boards of at least 4 other States is promulgating. The fact that some see this as leading to an obvious conclusion that you don't wish to pursue is a victory for personal choice, don't you agree? Many wish to put on blinders and limit any consideration of alternatives to evolution, in public schools, as blasphemous, which is, to me, a demonstration of fear that their preconceived notions might be threatened...

[mibn2cweus]

Than perhaps they should also teach �Stupid Design� as an alternative to �Intelligent Design�. Wouldn�t this be equally as likely, and would it not explain the current state of the world and humanity equally as well, if not better?

[Tim123]

Be very careful when you say evolution is 'just a theory'. A quick look at dictionary.com gives several definitions. the first is:

1. A set of statements or principles devised to explain a group of facts or phenomena, especially one that has been repeatedly tested or is widely accepted and can be used to make predictions about natural phenomena.

This is what a scientist means by a theory. Those who champion evolution are scientists, and this is what they mean. The 'just a theory' definition is at number 6:

6. An assumption based on limited information or knowledge; a conjecture.

These definitions are so different - in fact they are all but contradictory - that there really ought to be different words for the two concepts.

[jimmer]

Clanad

Your non-reference of the identity of a designer is the thin end of the wedge. As you probably are aware the intelligent design "bible", "Of Pandas and People", was originally called "Creative Biology". All mention of the word creationism has been removed from its text in an attempt to evade the secular radar. The FACT remains though that ID only passes scientific muster, i.e. adheres to scientific principles, in so far as astrology does ( Kitzmiller et al Vs Dover Area School District). If you believe this justifies it taking up valuable lesson time in science then more fool you, but i believe your people have a constitutional right to a secular education.

As far as speciation is concerned you seem to want scientists to uncover an unbroken chain of exactly interlocking specimens going back 3.7 billion years before you will give any credence to evolution. That is a ludite's perspective and i know you don't really think like that. Suggesting that we were placed here fully formed is an infinitely more speculative hypothesis for our origin and is not falsifiable. Evolution is a parsimonious explanation and is falsifiable at any time.

jim

[Clanad]

So, jimmer, parsimonious is as parsimonius does... so to speak. What part of the Theory of Evolution do you consider frugal? What part of classical Darwin do you determine to withstand falsifiability? Do you wish to disregard the evidence presented by the Cambrian Explosion, as an example? As I'm sure you know, Darwin and those adhering to the theory as originally provided by Charles, still maintain extremely long periods of time to produce speciation. Yet, researchers are only now coming to the conclusion that all of the species produced at the beginning of the Cambrian appeared fully formed and within a blink of an eye, so to speak... around 10 million to no more than 20 million years in duration (around 540 million years ago). In fact, the problems presented by this fact and others is the primary impetus in Steven J. Gould et al, proposing the now discredited theorem of Punctuated Equibilibrium in an effort to modify Darwin to fit the facts.

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

As to the appearance, fully formed, of species. You probably know that it is an established fact. Stasis is the rule, not the exception, as predicted by Darwin. There are far fewer Phyla extant today than there were at the beginning of the Cambrian. At that time around 50 Phyla are in evidence with fewer than 30 today!. More importantly, no new Phyla have emerged in the 540 million years since. So if the theory is working, it's going backwards, in my opinion.There's no attempt to inject Designer identity in any of these discussions. The facts simply don't support Darwin's propositions in total, nor even in majority, but we're not supposed to discuss that in school. That's what I and other's find difficult to accept. As you also know, design detection, is already employed in other scientific endeavors. The most notable are SETI, anthropolgy and forensic inquiries. But when the science of design detection is suggested for origins of life it suddenly becomes persona non grata because of the implications. I would propose that design detection be allowed and let the chips fall where they may...

[jimmer]

Clanad

A domestic cat fossilised from the cambrian period would do nicely. However, even if such evidence was uncovered it would not make ID any more plausible. How would the irreducible complexity of the designer hold up to scientific scrutiny?

Punctuated Equilibrium is controversial and has been picked apart in countless peer review journals. Has ID ever opened itself up to such scrutiny? My own view is that evidence through experimentation has rendered the idea of puctuated equilibrium highly suspect

The "Cambrian Explosion" where hard bodied creatures appear, in amongst other places, the Burgess Shale occurred around 570 mya allowing about another 30 million years for adaptive radiation.

Why do you presuppose new phyla should evolve? Does phyla hold some special significance to your thinking on evolution?

Design detection: I would contend that for ID to be scientific it would need to set out to prove design and not, as it does, to assume design due to complexity. Through this switch of logic ID assumes a position where its opponents must disprove that an unidentified "designer" made everything we observe through supernatural creation. that is not science.



jim

[Clanad]

Jimmer, a recent debate between Arthur La Grange Battson III and J. Richard Wakefield contained the following paragraph attributed to Battson:

The origin of a new phylum requires the origin of a new species so different that it cannot be classified in the same genus or family as its parent species; so radically different, in fact, that it cannot be classified in the same order, class or even phylum. The morphological differences between the phyla are profound, the body plans so radically different that we should expect: 1) clear evidence of transitional sequences if evolution occurs through the accumulation of microevolutionary events; and 2) immense time spans between the appearance of new phyla. The fossil evidence as was pointed out previously gives us neither. The argument put forth was that the incipient stages between major body plans would be poorly adapted and hence would be eliminated by natural selection. This would prevent the accumulation of minor changes that lead to the origin of a chain of species leading to a new phylum. For the sake of brevity it can be said that natural selection inhibits the evolution of new phyla while fully understanding that selection is acting against individuals poorly adapted to their environment.

