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The Darwinian Revolution: Science Red in Tooth and Claw
Ruse is particularly good on the personalities of those involved. They were indeed a colourful bunch. They included William Whewell, Adam Sedgwick, Baden Powell (father of the founder of the Scout movement), John FW Herschel (son of the famous astronomer William Herschel), Charles Lyell, Richard Owen, and Charles Babbage, better known for his invention of the calculating engine, as well as Charles Darwin and Thomas Henry Huxley. Many of these, especially those belonging to the older generation, were clergymen; it was impossible to be a Fellow of a college at Oxford or Cambridge at the time unless one was in Holy Orders. This inevitably coloured their views on evolution, though not always in the way one might expect.
Popular accounts of the debate about evolutionary thought in the nineteenth century often convey the impression of a straightforward conflict between secularism and religion, in which scientific secularism emerged triumphant. As Ruse makes clear, this is a considerable over-simplification: the relation between religion and science was in fact very complex, and in some ways religion actually helped the cause of science. Other factors, philosophical and social, were also involved, and Ruse's claim is that all of these elements have to be given due weight if the development of evolutionism is to be understood.
That profound changes in intellectual attitudes occurred in the nineteenth century there can be no doubt. In 1844, when Robert Chambers published his "Vestiges of the Natural History of Creation", in which he argued the case for organic evolution, hardly any serious scientists accepted its main message, but when Charles Darwin published "The Origin" in 1859 his main claim was quickly accepted by almost all scientists concerned with the origin of organisms. In part, this was a consequence of the difference in the scientific standing of the two authors, but there were other reasons as well and it is these that Ruse seeks to elucidate.
First, there were scientific reasons to accept evolution. It made sense of the geographical distribution of species, such as finches and tortoises on the Galapagos Islands, which Darwin described and which was hard to explain on any other assumption. Also, by the 1860s more was known about the fossil record than had been known in 1844, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to doubt that progression had occurred during geological time. Darwin was therefore able to draw on a more ample arsenal of scientific facts; indeed, he had made significant contributions to that arsenal himself.
Of course, Darwin was not merely advocating evolution as a process, he put forward a mechanism by which it could occur. Chambers had not provided a plausible cause for evolution, but Darwin did, with his mechanism of natural selection. However, this idea had its problems: estimates of the age of the earth seemed not to allow enough time for evolution, and many people doubted if natural selection could be powerful enough to produce new species as opposed to mere variations. Even T.H.Huxley, "Darwin's bulldog", was relatively uninterested in natural selection and tended to downplay its importance. But field naturalists such as Henry Walter Bates found it invaluable as an explanation for insect mimicry and his work was cited by Darwin in later issues of "The Origin".
The second area of change was in philosophy. Many of the older scientists were idealists, Platonists, who favoured the view that species were immutable Types. Huxley, on the other hand, was not a Platonist and criticized his older colleagues on that ground. This change was both a cause and a consequence of other changes, in religious thought and in society at large, that were occurring at this time. Ruse points to innovations in the educational system leading to a reduced emphasis on the Classics and a weakening in the influence of religion. Not surprisingly in view of his professional background, Ruse pays considerable attention to the philosophical principles espoused by the main participants in the debate. There was a prevailing assumption, to which Darwin himself largely subscribed, that physics, and especially astronomy, provided the explanatory model to which other sciences ought to aspire.
The third class of change affected religion. Chambers had been attacked on religious grounds: he was held to have threatened the special position of man and to have left no room for God's design. Similar criticisms were made of Darwin but less strongly. However, religion, Ruse believes, also helped Darwinism. The argument from design prepared people's minds for evolutionism, while thinkers such as Baden Powell thought of God as working through unbroken natural laws rather than through miracles.
In the 1830s and 1840s religion was a thorny problem for many people. Partly this was a reaction to science; Ruse thinks that the attempt to reconcile science and revelation was a particularly British preoccupation (as perhaps it still is). And conventional religion was also under threat from another source: German Biblical criticism. As a result, some prominent clergymen, including Lyell, had moved a long way towards Deism (natural as opposed to revealed religion).
Lyell is a particularly interesting figure in the present context. His "Principles of Geology" accompanied Darwin on his voyage in the Beagle and had a major influence on his thought. As a Deist, he was unhappy about introducing miracles to explain the origin of species; unlike Whewell, who thought it was compatible with science. Ruse sums this up neatly by saying that Lyell wanted a world left alone by God, in which organisms struggle for survival under the threat of extinction, whereas Whewell wanted to see God hovering protectively over his creation.
Fourthly, there were social and political influences. In the 1830s there was a real fear that revolution might spread to Britain from abroad; by 1860 this was no longer the case. And in the second half of the century it was possible for a man to become a professional scientist without private means and without taking Holy Orders: a change that helped to weaken the influence of religion.
It is difficult to describe all these developments without falling into circularity, because each type of cause influenced, and was influenced by, the others, but in a way this is precisely Ruse's point. He insists that there were many different threads intertwining among themselves and that it is misleading to oversimplify the argument by concentrating on what appear to be the "real" issues. I think he makes a convincing case for this claim. He finds no need to alter his views in this reissue of the book, as he explains in the Afterword, though I was glad to see that he softens his earlier criticism of Huxley, whom I have always rather liked. I was even more glad to read that he strongly dissociates himself from "social constructivism" in the history of science. He states emphatically that "Charles Darwin was telling us real truths about a real world". There is no question of organic evolution being a human-created fiction.
Ruse is, however, rather despondent about the present position of evolution studies as an academic discipline. He is concerned that evolution is often seen to be "popular science" and is usually linked with ecology, instead of being accorded the importance it deserves. There is indeed a paradox here, which Ruse perhaps fails to bring out fully. He mentions that in the USA today there are ten times as many departments of molecular biology as of evolution, but he does not point out that it is impossible to understand molecular biology adequately unless it is seen in an evolutionary context. The interesting question, therefore, is why this fact is not always recognized.
Much the same failure to take account of Darwinism exists within medicine. The origins of many diseases can only be understood from an evolutionary viewpoint (Charlton BG; Nesse RM, Williams GC). Immunology, which is basic to modern medicine, is an evolutionary science through and through (Tauber AI). And yet "Darwinian medicine" is hardly a dozen years old; even today, few doctors are familiar with the term. There is a sense in which the Darwinian revolution has still hardly begun.
You can purchase The Darwinian Revolution from bn.com. Slashdot welcomes readers' book reviews -- to see your own review here, read the book review guidelines, then visit the submission page.
Statement:
I will be a zillionaire
-------------------
x -> Inifinity (time)
With an infinite amount of time... Evolution is possible...
and that's BULLSHIT! Hence so is MACRO evolution!!!
Tournament Management Online &
I believe that Lamarck was the first to postulate Evolution in the sense that we are familiar with it now. Namely, that if a trait is beneficial to a species that it will be passed on from generation to the next.
I have been pwned because my
the theory of evolution has evolved. A lovely tautology for those interested in defending it against creationism, I guess.
I just started my fall semester, and this guy is my history and philosophy of science teacher! Neat. He's funny as hell in person, by the way. If you ever get a chance to see him lecture, take it!
This story will no doubt generate some Creationism vs. evolution debates.
I have a question. Do creationists realise that their beliefs are really only a USA phenomenon? I've not seem much evidence of creationism anywhere else in the "first world". Just thought I'd ask because perhaps some American creationists think this is a hot issue all over the world. It's not.
Go away, troll. Go read Dennett's book 'Darwin's dangerous idea'. Don't come back until you are done.
Oh, and I suppose that the fact that none questions or discourses on the fact that 1 + 1 = 2 makes it no longer true any more?
And BTW, if 'Nobody seriously believes that stuff anymore', what is the replacement scientific theory that explains the diversity of life better?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
The future is in intelligent design, baby.
You only say that because it's the only theory that isn't full of holes.
Evolution hasn't been proven in any lab, like physics or astronomy, but it has logical underpinnings that can't be brushed away with a simple "God did it".
Complicated things come from simpler things, that's why an environment in equilibrium generally degrades into a chaotic state. That's why it's possible for simple atoms to bond into molecules and for molecules to bond into acids and acids to bond into proteins, and so on until you reach the world we live in today.
It starts with Physics, it's a wonder you don't know more.
It's your hell...You burn in it :)
1) Um, not all creatures leave fossils. Absence of evidence is not proof of evidence.
2,3,4,5) Nothing to do with Evolution of life on Earth.
6) Perfection of scripture: hahahaha. No, *which* scripture??
Bhudist, Shinto, Hindu, Judaic or Moslem scripture?
Hoaxes: So how does that dispove anything except the hoax concerned?
6) Like this: You have a *very* long row to hoe here, and you could start with a proof not a charge, and start that be describing just what you think this 'modern Information Theory (IT)' is in your opinion. I've certainly never heared of it.
My face is not red, my feet aint shuffling, but you, old buddy, are a trolling, know-nothing zealot.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
"I've already mentioned what that prevailing theory is in biology: intelligent design. The complexity of life simply cannot be explained any other way."
You are out of your farking mind. This must be a troll; I don't see how anyone could seriously believe that crap. I've been a bio student at three universities now, and have yet to meet ONE biologist who buys into intelligent design. The idea that natural selection can't explain the degree of diversity found in the world is an old one, and has been amply proven to be a load of hooey. Grant and Grant (a married research team from Princeton) showed natural selection proceeding at a rate of 2000-3000 darwins (the unit used to describe the rate of evolution) in a real-world situation. The highest rate necessary to explain the FASTEST change ever observed in the fossil record? Ready? 0.1 darwins. Parsimony mean anything to you?
Is there actually any point in my addressing any of your questions? Is there any point in someone who believes in evolution discussing it with a Creationist at all?
;-)
You have blind faith. You can answer any question with "God did it!" You don't have to give any other reason. The rest of us however need to think about our beliefs, and we can't just fall back on blind faith.
Or actually, may be that's the best response. May be you could understand that. So here's my response to your questions:
I don't have to answer your questions because I have blind faith that evolution is true. I don't need any proof and I don't need to explain things, just my blind faith that it is true.
well I can answer number 5.
The Bible is far from perfect. Assuming God told someone what to write, the information was filtered through an imperfect human who, most likely, per their own nice little spin on things. Also, do you honestly believe God would sit down Moses and tell him the entire process of which the Universe was created?
Well I personally I don't believe the estimated age of Everything (tm) is as long as people say, but even a shorter amount of time allows for evolution and since most of your argument depends on shorter time, well, all your questions have been answered.
"Evolution hasn't been proven in any lab, like physics or astronomy"
While I appreciate the general thrust of your statements, that part isn't true. Evolution by natural selection has been proven in the lab many many times. It's why bacteria and other nasties develop resistance to drugs, and crop pests develop resistance to herbicides and insecticides. There was even a guy who tracked the genotypes of his intestinal fauna via poo samples every day for a year to study how his changing diet etc. affected the balance of genes in the population. That in itself is a measure of natural selection. The idea that selection is too slow to be observed hasn't been prevalent in biology in a decade or more, but it still persists in popular perception. That's really not all that surprising, though, I'm sure if you watch this thread you'll see arguments that were refuted a century and a half ago!
By an armchair philosopher who's probably never seen the inside of a biolab. You don't know much about the author, do you? Have you looked for other books in this field? Hint: slashdot has reviewed 2 this week.
Of course 1 + 1 = 2. Perhaps you could provide similarly simple and intuitive proof of evolution actually occurring in nature?
Naah, other have done that better, if you'd bother to educate yourself. See Dawkins and above references. It hasn't been disproved yet.
BTW, you don't have to believe in evolution: it believes in you. Disease bacteria aquire resistance to antibiotics, and closing your eyes won't make you well.
I've already mentioned what that prevailing theory is in biology: intelligent design. The complexity of life simply cannot be explained any other way.
Really. Would you mind giving me figures of how and by how much this theory prevails? For a start, what % of biological researchers believe it? And where they think the 'intelligent design comes from'?
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
That's 5 percent who believe in a literal Biblical account of creation (Garden of Eden). The percentage of scientists who believe in a personal God (one who could answer prayers) is around 40% at last check, the percentage who believe in some kind of creator is higher than that.
Albert Einstein, for instance, was one of them.
Phallic Symbols in LOTR
I'd just like to point out the obvious, that the theory of Darwinian evolution, and the science of biology in general, have about as much to say about the Big Bang as they do about whether it will rain in Seattle on Labor Day. Biology asks the question, "OK, there's life on this planet, so how does it work?" How the planet got there in the first place is not a question relevant to biology.
When did you stop beating your wife?
hyacinthus.- 1) Where are all of the transitional fossils?
In rocks that haven't been found yet. Lack of evidence of one thing is not proof of another.
- 2) How can you explain the presence of young comets in a solar system that is supposed to be "billions" of years old? (Of course, if the SS is only a few thousand years old, comets are easy to explain.)
Do you actually know how comets are formed?
- 3) What caused the Big Bang? What happened in the first 10E-38th of a second after the Big Bang happened?
I don't know. Do you? Once again, lack of evidence of one thing is not proof of another.
- 4) How do you explain the relative thinness of the layer of dust on the Moon? It should be much deeper if the Moon is billions of years old.
Should it? Why?
- 5) How do you reconcile the perfection of Scripture with the hoaxes and embarrassments of science (i.e., Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Lucy, etc.)
How can you possibly compare the blind and unfounded faith of religion with the achievements of science? Prayer didn't magic that computer you're using out of thin air, you know.
- 6) How do you counter the charge that modern Information Theory (IT) renders evolution all but impossible?
The small amount I've read on Information Theory seems to be extremely naive and, for the most part, incorrect.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
The black iron prison created by the false god is the real Hell. You have to find your way out to the real world.
The Roman empire never end.
3) What caused the Big Bang? What happened in the first 10E-38th of a second after the Big Bang happened?
Evolutionary theorists don't have to explain the big bang. For all they can God did cause the big bang, or even set up the universe billions of years ago. All they care is that No matter how the universe was created it was created with a framework that allowed evolution.
Now of course, as you might immagine, many people who believe in evolution also believe in other scientific theories, such as the big bang, but they do not require eachother, and refuting one does not refute the other. See what I mean?
4) How do you explain the relative thinness of the layer of dust on the Moon? It should be much deeper if the Moon is billions of years old.
This seems to make sense, from a limited perspective: ie. "My house gets dusty really fast, therefore really old things should have a lot of dust" Until you ask the simple question... why? IANANE (I am not a Nasa Engineer) so I don't know much about moon dust, but I just want to ask this question, because it is the basis of your point: Why should the moon have a lot of dust? I mean, there is little gravity, atmosphere, or water. These are the primary forces that lead to the creation of dust on Earth (errosion) so what would cause it on the moon. Like I say, I'm just curious, because often times people (in all branches) will use arguments because they sound correct, but never really examine them thinking "hmmm, now why is this correct?"
5) How do you reconcile the perfection of Scripture with the hoaxes and embarrassments of science (i.e., Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Lucy, etc.)
You realize of course, that this is not really an argument, or a provable point. In fact, it merely begs the question. You are saying "The scriptures are perfect, because God made them, and they are perfect". Do you see how this is circular? Anything taken on faith is "perfect" because you can not disprove faith. Of course Science, like any human institution, has been wrong about things in the past. We do not, however, give up scientific persuit anymore that you have abandoned religion because the world isn't flat or the center of the universe.
Like I said before, these are not really replies to your questions. My goal is more to probe your sense of beliefs, and examine the logical structure of your argument. I happen to not believe in creationism. This does not require that I not believe in God however. My reason is as follows:
My problem with creationism is that ultimatly, it doesn't give God any "credit." Why is it so difficult to believe that as an omnipotent being, God could have created a system so complex, beutiful, and functional as evolution. This system truely shows the amazing prowess of God, as it is a system so dynamic and creative that it has created all we see and know today, yet so complex that full understanding of this mechanism elludes us to this day. I find it much easier to accept than a simple "God created everything the way it is, that's it." Give God credit for being more creative than that.
---Lane
P.S. No, I usually don't reply to anonymous cowards, but I understand that being a creationist has a certian stigma and probably warrented the anonymous posting
1) Where are all of the transitional fossils?
.. people who aren't educated might listen to them and somebody has got to set them straight, but still. These tired old arguments about "moon dust" and comets and transitional fossils have been thoroughly explained and debunked time and time again, and yet you people keep bringing them up.
Try looking around your church on Sunday morning.
Sorry, I know that's less than constructive, but arguing with creationists is so damned futile that I wonder why anybody even bothers anymore. I know, I know
It's interesting that you mention Piltdown Man. Yes, Piltdown Man was a hoax. But you know what? It was revealed to be a hoax by -- wait for it -- scientists. Furthermore, I defy you to find me a biology book written after 1950 that refers to Piltdown Man in any context other than it being a famous hoax.
Constrast this with creationists such as yourself, who continue to use the same bogus arguments (and in many cases outright lies) even after they have been thoroughly debunked. Ask yourself this question: is there a reason why you have to be intentionally (and in some cases maliciously) dishonest in the service of your faith? If so, what does that say about its value?
Not a flame, just an honest question.
What a clueless ass you are.
Obviously, your mind is made up, so why even throw out these red herrings and strawmen?
Anyway, to your "points":
1. No one is looking for "all" of the transitional fossils, but many have been found.
2-6. Totally irrelevant to evolution, really. You are mixing up your theories, but that's no surprise given your obvious fundamentalist leanings.
Lastly, evolution is fact. We have witnessed radical changes in our recorded history, and in labs. There is no doubt of the fact of evolution in any but a few American fundamentalist mules like yourself. The only point being argued by educated people is the finer points of the process of evolution.
WHAT?
HOW the FUCK is A POST whose SUBJECT is THIS STORY OFFTOPIC?
GOD DAMN you STUPID FUCKING MODERATORS are on SOME SHINY NEW KIND OF CRACK!!!!!!!!
Is school out today? That's the only reason I can think that so many 10-year-olds are out moderating.
I've been on the mysterious Slashdot Blacklist for maybe a year now, and today I was asked to MetaMod... is the blacklist dead, or do blacklisted users just fall off after they've "served their time"???
I got a call this morning from someone asking me to listen to "Focus on the Family" this morning because they were playing a tape of a debate held at Stanford between a creationist and evolutionist. I was immediately turned off because the creationist would make sweeping statements without support, like "evolution is based on bad and shaky evidence." Also, the evolutionist was assumed by the audience to be driven by an anti-God agenda, and gave no evidence to the contrary.
If the reason for holding these "debates" is to foster intellectual honesty in "both camps," then at least they should admit that there are a great number of reasonable people who hold neither of these publicized views. By limiting the debate to these two views they present the undecided with a false dichotomy, and by golly, with as effective as science is elsewhere, that must mean that there is no God!
taken! (by Davidleeroth) Thanks Bingo Foo!
God only holds you accountable for for
the values of your religion. If your one
of those terds that claims one religion,
but borrows from other religions- you
get punished in both of them
As for the theory of ebolution,it hasn't
applied on earth for 500 million years.
Earth is now evolving on a group level, hence
such anti survival mechanisms as a
personal conscience,parental protectiveness,
law, etc where the individual acts to save
the world group in preference to personal
agrandisment.
SPQR
Perhaps it is because some molecular biologists (Behe) see a intellegent design in molecular biology and do not see it a strictly evolutionary context.
Not quite true. Natural Selection has been demonstrated in labs. But the other half of evolution, the increasing of information in DNA via random mutation, hasn't been demonstrated (yet).
These are fairly common creationist arguments. Creationists sometimes think they can define what an "evolutionist" believes so they can come up with clever postulates to "disprove" evolution. Evolution is a science, and you can't define what an entire community of scientists believe simply to support you disbelief. Science is a process, not a religion.
And if you truly want answers to your qeustions, glance through any current issues of actual scientific journals from the past decade. I would suggest the last year or so of Scientific American as a good start.
As for the charge that there aren't any transitional fossils, check out the digs from China in the past couple of years. The young commets argument seems a little far fetched as I don't think we don't have any "commet material" to test for age do we? The Big Bang? Well since theoretical high energy physics is another science that is full of competing theories, all of which would be impossible to prove at the present, I don't think that's a valid argument. The dust on the moon argument has been around since the 60's, and its the classic, "Evolutionists say this, but that proves they are wrong" argument that I've heard many creationists use. As far as Piltdown Man as proof for creationism, I don't buy that one either. And I have to say this is the first time I've ever seen someone use IT to say that evolution is impossible, that one made me laugh.