Wakefield's response was equally revealing:

"Battson is correct in pointing out that over the past 500 million years no new phyla have arisen, and that we have even fewer phyla now". No new phyla is what we would expect. But why is that? Stephen Jay Gould answered that in a Nova program he did a few years ago.

Contd.

[Clanad]

Contd.

"If you look back 500 million years ago, early history of invertebrates, there was an enormous range of designs which we no longer see on the Earth. Designs which we don't even know how how to relate to any existing groups, because any pattern in the history of life it's not progressive advancement of complexity. It's rather the restriction of these enormously varied designs that existed early in the history of life to a few highly successful forms."

This is the whole point of the origin of new taxa, the restriction of a large group of varied populations to just a few which in turn give rise to more large groups of varied populations.
To which Battson responded: No new phyla is what an evolutionist would expect? Is evolution merely the subdivision of pre-existing designs into reproductively isolated subtypes and the extinction of "enormously varied designs"? Given the immensity of the Cambrian explosion, the short period of time in which nearly all phyla appeared, the lack of transitional forms among the higher taxa, the geological evidence for stasis, the pattern for the origin of the higher taxa, and particularly the tendency for natural selection to inhibit major evolutionary change, it is quite logical to conclude that all life did not originate from a common ancestor but has descended instead from a number of basic body plans. It is not the lack of an evolutionary mechanism as much as it is the existence of natural processes that inhibit major evolutionary change from occurring, and which account for the natural phenomenon of "macrostasis."
Try as I may, I can't come up with, on the spur of the moment, a better response to your posting....

More on irreducible complexity later... if you'd like...

By the way, thank you for the fully civil debate...

[mibn2cweus]

The Pat-a-Cake Conjecture by mibn2cweus.

Once there was a big bang and then subatomic particles coalesced into matter. This matter was chaotic but it coalesced into larger and larger bodies forming stars and galaxies. Stars cooked up more complex elements and exploded and chaos was again evident. These complex elements coalesced into planetary systems around stars and order was again evident.

This time the ingredients for life were available but were in chaos. And these ingredients formed into self-sustaining and self-regenerating systems and a new order was established. Initially these systems were in chaos and many new phyla were generated.

Natural selection took over and the disposition for generating new phylum was weeded out by the dominance of more stable species. Eventually human hominid appeared and chaos again was evident.

Eventually this chaos will also coalesce into a more stable form of rational beings who no longer have to create stories to come to an understanding of how they actually came to be in there stable form.

Not the end of story, just a new beginning!

[jimmer]

Hi Clanad, I hope you're well?
No problem, its good to have a decent discussion on evolution and it saves my girlfriend from getting bored.

I think we both agree that micro evolution based on environmental pressures and sexual selection is an observable phenomenon. where we disagree is on the ability of evolution to explain the diversity and complexity of nature as it is today.

I reckon that statis with relatively punctuated change is the view we get when looking at evolution on a grand scale, but when honing in to shorter time scales and individual species, evolution takes on gradualist properties.

For the first 2 billion years of its life the earth's atmosphere was less than 1 percent oxygen. Although this was lucky for many bacteria for which oxygen is a poison it also prevented the evolution of eukaryotic cells which need oxygen to run their systems. Oxygen is also needed to produce ozone which protects the earth and allow creatures to leave the sea. Originally, sulphides gobbled up the oxygen as it was released but eventually sulphides couldn't cope and levels of oxygen in the atmosphere rose to about 21 per cent. Most life was destroyed by the oxygen but some oxygen tolerant bacteria survived and combined with mitochondria to form the first eukaryotes.

Stasis is misleading because it refers to the macro environment over large time scales. Gradualism is simply a lack of stasis in a localised environment.



jim

[Clanad]

jimmer, G'day to you as well...

You say "I reckon that stasis with relatively punctuated change is the view... but when honing in to shorter time scales and individual species, evolution takes on a gradualist properties".

Firstly, that's at odds with Darwin's approach, don't you think? Darwin clearly preached that any change would be dependant on extremely long periods of time. His view of natural selection occurring under the pressure of random mutations could not produce changed individuals nor species sans eons. The problem is, within the first 10 million years or so of the benchmarked Cambrian Explosion, all of the species and Phyla appear in the fossil record completly formed. some exist today as modern examples. Yet millions of species and about 25% of the Phyla have disappeared and in the intervening 540 millions of years, no new species or Phyla have emerged. How can this be, given Charles' postulations? As I have stated, and believe you have concurred (I wouldn't put words in your mouth) "Punctuated Equilibrium" is highly suspect and in many quarters already discarded as helpful.

Finally, given that no one has observed either special Creation nor evolution (as an explanation for origins), is it not fair to consider the possibilities of each? Agreed going in, neither one can ever be proven to the satisfaction of the opposing camp, so why not (in line with the original question with which we are wrestling) allow consideration of both? I would say there's just as much "faith" involved in both...