I don't think I'm a zealot anymore than any other practitioner of the scientific method. I would ask that you please try to practice a little tolerance for people who do not think like you and for ideas that you do not agree with just as the rest of us must do when interacting with you.
Thanks.
I'm about 300 pages in and so far it's been primarily ID proponents. The general theme seems to be that:
The critics fire back with an examination as to why limiting science to the knowable is fundamental and not arbitrary, easily demonstrate how the IC argument falls apart (in a nutshell, it makes the assumption that (a) only one sequence "works" and (b) only one sequence could possibly do the job). In other words, it's audience is the theists, it was never meant to be taken seriously, which is why they don't publish in peer-reviewed journals.
If you have any interest in this subject, I strongly recommend picking it up. The "neo creo" arguments are not only compelling on their face but this crowd is organized, teaching in major colleges, well-funded, and they have a plan. It would be a mistake to shrug them off as irrelevant.
My
Limekiller
A very accurate description of the situation!
Anon, why do you turn away from Zeus? I'll tell you why. It's because you don't want to take responsibility for your actions.
Denying that hades exists wont' help you when your time comes. I'll pray for you.
6) How do you counter the charge that modern Information Theory (IT) renders evolution all but impossible?
Simple...
Modern Information Theory is full of bugs........
Comment section of this article:
...
/.! Enough with these articles already! /rant
Religious person: Evolution is wrong.
Everyone else: We can prove that creationism is stupid just search on Google!
Religious Person: but evolution is wrong to because bla bla
Everyone else: Well you're a stupid fool for believing that crap bla bla bla
There, its all there, nothing else has to be said you can go on to a different article now.
This wouldn't be such a big issue if people realized that the Bible was written by people who didn't understand science for people who didn't understand science, therefore its a metaphor, what's important to the creation story is WHO(God) and WHY (he wanted companions). Rather than HOW which for the most part is left to our imagination, if we scientifically prove evolution then great, that doesn't change WHO and WHY (but you can choose to believe that or not).
I agree this issue would also go away if more Christians themselves would realize that faithwise this is a non-issue, that they can believe whatever they want about where we came from but that Loving Thy Neighbor is far far far more important that flamewars over evolution!
That said how is evolution something that matters on a technology site anyway? I get the feeling that these articles are here just to start pointless flamewars over religion. Hey! There's enough fighting over religion in the world without adding it to
The Anti-Blog
For more accurate information check out:m
m ?itemid= 3043&refcd=OL02XRDRC&tvar=ng /resources/itempg.cfm?itemid= 3042&refcd=OL02XRDRC&tvar=n
http://family.org/cforum/topics/a0018793.cf
also for a better book try
Darwin on Trial
by Dr. Phillip Johnson
also check out these videos
http://www.family.org/resources/itempg.cf
http://www.family.or
Seriously, how many biology--and more importantly--anthropology classes have you taken? Because if you just allow yourself to be a self-directed reader, you will (inevitably) get a skewed view of reality. You need the rigorous, objective treatment of a good old-fashioned <jed clampet>U-nee-verse-it-ee</jed clampet> to get an understanding of the state of the science.
By the way, not to nitpick, but do you have any idea how complicated a proof of 1+1=2 is? Depending on the axiomatic system that the proof is given in, (IIRC) the proof ranges from several dozen to several hundred steps. The most commonly accepted axiomatic system (based on Peano's postulates) falls in the latter category. My point: nothing in Science or Mathematics is either simple or intuitive. If you try to understand either intuitively (unless you're a Ramanujan, which I doubt) you're doomed to fail.
Yes, I'm still a junky. Are you still a bitch?
I wish we could have some way of identifying people who were informed on topics that most of you have no clue about.
The way is to read the response. Requiring information about who said something before judging it is an example of an ad hominem argument.
Not quite true. Natural selection has been repeatedly demonstrated in the lab. But the other half of the theory, the inreasing of information in DNA via random mutations, has not been demonstrated in the lab.
For the record, I am of the opinion that random mutations will, over time, reduce information in DNA.
1) Satan forgot to place transitional fossils in ground while he placing other fossils in the ground to confound us and lead us away from Jehovah.
2) Hmm... How do you explain the presence of the three-week-old bottle of milk in my refrigerator in a solar system that is supposed to be "billions" of years old?
3) The Demiurge was eating Pop Rocks and drinking Coke at the same time, in spite of God's warnings.
4) Angels or Aliens with vacuum cleaners? The fact that the solar system is moving through a galaxy with varying debris densities? Dang! That's a tired out argument, already!!! (See this for more info.
5) How do you reconcile the hoaxes and embarrassments of religion (i.e. Inquisitions, Jihads, Caste systems, Sabbatai Svi, Heaven's Gate, ad nausem) to the perfection (well... maybe not) of Mathematics?
6) Huh?
The only thing that we learn from history is that nobody learns anything from history.
We (The USA) are sorry.
In the future when Europe is on the verge of falling to a European dictator, we will leave Europe alone.
When Europe need to be rebuilt after that war, we will leave Europe alone.
When Europe need protection from forces from the East, we will leave Europe alone.
When Europe needs help in it's own backyard to bring down yet another dictator who is killing people just because of the ethnic background, we will leave Europe alone.
I prefer blind faith over the blind leading the blind.
Dear retarded creationist: Here's the answer for your little "moon dust" theory. http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a1_159a.html See, it's all about logic. Logic is handy. You should try it.
Second of all, you seem to think that "God" can be used only to refer to your God, just like the name "Ralph Smith" can be used only to refer to your neighbor Ralph Smith.
When I use "God," I'm referring to an entity that I think you would agree is quite different than the entity you refer to by that name, just as the Ralph Smith I refer to is different from the Ralph Smith you know. It's quite egotistical to think that the only entity that can bear the name "God" is the deity that you believe in.
120 comments and still not a single one about one of the most important evolution of this year !!!
#include "coucou.h"
1) There are many transitional fossils, from reptiles to birds, from primates to humans, and from canines to whales. Some are missing, but the fossil evidence available currently, coupled with DNA evidence extracted from bones is more than suitible to prove evolution alone. 2) The universe isn't done evolving, comets can be created today as easily as they were billions of years ago, though it is less frequent now. Incidentally this is irrelevant to evolution. 3) This is also irrelevant to evolution. 4) Again, irrelevant...and not worth an astronomical debate. 5) (also irrelevant, but what the hay) That is nice of you to point out! Science corrects itself when mistakes are made! theories that are fact will weather the test of time, and the idea of evolution has existed since ancient Greece! Your perfect and holy scriptures remain unchanged as you scramble to reconcile the facts with your beliefs. Of course there were changes made, such as King James altering the bible to allow for his diovorce (not to mention millions of translation errors), as well as other changes I am sure were not inspired by divinity. 6) Modern IT theory renders Evolution impossible? That's news to me! I'd love for you to show me some facts from these theories that aren't misinformation or naive in judgement!
Similarly the US takes a kind of literalist view of its Constitution where many legal decisions are in fact textual analyses trying to extract the "original intention". It is interesting that the Magna Carta, for example, plays a far more important role in American history than it does in British history!
-- SIGFPE
However, the phrase "all of the transitional fossils" is usually used (dishonestly) by creationsts to claim that no such fossils exist. Of course, every time paleontologists find a transitional species between two other known species, this leaves two transitions to be filled instead of one... The fact that we have evidence of thousands and thousands of intermediate species, and that DNA evidence of living species backs up the morphological family tree to a degree which would be impossible save for common descent, is ironclad evidence that life on Earth evolved and continues to evolve.
Comets which orbit in the Kuiper belt or further out remain "young" as long as they stay there. Until some gravitational perturbation changes their orbit to come close to a planet which slings their paths into the inner solar system, they never get "old". So yes, some comets we see could be billions of years old and still making their first passes near the Sun; this is why astronomers study them for evidence of the conditions prevailing in the early Solar System (and these astronomers are not creationists). We don't know yet. Science is never ashamed to admit lack of an answer where evidence is not available. Creationists have a disorder known in other contexts as Male Answer Syndrome and are unable to humble themselves to that point. Dust is one thing, regolith is another. Solid rock on the Moon's surface is a rarity; most of it is material which has been bombarded and shattered dozens or thousands of times (look up "microbreccias" for an idea of what this produces). However, the surface of the Moon is in hard vacuum, and loose dust vacuum-welds together to form a more cohesive surface. It still has lots of open space and insulates extremely well, though; the Apollo heat-flow experiments had to sit for longer than their design lifetime for the heat of drilling to dissipate so that they could actually measure heat flow! Funny you should mention that. Genesis has two distinct and contradictory creation stories, which religion has done a very poor job of even admitting, much less criticizing and correcting. As previously mentioned, the errors and hoaxes of science were found and corrected by scientists. "In theory, there is no difference between theory and practice. In practice, there is."There's a pretty good rebuttal of the IT claim in the Feb. 2001 post of the month. Or perhaps you should just walk your way through some of these Google search results; you might learn something if your mind is open to it.
Scientists restrict study to entire physical universe; creationist
These are old objections, that have been answered many times. See, for example, the TalkOrigins Faq
fossils are evolutionary snapshots. Its like trying to reconstruct the events of football game, from a few still photos taken at random throughout the play. Fossils are rare, because most environmental processes destroy rather than preserve biological materials. As time goes on, we gradually pick up more pieces, and more snapshots, but most creatures who have ever lived never left any fossils. This neither proves nor disproves evolution, its a complication that makes paleontology difficult.
2) How can you explain the presence of young comets in a solar system that is supposed to be "billions" of years old? (Of course, if the SS is only a few thousand years old, comets are easy to explain.)
That's really a question for an astrophysicist. But, many "young" comets are tugged into the inner solar system from the Oort cloud, where presumably they have been orbiting unchanged and virtually untouched for billions of years, in an almost perfect primordial state. When planetary motion pulls them in, and they become short period comets, they have a "new" appearance, because they still have all their old cometary material.
3) What caused the Big Bang? What happened in the first 10E-38th of a second after the Big Bang happened?
Another astrophysics question, (well, two) that is still largely resolved at present. Its outside the domain of evolutionary biology, and is largely not applicable to events happening many many seconds later. (You'll grant that our world is more than 6000 seconds old, will you?) Its possibly relevant whether or not the universe was Created, but that does not prove or disprove evolution.
4) How do you explain the relative thinness of the layer of dust on the Moon? It should be much deeper if the Moon is billions of years old.
Where does dust come from? On Earth (and on Mars; places we've actually been to) it appears to be largely the work of weathering processes, wind, water, chemical and gravitational sundering. There is a lot of dust on Earth, and Mars; much of it layered and pressed into sediment. With scarcely any weathering processes on the Moon, its not surprising that little dust has accumulated. Lunar dust, or regolith, is sundered by mechanical abrasion from meteorite strikes, the vast majority of which haven't happened in a long time, so there is little dust, and what's there is pretty jagged and abrasive.
5) How do you reconcile the perfection of Scripture with the hoaxes and embarrassments of science (i.e., Piltdown Man, Nebraska Man, Lucy, etc.)
This is primarily a religious question, and not implicated in evolutionary biology, because science as a whole does not address questions of perfection. There is no perfect theory, or absolutely right answer, and therefore no way to reconcile perfection with non-perfection within scientific modelling. Additionally, there are many divergent views of what constitutes the Truth, in the biblical scriptures, even; as many who call themselves Christian, Jewish, or Moslem disagree with eachother. (Each hold a portition of those Scriptures to be True) You may be correct, and the rest of us wallowing in sin, but its outside the realm of things that evolutionary theory addresses, so we can't help you. :)
Do scientists make mistakes? Ha ha! Its what we do best
6) How do you counter the charge that modern Information Theory (IT) renders evolution all but impossible?
I don't counter it. Genetic engineering may well supercede natural selection, because we can select precisely genomic features that would otherwise take a very long time to be expressed. We may not know, for some time yet, whether natural selection is over, on Earth, but it is entirely possible, from what little we now know. The presence of an Intelligent Architect, certainly has the possibility of mucking up the whole works. If we can architect ourselves, this might be the end of evolution as we've known it, and we may need new theories to describe future differentiation and radiation of species, post-genetic-revolution. Before there were creatures on earth doing genegeneering, evolution would have remained in effect.
I welcome your questions, and am glad you keep asking (and keep trolling!) If we evolutionists don't keep on our toes, the silurians will get us.
First, nothing begins if not opening
Normally I would agree with you about slashdot moderation. In this instance, however, the parent post was crap, and deserves to be down-modded.
Although I know you were trying to make a point, this unfortunately comes close to the attitude of many people on both sides. Science with all of it's claims of unbiased interpretation of the facts completely shuts down when it comes to the possible existence of a creator. Isn't it possible there are facts waiting to be found that prove the existence of a creator? Why are proponents of evoltuion so closed-minded to this possibility? This is the same attitude hated in literal creationism, refusing to accept *any* evidence of evolution. Without being open to the most remote possibilities, science is just dogma and becomes a religion in and of itself.
Both Evolution and Creationism are systems of faith. The word "faith" has been distorted in our language. What it meant in the original text of biblical times, and in other cultures, is simply belief based on discernment. It can be as equally based on evidence as science. Infact, strictly speaking it should be. Anyone who has "blind faith" is neither being true to Christianity, science, nor himself. We would have no respect for a scientist who has blind faith and we shouldn't respect any religious person with it either. It is saying "I have no evidence, I just think it's true." There is alot of evidence to support Creationism, and a good portion of it is scientific. There is also evidence to support Evolution, either on a macro or micro scale. The evidence must be examined and decisions to believe one or the other or some form of both lie in the hands of the reader, or researcher. Being a Creationist doesn't negate being scientific, but having blind faith does. Whatever you believe, believe it because in your determination the preponderance of the evidence supports it. That, is your faith. >
1. Transitional fossils- and living species- are found all the time. Read Scientific American and Biological Journals. Look online, or for actually authoritative information GO TO THE LIBRARY. Better yet, take a course in evolution at a local university.
t .html
2. Er... what scientific principle states that comets were developed at the time of the big bang? The two aren't necessarily related at all. Of course, this argument has nothing to do with evolution and has to do with the big bang.
3. See the end of the last section. I don't know what happened 10E-38th second after the Big Bang. What is the point of that question?
4. This argument was debunked a long time ago, and most creationists who've done a fair amount of research won't touch it. Again, go to the library and do some research. A quick google search pulls up:
http://members.aol.com/dwise1/cre_ev/moondus
5. This isn't an argument at all. Given that one is unable to accept the premise the "perfection of scripture" in a logical discussion, any conclusion drawn is invalid. Even if one were to accept this argument, how does one explain the "hoaxes and embarrasements" of scripture? Why don't various religions and denominations exclude and include certain texts? Why would the presence of hoaxes do anything to discredit the whole? And more importantly, how is this related to hoaxes involved in science?
6. There are several responses here, but before any of them make sense we'd need more information. What modern information theory are you referring to? I have a degree in the biological sciences and a degree in information studies, and I have no idea how the two subjects are interconnected. Could you elaborate?
If you read Behe again you will notice that he accepts evolution, and accepts as generally accurate our understanding of the last few hundred million years of it.
Furthermore if you look closely you will find that a critically important thing to do in molecular biology is to look for genetic sequences that don't change across related species. The reason being that the genes that don't change much are the ones where when you tinker, Bad Stuff happens. And those are the genes that do Something Important. (After that you have to figure out what they do that is important...)
In other words this basic technique won't even make sense unless you first accept that Darwinian evolution has happened.
Interesting how the face you're using for this story's icon was a God fearing man. Not to spark any religion vs. evolution debates, just an interesting choice for the mascot of this article ^__^
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What about the Islamic world? They are known for for their rather "traditional" beliefs.
Table-ized A.I.
Isn't it possible there are facts waiting to be found that prove the existence of a creator?
I guess you could say it is possible. And I expect if something was unearthed that proved the existance of a God, then you'd find a lot of people start to believe, even scientists. But the fact of the matter is that no such proof exists, nor is there ever likely to be such proof.
Have you accepted Eris as you temporary saviour? (Hell, I thought all programmers were avatars of Eris!)
What would Emperor Norton do?
- Well, there's all those homonid bones we found. Do none of those fit your bill as a transitional form? Or are you looking for some chimaric nightmare with the head of a man stuck on the body of a chimpanzee? Sorry, but evolution doesn't work that way. The closest you will find is Archiopteryx (sp?), the part bird, part reptile fossile.
- Most comets spend the majority of their lives out in the Oort cloud, beyond the orbit of Pluto. New comets are constantly being knocked out of the Oort cloud to rain down upon the inner solar system. And we don't know for certain that the mechanism for creating new comets has stopped in the solar system. Are you seriously saying that nothing new has been created since the formation of the solar system?
- The Big Bang has nothing to do with Evolution. How about you answer me this: Can God make a rock so big even He can't lift it?
- Moon dust. Good straw man. What you forget is that the dust will pack down over time under the gravity of the moon. And that metero impacts will smash the dust into rock. Not to mention the fact that the moon has shown several periods of volcanic activity (cause by metero impacts).
- Hoaxes? You mean like those rocks with dinosaur and human footprints side by side that the "Christian scientists" (not "The Curtch of Christ, Scientist") won't let secular sciientists see? Hoaxes are man-made.
- Information Theory doesn't do squat about evolution. The misunderstanding of it seems to bring great joy to detractors of evolution. The assumption that a being must have the genetic information of every species it may give rise to within itself before speciation can occure is laughable. Through the process of corrupted information transferrance (we like to call it "mutation"), new information is constantly being addded to the Gene Pool. Life is not static.
I find it odd that you would be so smug and pompus and yet hide behind the skirts of Anonymous Coward. I'd think that if you really believed iin what you are saying that you'd at least have the guts to put a name on your work.And more to the point is the fact that the fossile record is very incomplete. It takes a very narrow set of circumstances for a skeleton to get fossilized: it must be burried in sand or mud soon after death, or the scavangers will have scattered it; it must remain burried for a very ling time; it must not be destroyed by gelogic forces. How often does that happen. Consider that thr most abundant fossils are those of the trilobites. Trilobites lived for 250,000,000 years and were a very wide-spread group whio lived in shallow seas (the perfect place to be fossilized, BTW). How many T. Rex's have we found? 18? They walked North America for 3-5 million years.
Piltdown Man worked because "he" presented the exact chimeric niightmare you seem to demand as a transitional form - half man, half ape.
As for Scriptual perfection, I'll leave the debunking of that to someone who knows Scripture better than I do.
Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
I just wish someone would realize the harm that is being done to the moral fabric of our country by these so-called scientists and their so-called "theory" of Electricity. All the "evidence" for Electricity is shaky, unproven and nonsensical. They even go so far as to invent a particle they call an "electron," which the Electricianists themselves admit can never be seen! How gullible do they think we are? All decent people know that lightning is the divine wrath of Jupiter Fulminator -- and that's something those Electrianists are going to find out for themselves real soon!
To some extent it covers the same territory as Peter Bowler's "Evolution: the history of an idea", but its focus is narrower in time while providing more in-depth discussion of the philosophical and religious ideas of Darwin's contemporaries."
There's something interesting in the way evolution continually focuses on itself. In defending itself against creationism, evolution touts itself as objective science, rational answers, the generally accepted truth of the scientific community. And yet, I don't see books with titles like "Continental Drift: The Evolution of an Idea" or "The Big Bang: Collecting the Evidence" getting written, let alone reviewed.
There's something about evolution, and the debate around it, that invites what I've come to think of as scientific elitism. If it were a SCIENTIFIC THEORY that COULDN'T BE ARGUED based on the AVAILABLE EVIDENCE, then that would be that. The Big Bang and continental drift don't get all this attention, but evolution does. Is it because those theories are more rigid, that there's less debate over the nuances of how they happened, than genetic evolution? Or is it because scientific minds genuinely like to push fundamentalists' hot buttons?
Maybe this is just an American phenomenon; maybe other countries are more at ease with the scientific theory of evolution and the whens and hows of it all. I just find it odd that for a theory that claims to have so much science backing it up, it needs to keep reminding everyone of its validity. One begins to wonder if the scientists doth protest too much.
This already came up and was refuted.
2. The evolution/creation debate is really about competing moralities, not competing scientific paradigms. Don't waste your time responding to "christian scientific arguments" as they are not mainstream christian, remotely scientific, or even arguments. They exist merely to advance a rather dotty extremist social agenda. Rather, insist that the propagaters of such stuff come clean about the kind of society they are pushing. I'm sure that most Americans would not like to live like that.
Thay are also skirting Darwin.
OMG, I'd better convert to biomass or something, just alike all of Europe has done. Fucking twat.
Study talk.origins, go through the various FAQs, articles, and past discussions there, and prepare yourself with answers to the questions presented.
Remember to try to really understand the full context of the discussions because you will not have accomplished what Peter 3:15 tells you to do if your answers are shallow and you are unable to handle obvious follow-ups, leaving your listeners dissatisfied.
Is there any point in a Creationist arguing with a Darwinian? If you don't have an answer you just say things like, "The absence of something does not prove it doesn't exist". Well how can you believe that something existed without andy proof. That too me sounds like TRUE BLIND faith, or lack thereof. How lame of an excuse is that?
Contrast this balanced review of a fine and nuanced history of an idea with this screed. I can't bring myself to get excited about this retarded debate any longer. We should respond to the Creationist with some patronizing smiles. Treat the Cobb Cty School Board to an awkward, embarrassed silence.
It is not as though the alternative is a poison. If the young minds of Cobb Cty can't be moved from their faulty instruction and misapprehensions by subsequent study, their convictions can be classed as theological and impervious to reason. And politely ignored by reasonable society.
illegitimii non ingravare
maybe slashdot *should* have a zealot option, but it doesn't. so, be prepared for "troll," "flamebait," or (if you're lucky) "offtopic."
i find the evidence of evolution to be highly suspect, and there is a fair amount of evidence against it. i would encourage you to well research your claims and cite objective sources. creationism is considered a joke because people don't typically do that. i've tried to research the subject matter, but find no objective and reliable source to verify many creationist claims.
honestly, imo, it's a topic where a lot of people need to cool down and re-evaluate their assumptions.
char *mySig;
" Lack of evidence of one thing is not proof of another."
Exactly right. Can you disprove that there is a God? Can you disprove Creationism?
Thought Not!
There is a difference between the "faith" one has in science, and a religious "faith". I believe that I will not fall through the floor when I walk on it; I believe that the sun will rise tomorrow. This is far different than a religious belief.
-asb
Steve Jones
Anchor Canada (US publisher?)
ISBN: 0-385-63867-2
Ever wonder what Darwin's ideas really were, before they were spun by philosophers/economists/clergy/you/me/everyone?
Darwin's Ghost is an entertaining rewrite/commentary on "On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life." (full title) It pays homage to Darwin's original ideas and includes passages from the 1859 version of The Origin. Jones follows The Origin chapter by chapter, commenting on the critical points and supplementing the ideas with reports from modern events and research.
So make your own philosophy right at home! It's fun and easy! Seriously folks, the book is a delightful read if you want to find out what evolution is really about, without all the hooey.
The reason is just to ridicule the creationists for the benefit of the sector of the public that matters.
We hold no hope for the hard entrenched "card-carrying" anti-science ones, but there is a huge young audience whose upbringing may have favoured a distorted, supersticious, view of science. These can be saved from their ignorance and their children may have hope for a better education, away from the pathetic 6000 years old Earth crowd.
i've always felt it is better to go back to the ORIGINAL documents
than to read commentary ABOUT them. in addition to Darwin, there was
also Haeckel, Kant, and Steiner -- who were certainly some of darwin's
most significant fellow researchers in the area. here's a experpted chapter from
one of Darwins contemporaries circa 1886:
The TYPUS in Organic Nature
Above all, one has committed a serious error in this. One believed that the method of inorganic science should simply be taken over into the realm of organisms. One considered the method employed here to be altogether the only scientific one, and thought that for "organics" to be scientifically possible, it would have to be so in exactly the same sense in which physics is, for example. The possibility was forgotten, however, that perhaps the concept of what is scientific is much broader than "the explanation of the world according to the laws of the physical world." Even today one has not yet penetrated through to this knowledge. Instead of investigating what it is that makes the approach of the inorganic sciences scientific, and of then seeing a method that can be applied to the world of living things while adhering to the requirements that result from this investigation, one simply declared that the laws gained upon this lower stage of existence are universal.
Above all, however, one should investigate what the basis is for any scientific thinking. We have done this in our study. In the preceding chapter we have also recognized that inorganic lawfulness is not the only one in existence but is only a special case of all possible lawfulness in general. The method of physics is simply one particular case of a general scientific way of investigation in which the nature of the pertinent objects and the region this science serves are taken into consideration. If this method is extended into the organic, one obliterates the specific nature of the organic. Instead of investigating the organic in accordance with its nature, one forces upon it a lawfulness alien to it. In this way, however, by denying the organic, one will never come to know it. Such scientific conduct simply repeats, upon a higher level, what it has gained upon a lower one; and although it believes that it is bringing the higher form of existence under laws established elsewhere, this form slips away from it in its efforts, -because such scientific conduct does not know how to grasp and deal with this form in its particular nature.
All this comes from the erroneous view that the method of a science is extraneous to its objects of study, that it is not determined by these objects but rather by our own nature. It is believed that one must think in a particular way about objects, that one must indeed think about all objects -- throughout the entire universe -- in the same way. Investigations are undertaken that are supposed to show that, due to the nature of our spirit, we can think only inductively or deductively, etc.
In doing so, however, one overlooks the fact that the objects perhaps will not tolerate the way of looking at them that we want to apply to them.
A look at the views of Haeckel, who is certainly the most significant of the natural-scientific theoreticians of the present day, shows us that the objection we are making to the organic natural science of our day is entirely justified: namely, that it does not carry over into organic nature the principle of scientific contemplation in the absolute sense, but only the principle of inorganic nature.
When he demands of all scientific striving that "the causal interconnections of phenomena become recognized everywhere," when he says that "if psychic mechanics were not so infinitely complex, if we were also able to have a complete overview of the historical development of psychic functions, we would then be able to bring them all into a mathematical soul formula," then one can see clearly from this what he wants: to treat the whole world according to the stereotype of the method of the physical sciences.
This demand, however, does not underlie Darwinism in its original form but only in its present-day interpretation. We have seen that to explain a process in inorganic nature means to show its lawful emergence out of other sense-perceptible realities, to trace it back to objects that, like itself, belong to the sense world. But how does modern organic science employ the principles of adaptation and the struggle for existence (both of which we certainly do not doubt are the expression of facts)? It is believed that one can trace the character of a particular species directly back to the outer conditions in which it lived, in somewhat the same way as the heating of an object is traced back to the rays of the sun falling upon it. One forgets completely that one can never show a species' character, with all its qualities that are full of content, to be the result of these conditions. The conditions may have a determining influence, but they are not a creating cause. We can definitely say that under the influence of certain circumstances a species had to evolve in such a way that one or another organ became particularly developed; what is there as content, however, the specifically organic, cannot be derived from outer conditions. Let us say that an organic entity has the essential characteristics a b c; then, under the influence of certain outer conditions, it has evolved. Through this, its characteristics have taken on the particular form a'b'c'. When we take these influences into account we will then understand that a has evolved into the form of a', b into b', c into c'. But the specific nature of a, b, and c can never arise as the outcome of external conditions.
One must, above all, focus one's thinking on the question: From what do we then derive the content of that general "something" of which we consider the individual organic entity to be a specialized case? We know very well that the specialization comes from external influences. But we must trace the specialized shape itself back to an inner principle. We gain enlightenment as to why just this particular form has evolved when we study a being's environment. But this particular form is, after all, something in and of itself; we see that it possesses certain characteristics. We see what is essential. A content, configurated in itself, confronts the outer phenomenal world, and this content provides us with what we need in tracing those characteristics back to their source. In inorganic nature we perceive a fact and see, in order to explain it, a second, a third fact and so on; and the result is that the first fact appears to us to be the necessary consequence of the other ones. In the organic world this is not so. There, in addition to the facts, we need yet another factor. We must see what works in from outer circumstances as confronted by something that does not passively allow itself to be determined by them but rather determines itself, actively, out of itself, under the influence of the outer circumstances.
But what is that basic factor? It can, after all, be nothing other than what manifests in the particular in the form of the general. In the particular, however, a definite organism always manifests. That basic factor is therefore an organism in the form of the general: a general image of the organism, which comprises within itself all the particular forms of organisms.
Following Goethe's example, let us call this general organism typus. Whatever the word typus might mean etymologically, we are using it in this Goethean sense and never mean anything else by it than what we have indicated. This typus is not developed in all its completeness in any single organism. Only our thinking, in accordance with reason, is able to take possession of it, by drawing it forth, as a general image, from phenomena. The typus is therewith the idea of the organism: the animalness in the animal, the general plant in the specific one.
One should not picture this typus as anything rigid. It has nothing at all to do with what Agassiz, Darwin's most significant opponent, called "an incarnate creative thought of God's." The typus is something altogether fluid, from which all the particular species and genera, which one can regard as subtypes or specialized types, can be derived. The typus does not preclude the theory of evolution. It does not contradict the fact that organic forms evolve out of one another. It is only reason's protest against the view that organic development consists purely in sequential, factual (sense-perceptible) forms. It is what underlies this whole development. It is what establishes the interconnection in all this endless manifoldness. It is the inner aspect of what we experience as the outer forms of living things. The Darwinian theory presupposes the typus.
The typus is the true archetypal organism; according to how it specializes ideally, it is either archetypal plant or archetypal animal. It cannot be any one, sense-perceptibly real living being. What Haeckel or other naturalists regard as the archetypal form is already a particular shape; it is, in fact, the simplest shape of the typus. The fact that in time the typus arises in its simplest form first does not require the forms arising later to be the result of those preceding them in time. AR forms result as a consequence of the typus; the first as well as the last are manifestations of it. We must take it as the basis of a true organic science and not simply undertake to derive the individual animal and plant species out of one another. The typus runs like a red thread through all the developmental stages of the organic world. We must hold onto it and then with it travel through this great realm of many forms. Then this realm will become understandable to us. Otherwise it falls apart for us, just as the rest of the world of experience does, into an unconnected mass of particulars. In fact, even when we believe that we are leading what is later, more complicated, more compound, back to a previous simpler form and that in the latter we have something original, even then we are deceiving ourselves, for we have only derived a specific form from a specific form.
Friedrich Theodor Vischer once said of the Darwinian theory that it necessitates a revision of our concept of time. We have now arrived at a point that makes evident to us in what sense such a revision would have to occur. It would have to show that deriving something later out of something earlier is no explanation, that what is first in time is not first in principle. All deriving has to do with principles, and at best it could be shown which factors were at work such that one species of beings evolved before another one in time.
The typus plays the same role in the organic world as natural law does in the inorganic. Just as natural law provides us with the possibility of recognizing each individual occurrence as a part of one great whole, so the typus puts us in a position to regard the individual organism as a particular form of the archetypal form.
http://wn.elib.com/Steiner/Books/GA002/English/GA
--
best regards,
john
if you want an essay written by EINSTEIN HIMSELF on his religious views, try here:
Einstein on Cosmic Religious Feeling
"In my view, it is the most important function
of art and science to awaken this [cosmic religious] feeling
and keep it alive in those who are receptive to it.
(Albert Einstein)
Before replying, consider that a "theory" is not some wild-assed notion that someone pulled out of their *ss. It's not conjecture or wild speculation.
'...to suppose that the eye with all its inimitable contrivances
for adjusting the focus to different distances, for admitting
different amounts of light, and for the correction of spherical
and chromatic aberration could have been formed by natural
selection, seems, I freely confess, absurd in the highest degree.'
(CHARLES DARWIN, Origin of the Species)
Darwin was peculiarly skeptical of the "reliability" of fossification records. And bear in mind that his three books prior to Origin_of_Species were geological treastises ...
That said, I certainly appreciate the dialogue here on slashdot on this topic, from both sides: I typically don't see Christians well-versed in the literature ...
"He who questions training trains himself at asking questions." - The Sphinx, Mystery Men (1999)
Your facts are somewhat out of synch with reality.
In Brazil the Catholic schools have been teaching Evolution as a scientific fact for a long time. One detail easily overlooked is that the Catholic Church never favoured the literal interpretation of the Bible - sometimes they even considered certain literal interpretation sins.
I never seem any creationinst around here. They must exist somewhere, but they are probably hidden in their churches talking among themselves.
Where are all of the transitional fossils?
What, you mean all the fossils that actually prompted people to think about all this to start with? The ones people were discovering in the 19th century that caused people like Darwin to wonder, "Hey, the fossil record in South America includes these giant forms of what appear to be relatives of modern animals? What gives?" Those fossils? Go look at the history of evolutionary thought -- this book we're talking about might be a good starting point -- and watch how, as people try to explain the fossils they're finding, they eventually arrive at more and more coherent ideas about how evolution works. It's not like they started up bashing your "perfect" scripture out of a wrongheaded desire to make trouble, and then couldn't find any evidence; they started with the evidence you're saying is absent, and it pushed them, against their wills in a lot of different ways, toward the conclusion that scripture-based world views just didn't explain things. Darwin was trained as a priest in the Anglican church, and he really struggled with his ideas, but trying to explain the physical evidence pushed him along.
You've got it exactly backward, both historically and in terms of how you'd like to argue.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
2think.org? If I didn't know any better, I'd swear they were trying to prove he was...
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There are some people/Christians that may question why the issue of creation vs. evolution is important since that is not the focus of the Bible/Christianity.
But there are many Christians who believe that this is an important issue and that it is important to believe in a six-day creation. Why? Because once one part of the Bible is dismissed as not being straight fact, what other parts of the Bible are also not straight fact?
The creation account of the Bible seems to imply a literal six days, but many people would say that the term day can be interpreted/translated as "period of time". I'm not going to go down that road (it's been travelled enough), but even if the term day does denote a "period of time", there is still a problem with the order as it is written in Genesis. On the third day of creation grass and trees were created, but it wasn't until the fourth day of creation that the sun and moon were created. That obviously does not agree with evolution theory.
Supposedly it was this creation vs. evolution issue that was the springboard (or at least one of them) that drove Charles Templeton (who once preached with Billy Graham) to turn his back on Christianity. Thus it is important for the Christian to believe in a six-day creation and not compromise on the Word of God. It's an issue of a firm foundation.
Personal Note: I am a Christian that used to believe in "theistic evolution". I came across other Christians who, to my surprise, actually believed in a literal six-day creation despite all of the evidence that I grew up hearing about. They encouraged me to research the topic myself and then decide. So I did, and after looking at the evidence I now believe in a literal six-day creation.
Are we getting the usual barrage of lies and stupidities from the pathetic creationists yet?
2. More to the point, my link and data is about belief in Biblical accounts of cration, not on religious affiliation or sensibilities. Many scientists have some religious affiliation (I know a number of Buddhist-affiliated cognitive scientists) - that's a far, far cry from questioning scientific theories on the basis of religious doctrine.
I have a book you should read. It is Genesis and the Big Bang by Gerald L. Schroeder, Ph.D. Dr. Schroeder is an applied physicist and an applied theologian with undergraduate and doctoral degrees from MIT. In the book he explains that in reality the two theories (Genesis and Evolution) are really not at odds with each other. I saw a show with this guy and he impressed me. The book is still on my to read list, but the talk he was giving was basically on the book. Definately worth reading no matter what side of the argument you fall on. I'm thinking about boning up on my physics before reading the book (just the basics).
At the next eco-hypocrisy-meeting, count the private jets used to get to the meeting. Should be interesting to see that
I suggest you study carrefully the list of Arguments for the existence of God. Specially on-topic for the present discussion are arguments 10, 26 and 120:
10. ARGUMENT FROM CREATION
(1) If evolution is false, then creationism is true, and therefore God
exists.
(2) Evolution can't be true, since I lack the mental capacity to
understand it; moreover, to accept its truth would cause me to be
uncomfortable
(3) Therefore, God exists.
26. ARGUMENT FROM AMERICAN EVANGELISM
(1) Telling people that God exists makes me filthy rich.
(2) Therefore, God exists.
120. ARGUMENT FROM PERSECUTION (II) / ARGUMENT FROM IDIOCY (I)
1) Jesus said that people would make fun of Christians.
2) I am an idiot.
3) People often point that out.
4) Therefore, God exists.
Here's hundreds of comments debating creationism vs. evolution, all redundant and offtopic.
Has there ever been an evolution book review on slashdot that resulted in any significant discussion of the book in question?
The theory of evolution is almost entirely irrelevant to the fields of philosophy and theology. As Ludwig Wittgenstein said in his Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, "The Darwinian theory has no more to do with philosophy than has any other hypothesis of natural science."
Philosophy consists of epistemology, metaphysics, logic, ethics, and philosophy of language. It is difficult to see any applicability of the theory of evolution in any of these fields. The philosophical argument advanced in the review about the incompatibility of metaphysical idealism with evolution is rather strange. Adherents of the forms of Idealism attacked therein are likely to say that the argument suffers from equivocation. "Species as eternal Forms," I can hear such Idealists saying, "are not sets of animals which can interbreed and have fertile offspring."
The continual Slashdot derision of Creationism is based on a straw man and/or bandwagon argument and the fallacy of the excluded middle. "Creationists all believe the Universe is less than ten thousand years old and was created in exactly the manner described in Genesis; since this view is disproven, God did not create the Universe!" is the line generally taken here, and there should be no need for an explanation of why this is fallacious. Nor is there any serious threat from the people who say "My Google-based Rules/Sucks-o-meter says God did not create the Universe" or "Contemporary Europeans don't believe God created the Universe."
No adherent of any metaphysical or theological/anti-theological position need feel that the above is an argument against that position. I have here argued only against misapplying what I think is a solid scientific theory.
Please answer the 38 questions at this URL:
f ic =3
http://www.drdino.com/cse.asp?pg=articles&speci
christians arent even well-versed in the bible.
... hi bingo
Psalms 14:1
"The fool hath said in his heart, There is no God."
"On the third day of creation grass and trees were created, but it wasn't until the fourth day of creation that the sun and moon were created. That obviously does not agree with evolution theory."
Funny that you care to argue how this contradicts evolution. Why do you choose to hide the real consequences? Because this little "fact" does not contradicts evolution directly, only all known biology upon which evolution rests. It contradicts every known fact about the physiology of plants. It contradict physics.
But thank you, you just demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt why your kind of Christian fanatic must be publicly exposed, debunked and fought at every possible forum. You are not just a danger to innocent Kansas children, you are a danger to civilization. Left to your own you would ban all known science and happily lead us to a dark age of ignorance and fear...
If you want to be scientific, get your facts straight. Not all evangelicals are Young Earth Creationists. The opinion among Christians since at least Augustine is that the processes of the world evolve (so Augustine beat Darwin by more than a millenium). Creationism is a blip in modern America, not a position that the Christian church has ever officially taken as a doctrine.
It's a tough read, though, because Gould goes into excruciating detail about everything, and because it assumes a lot of knowledge in the field. Amazing book, though.
The cake is a pie
I haven't read it but would like to know if it is worth reading.
So cut the criticism about evolution and tell me if the book fairly presents the agendas and beliefs of the people that postulated evolution.
A person's beliefs and agenda can greatly determine the person's life's work.
Does it answer why they seemed driven to eliminate God from the physical world?
Did their theories lead to political systems (Socialism, Communism, Facism, Nazism) and the harm they did?
Please talk about the evidence they cited when formulating their theories, was it flawed, false or unreliable?
I do have one question: the reviewer says "Also, by the 1860s more was known about the fossil record than had been known in 1844, and it was becoming increasingly difficult to doubt that progression had occurred during geological time. Darwin was therefore able to draw on a more ample arsenal of scientific facts; indeed, he had made significant contributions to that arsenal himself." Huh? I don't think we can assume alot was accomplished between 1844 and 1860. Maybe maybe not.
Communications was not like today.
Findings took years to get published in the 19th century. No internet, no phones, beginnings of telegraphy, crude photography, very slow transportation, wars and conflicts made scientific collaboration and validation a very hard and long process.
Please don't say the evidence doesn't matter, IT DOES SO MATTER. It is the basis of the scientific method.
Supra et Ultra
1) Who/what the fuck made god?
Heh, ask this question, and you'll get uncomfortable feet-shuffling and red faces. Be prepared to be called a "realist".
>>>>truth; beauty; unix.<<<<
Nonsense. What we've found is that the rate of mutation is many order MORE than it needs to be, and that natural selection, if anything, actually seems to slow it DOWN.
Let's see:
1) An educational system that, since the 1970's at LEAST has developed a pervasive philosophy of social promotion, moral relativism, and anti-intellectualism*. Teachers compensated not against performance, but according to time served.
2) Schools that have so much corruption, kickbacks, and a positively Medieval fixed resistance to change that they look like Papa Doc's Haiti.
3) Dependence on rote learning, memorization, and 'teaching to the test'.
4) A culture that agrees that your average pro baseball player should make $45/minute ($2.3 mill/yr), and popular icons are Britney Spears and Justin Timberlake, but there's little money for consistent space exploration.
* if you disagree, you've never seriously tried to dispute a politically-correct position in a modern American university system. No matter the labels, it's NOT about 'discourse', it's dogma. It may be liberal dogma, but it's dogma nonetheless.
I'll be blunt: people who believe in creationism are ignorant. The American educational system is turning out ignorant graduates. Why is anyone surprised that as these people grow into adulthood they are easily led by charismatics touting infantile ideas?
-Styopa
But the fact of the matter is that no such proof exists, nor is there ever likely to be such proof That statement shows the bias that I'm talking about. If you have already decided something can't be proven, would you even recognize the proof if you found it?
I prefer blind faith over the blind leading the blind.
I see no credible evidence for god(s).
>>>>truth; beauty; unix.<<<<
There, its all there, nothing else has to be said you can go on to a different article now.
Why do think that an article dealing with a book about evolution needs to start a flame war at all? Articles dealing with books about physics don't start flame wars -- people interested in physics discuss the book and people ignorant of physics ignore the article. Why can't that be the case for evolution?
I mostly agree with you about Science as dogma - but I'm curious as to what this evidence for a creator might look like.
If you think about the world in the movie 'The Matrix' for example, what evidence could one use to prove that the orginal world is a computer simulation. It seems like you would need evidence outside the simulation, no?
Would you look for violations of physical laws? I don't think this would work because we can just modify our thinking on how the physical laws work to explain any observed deviations. When it comes down to it, the basic problem is that there is no reason a creator of the universe needs to violate the laws of his own creation.
My own personal view is that this evidence can only be obtained and interpreted by the individual. As a contrived example, suppose I am walking in a desert (where I can see for miles) and I come across a snake. Just as the snake strikes to bite my leg, a very small meteor falls out of the sky and kills the snake. Now based on the physical laws of the universe, there is nothing that technically prohibits such an event from happening. So from a scientific perspective it is not evidence of a creator. But from an individual perspective, it seems like a pretty wild combination of random events. A naturalist would probably tell themself "as time->infinity anything can happen" while a religious person would see this as further evidence of an intelligence at work in the universe.
Did you have any evidence in mind? If you can think of something, then you could use science to search for that evidence. I just can't think of anything that couldn't be doubted.
... rice, rice, gravy
"Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."
Don't worry, the day that you will see credible evidence is coming. No one will be able to deny it.
Compare and contrast the intellectual honesty Darwin showed in approaching objections to his theory this way with your own duplicity and/or ignorance in quoting him so ridiculously out of context. Doesn't look good for you.
"Fundamentalism" isn't about divine morality. It's about human authority.
There are some ugly points about the implications of Darwin's book (full title: "On The Origin of Species by Means of Natural Selection, or The Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life") which are not mentioned in this review. If you're going to examine Darwin and the results of his theory, you need to know things were not all rosy.
First, the horrific case of Ota Benga.
A well written summary of the dark side here. Look in that section for the bit about how Aborigines were targetted for extermination.
"Who will not fear, O Lord, and glorify your name?
For you alone are holy."
Revelation 15:4
The future is in intelligent design, baby.
:)
Intelligent design, eh?
Why didn't the designer make my jaw big enough to hold all my teeth including my wisdom teeth?
Why did the designer make it possible for me to choke on a piece of food?
Why are human eyes so much crappier compared to, for example, a squid's?
Why is our reproductive system such a kludge?
Why do we have a useless add-on to our digestive system (the appendix), which in some people ruptures and kills them?
I guess the designer is an idiot.
The study by the Grants has been widely misrepresented. Yes it showed through their early trips that the beak sizes changed; but it would seem you are unaware of the fact that when the weather patterns shifted back, nearly all the change reverted back to the previous level. So it is a cyclic, not an accumulating, phenomenon they observed. Of course the evolutionist journals choose not to admit this (like National Geographic).
"Every knee shall bow, every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord."
What happens on that day if the Lord turns out to be Odin the All-Father in the Halls of Asgard?
Boy will you feel foolish!
> Einsteins "religiosity" was far more about aesthetic
> sensibility than about doctrine. He is talking
> about a feeling of wonder, not about belief.
agreed - its not about 'belief in doctrine'.
einstein's views on religion (as can be seen by reading
his essay) was much profounder than mere dogma.
because of all the BS of dogma, people often throw out
any sense of 'religious wonder' out the window along
with it - einstein nicely deliniates between that
sort of religiosity and what he calls 'cosmic religious feeling'.
regards,
john
Percentage of believers is misleading; you may not recall but in the early 70's Ford ran ads about how "15 million people can't be wrong", selling the Pinto. That was just before it came out that they burst into flame when in a rear-end collision. So 15 million people were wrong. Arguing by numbers is persuasive to some, but it does not prove anything about your point.
Disease bacteria are interesting. Did you know that some corpses of arctic explorers were recently found (they died long before antibiotics came on the scene) with resistant bacteria in them? It's just normal variation, simple mutational effects. Anyway after the "evolution" what were they? Bacteria. Not poodles. Not yeast. Not even eukaryotes.
There is alot of evidence to support Creationism, and a good portion of it is scientific.
Such as?
It ranks up their with their tendency to characterize Hitler, and Naziism, as an athiest regime when in fact Hitler, and most of the Nazis, were devoutly Christian.
His references to God (playing dice) etc. were metaphorical, not literal, as anyone who has read any of Einstein's works can trivially observe.
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
"Here" is my comment was meant to refer to Brazil. Sorry for the ambiguity. On the other hand, I support all moderation to hide creationist trolls and I am also not aware of the existence of any other kind of creationist. Slashdot should not harbour archaic superstition, else the next thing we will be reading is that Windows is evil because Bill Gates astral map says so.
Please read my response that ponted to the same ambiguity in my comment.
In short, no, I don't care to read you book of all truth, nor will I study useless superstition posed as serious opposing views for your sake.
If you can't see how what you just posted contradicts all known science, alas, I am not your teacher, I am not your preacher, I am not responsible for you.
My position is pretty clear, I believe all creationist noise should be moderated down as trolls here (and I am not persecuting you alone, I also think references to astrology, Bach florals, and other superstitions should also have the same fate). You are just trying to disrupt a discussion about scientific books and issues with your useless nonsense. Hence, you are just common trolls disguised as defenders of a "truth" only you can see.
It's sad that you had that shit burned into your brain at such a young age.
The real point of my reply was to show that the evolutionist side should look within and evaluate if they are as guilty of "blind faith" as the creationist side is.
If you guys had been keeping up with the guru that
Cruise, Travolta, and a bunch of other well meaning
but hopelessly confused stars follow, you would know
that we evolved from CLAMS.
As you you will one day find out, once the planet
has been cleared of course, We evolved from clams.
No more insanity.
No more criminality,
No more war.
Darwin was wrong.
But no expermental correlation between mutations and an increase in genetic information has been made. Regardless of how fast mutations occur you still need to show that they increase information in the DNA.
BTW, if you do show such a correlation, reconition of your greatness would span the aeons...
Until then, Darwin's theory remains incomplete.
Good! I want to see a few miracles. Jesus must have a few wildcards up his sleave because he knows how hard it will be to convince everybody.
Making every single person in the world float 12 inches off the ground would be good to convince people he's not just screwing around. Ressurecting a few famous dead people for all to see would be good. Old ones, too, like Bach. Ressurect some dinosaurs. Yea.
I think you're a bit confused, if that's what you were really talking about. This is a rather ancient creationist claim, and indeed a rather silly one. An increase in variation is itself an increase in "information" content if one means unique sequences. But increasing "information" in terms of information theory is the result of selection: not of mutation itself.
Here you go
Science with all of it's claims of unbiased interpretation of the facts completely shuts down when it comes to the possible existence of a creator.
Scientists doesn't have anything to say one way or the other about a creator. Science doesn't care. The possibility of an intelligent creator is the domain of theology, not the physical sciences, until someone comes up with a way of objectively testing the existence of that creator. Until then, scientific principles don't have anything to say about it one way or the other.
Isn't it possible there are facts waiting to be found that prove the existence of a creator? Why are proponents of evoltuion so closed-minded to this possibility?
It's possible. However, theists have had centuries to come up with that evidence, and have failed to do so. Science is based on facts, not wishes. If objective irrefutable evidence of a creator is brought forward, then science will expand to encompass the fact of the existance of a creator. Until then, it's not closedminded to say that wishful thinking doesn't constitute objective irrefutable evidence.
Science is always open to remote possibilities. However, extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof, and when a claim is repeated over and over for years without any proof whatsoever, scientists tend to dismiss it in order to concentrate on things that actually have support.
Contrary to the belief of theists who want to pretend they're persecuted, science isn't out to get you. Science doesn't care about you one way or the other, except when you start insisting that mythological concepts be treated and taught as scientific fact.
There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Alas, the typical creationist is so ignorant of science - to say nothing of the history of science - that they think they can validate their beliefs by nitpicking at various aspects of the theory of evolution.> Before replying, consider that a "theory" is not some wild-assed notion that someone pulled out of their *ss. It's not conjecture or wild speculation.
The fact is, basic geology had already done irreparable damage to biblical literalism by the time Darwin set foot on Beagle. Creationists tend to combat the theory of evolution as if it were a rival religious sect in competition with their own for membership recruitment, when in fact it is merely an attempt to explain all the stuff we've discovered that the bible can't comfortably be stretched to cover anymore. The theory of evolution didn't displace creationism; it merely filled the void after creationism had already been shown to be contrafactual. Creationists are charging the wrong windmill.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Fnord.
Sorry, that should read 'Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence'.
My Karma: ran over your Dogma
StrawberryFrog
> 1) Where are all of the transitional fossils?
Nothing could better illustrate the fact that creationism is the "science" of ignorance. Creationists like to argue about missing fossils, but scientists like to try to explain the fossils we have.
Rather than asking about missing fossils, why don't you tell us how Genesis I explains all the fossils we do have.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
It was a phenomenon wherein environmental factors caused the differential reproductive success of organisms. That is the DEFINITION of natural selection. The fact that the environmental phenomenon (in this case El Nino) was cyclical is irrelevant, they have proven that the textbook definition of evolution by natural selection occurred. If you think that the cyclic nature of what they observed implies that it's not NS, you clearly don't understand NS very well.
Whoops, to be absolutely correct, let me ammed that to "differential reproductive success of individuals based on hereditable differences between them. My intro bio teacher would kill me if I left the bit about heredity out.
So you are one of the people that believe that a story should be modded down if you don't like it, regardless of the rules for moderation.
That means you're one of the people that makes the moderation suck, so it's funny you said you would agree.
He has far more than that planned. Just read Revelations or the Left Behind series. And you people will still not believe, until you see Him face to face.
I directly can't see the original post, but from replies it seems he's asserting that information/organized structures cannot arise through "random" processes.
Complete and utter BS as far as I'm concerned. With an energy/entropy source, like, say, the sun, involved, meaningful structures can and do arise given seemingly random injection of energy. It happens all of the time. Inevitably. All of the fluid/heat transfer transport laws, describing meaningful structures formed from boundary conditions and energy sources can be derived from statistical (read random) mechanics and irreversible thermodynamics. (Read Prigozhine).
Heat up fluid particles in a broad flat pan. Random energy to random particles from the bottom of the pan. Raileigh (sp) convection will result, with formation of hexagonal cells of fluid motion.
Perturb damn near any "equilibrium" system with random energy/entropy and the result is formation of a meaningful structure. Don't give me that BS...
I'm not confused (well, strictly speaking, I don't think I'm confused ;-). I'm not claiming that creationism is true. And finally, I'm not claiming that evolution is false.
I am claiming that we do not have experimental evidence that random mutations actually increase the information (complexity, variety, I'm not picky as to which word you put in there) found in a strand of DNA. Evolution could be true, creationism could be false, and I could be confused but let's keep those claims appart from the one I am making.
I read the link you provided and found it interesting but not a direct rebutal of my point. Section 1.2.2 (in the refutation half) talks about the occurance of mutations in genes when they are copied. It also mentions similarities among protein families. Absent is any mention of _experimental_ evidence linking transcribing errors (or any other mutations) with the creation of protein families from primordial proteins (or any other new information).
Again, if you could provide that experimental evidence, at least I would be amazed at your genius.
You're going to have to define information in a reasonable way before that can even be answered. Do you mean beneficial mutations? Those are commonplace. Do you mean just the creation of a different protein from the one originally coded for? Also commonplace. Do you mean mutations that just cause the increase in number of genes (information for sure) in the genome? Also commonplace, and usually fairly nasty. What exactly do you want to see experimental evidence for?
Since all proteins used in a living organism are coded for in their DNA (with the exception that embryos start out with a nice lunchbox packed by mom...which was also produced by transcribing DNA, and those acquired by taking them in from the environment...once again, coded for in somebody else's DNA), the only essential differences between proteins as far as mutations are concerned are the information used to code for them. Why would you think that the mutations to code for any particular protein or set of proteins couldn't occur?
The root of the question as far as I can see it is that you're claiming that certain types of information are "special" in some way that makes it hard for mutation to strike upon them. What evidence do you have for that? If you don't have any sort of evidence that the mechanism that creates new types of proteins out of old ones ISN'T capable of creating the proteins you have in mind, it's not parsimonious to assume that it can't.
I think the other poster answered your concerns fairly well, and I still think you're confused. The idea that transcription errors (which are only one means by which new genomes come to being) need to create information is sort of beside the point. I suppose they could, but that's simply not what evolution is talking about. "Information," insofar as we are talking about information theory, only really enters into the picture when selection pulls out certain slice of psuedo-random variation. Only then is some sort of filter (what's needed for information) applied.
"6) How do you counter the charge that modern Information Theory (IT) renders evolution all but impossible?"
Are you saying that IT workers show no advance in complexity compared to apes? Like the "moooove" guy on SNL?
That's not very nice, you know. Just because IT work doesn't really seem much more complex than eating a bananna (sir, is your computer plugged in?) is no reason to attack the central organizing principle of biology.
Most of which is much harder than getting the floppy disk out of the zip drive...
Why do men have nipples?
"Can you disprove that there is a God? Can you disprove Creationism?"
:)
No. All anyone can do is focus their understanding where the known facts clearly point.
Can you prove there is a God? Can you disprove evolution?
Thought not.
"Proudly Posting Without Reading The Article"
In a sense, once we modify our own "germ line" i.e. the genes of our gametes, then we are indeed experiencing Lamarckian evolution.
...aren't we? :)
I don't think the technology counts until it becomes part of our physical constitution. After all, we are discussing biological evolution, not cultural evolution.
- MFN
"Slow down, Cowboy! It has been 3 years, 7 months and 26 days since you last successfully posted a comment."
etymologically wrong, at the very least. Allah is a contraction of "al-ilah", which literally means "THE god". Actually, the wider point is something else - there had been a belief in a one god, evidence for which exists in what is known about the Hunafa'. It would appear that in pre-Islamic Mecca, there had, indeed, been a number of less significant deities, and a pantheon had arisen in the sense that many held these deities to be subordinate to this one god.
Nice try, though.
Science has done a great job of helping us discover God. It has helped us understand God in ourselves through psychology. It helps us relate to how other facets of God work in other people though sociology. It helps us relate to God in the physical world through physics, chemistry, and biology. It helps us relate to God in the metaphysical world through mathematics, logic, and philosophy.
Science has done a great deal to help us in discovering God. Science just hasn't called it that.
But perhaps that's just me, being too logical in my faith.
Word.
I do have this link to Behe saying that in his book he said that he wasn't a creationist and did not doubt common descent. (Common descent with modification is, of course, Darwin's theory of evolution.)
Just to clarify he then goes on to say that his belief is that, "evolution occurred, but was guided by God."
Does that suffice to establish that Behe believes that macroevolution happened?
PS A tip for online discussion. Going to lengths to declare your credentials is a bad idea. If you actually deserve those credentials it will be obvious fast enough anyways. And anyone can declare anything - making the declaration worthless. (In fact it has negative value - people see it as an admission that you are saying something that isn't very believable.)
That's pretty much what I was trying to say.
Sure, things don't look perfect, but there are some good reasons to this one.
1. I believe there is a reason for things like that. You could call it fate or destiny, but people are made with less than perfect eyesight to change how things happen. If we all could see better, less people would bump into things and get into car accidents. All those lead up to new events, and steer the world on its course. Personally I believe something, like God, made that all happen.
2. Things like appendixes may seem bad, but I get the feeling they're good in the long run. First, think of how it used to thin out the population, then later boosted money for medical research, and killed some bad people. What if there was a guy who would be the next Hitler, but died from appendicitis a month earlier? Let me give you a better example. The Titanic sank, killing nearly 2000. Since then, every ship has lifeboats and safety drills. Who knows how many lives were saved from those precautions, so the Titanic may have been a good thing.
3. Off the top of your head, it does look like the body could use improvements. I really don't think I could do a better job, could you? Think you could engineer a better kneecap? This isn't like the movie Bicentennial Man, we may never make artificial organs that can do better than the real thing, even if we altered DNA and grew cellular designs.
The point is that it's natural selection, which no rational person can argue against IMO. However natural selection is not macro-evolution, which is what was being alleged. It was simply variation within a kind. The parent post said that this variation was proof of macro-evolution, which is of course inaccurate.
A few years ago I spent a long time discussing creationism versus evolution online. After too much time spent I grew weary of it, and have ceased. One reason for my growing weary is that I like to see people's positions accurately represented, and knee-jerk responses from both sides of the aisle don't do that. When I finally had reached the point where I had seen the same arguments repeat so often that I was having trouble resisting the knee-jerk responses myself, I bowed out.
Incidentally which poster is the "initial poster" that you criticized? PineHall who pointed out that Behe sees intelligent design at the molecular level? Me as AC who pointed out that he accepts the general outline of evolution? ianscott who was the poster who annoyed you enough to respond? I am curious.
Another reason that I stopped actively pursing evolution vs creationism discussion is that creationists have a strong tendancy to start with a conclusion and then find arguments that support it, rather than to start looking for information about the world and then accept the conclusions that they come to. The result is that often you see major things ignored to get the desired conclusion. (I would that I had a nickel for every time I have seen a quote used to claim that some scientist or another didn't believe in evolution which, when seen in the original context, obviously meant the opposite of what was claimed...) After a certain point the game of figuring out what was missed or deliberately ignored comes to seem pointless.
For instance I haven't read the book that you recommend. Nor am I particularly interested. Instead I go to www.talkorigins.org and look for the first thing they have on the topic. If I was still interested in creationism versus evolution I would look to get your book, read it, read the criticism, and come up with my own critique of both. I would then try to simplify that and boil it down to a coherent opinion of my own that I could give to anyone who asks.
The problem is that having done that a few dozen times already I have pretty good reason to believe that I will find a few details on which the FAQ is unfair to Robert Gentry, but I will agree with the broad sweep of its criticism. And doing so will take me a lot of time, which I have more enjoyable ways to spend. So yeah, this is a pretty lazy way to dismiss your well-intended effort, but I have my eyes on a couple of books on programming and workplace productivity that look more interesting to me...
If you wish to discuss this further I won't be looking for this thread any more, but my email address encoded like yours is is 'moc.liamarepo' 'ta' 'yllit_neb'.
I don't think the technology counts until it becomes part of our physical constitution. After all, we are discussing biological evolution, not cultural evolution. ...aren't we? :)
Since the technology to modify our own "germ line" comes out of written memes, they seem to be linked