Slashdot Mirror
The Eye: Evolution versus Creationism
Sox2 writes "SciScoop is running a story about researchers in Germany who claim to have solved the "mystery" surrounding the evolution of the mamalian eye. The work, published in Science, goes some way to answering the issues raised in the "intelligent design" debate that has become the mainstay of creationist thinking."
The article is essentially saying 'we found the smoking gun'; that light-sensitive cells originated within the brain, and migrated slowly outwards to form eyes. Ergo, the famous Darwin reasoning 'any form of eye is an evolutionary advantage, and therefore given even a truly-awful eye you would expect it to develop over time into something useful' is at least plausible. Evolution at work within a large-enough population.
I remember reading in 'PCW' back when I was at school (20 years or so ago
Simon
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Just some food for thought.
What is this "Creationism" program? And will it run on Linux?
BTW, I am not sure that evolution is incompatible with the idea of "intelligent design" as long as one is careful about defining intelligent design....
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It's that creationism arguments will evolve as well
And don't you think that the same can be said the other way around as well? The point is that humans are opinionated creatures. Anyone telling someone 'You beliefs are wrong' is going to be met with a cold stare. Even the scientific community is no exception. Tell someone 'Einstein was wrong' and you would probably get beaten badly even before you say a word about evidence. This is how things are. It takes a lot of courage to accept something contrary to you belief. Think about it.
Here's the mirror
Nobody has a problem with intelligent design as a philosophy or religion.
The problem is that's it's faith, i.e. you just believe it with no basis in provable (or testable) fact. It's the same as believing the Bible, just a little more rational because there's nothing that proves it's not true.
The problem is when people try to masquerade it as science. "I don't understand how this can happen, ergo 'God' did it." is not science, it's faith.
The article is an interesting report about a new biological discovery which provides evidence of the evolution of the eye. However, creationism is not mentioned at all; looks to me as if the submitter is trying to start an argument for no reason.
-Stephen
Creationists often point to the human eye as something so perfect that only a divine being could have planned it. However, the human eye is far from perfect. The detached retina model is a serious flaw which can oftentimes lead to total vision loss. Other animals, such as squid, have a significantly more advanced model completely impervious to these problems.
If the human eye is evidence of creationism then it can only be evidence of a flawed creator.
Go look at what has happened to education in public schools in the past 10 years and get back to me.
I have nothing against organized religion.
I do have something against organized religion preaching in direct contradiction to accepted science, while providing no evidence to the contrary, other then "its in this book, so you cant teach the obvious, accepted science."
no
This is the typical 'reasoning' that creationists use to justify their attacks on evolution. The problems comes in places like Delaware, where people actually believe this line of reasoning. It comes from a terrible lack of real science education in this country. You don't see this sort of nonsense in Europe or the more develped countries in Asia, where they have better education systems.
'Loose' is when your pants are three sizes too big. 'Lose' is when you misuse 'loose'.
But there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful. The same arguments can be made about this work, or anything done with molecular fingerprinting. (or any other technique, for that matter.)
Wearing the right blinders, it will be obvious that your road is the only correct one, and that all else is distractions. There are those who will make the same assertion against scientists, claiming that there are "science blinders" that restrict their vision. While I won't disagree that there are scientists who wear blinders, I would argue that the basic premise of science is to remove the blinders. The facts will guide you, and a scientist is always supposed to be ready to modify or discard a theory if disproven by facts.
I spent a little time with google and "neocon" (and a few other terms, some independent of "neocon") this weekend, and came to an interesting conclusion: Neocon philosophy is *never* wrong. Any mistakes happen because the philosophy was not put into practice vigorously enough. In other words, they compromised too much, and if they'd been sufficiently uncompromising they would have succeeded. Rather a disturbing world view, IMHO. Of course, this is the result of an hour or so on the Web, and my view can be modified by facts.
The living have better things to do than to continue hating the dead.
It's what made me go from agnostic to atheist. We just use the concept of God whenever we reach personal limits. Time and time again we use God to explain things and we're proven wrong. Me becoming an atheist came after seeing one too many arguments in favor of the God is a coping mecanism rather than truth.
Ahh... natural selection at work...
The creationism website has been slashdotted.
That's all the proof *I* needed! Go Darwin!
MC Hawkins says:
Fuck The Creationists
Trash Talk
Ah yeah, here we go again!
Damn! This is some funky shit that I be laying down on your ass.
This one goes out to all my homey's working in the field of
evolutionary science.
Check it!
Verse 1
Fuck the damn creationists, those bunch of dumb-ass bitches,
every time I think of them my trigger finger itches.
They want to have their bullshit, taught in public class,
Stephen J. Gould should put his foot right up their ass.
Noah and his ark, Adam and his Eve,
straight up fairy stories even children don't believe.
I'm not saying there's no god, that's not for me to say,
all I'm saying is the Earth was not made in a day.
Chorus
Fuck, fuck, fuck,
fuck the Creationists.
Trash Talk
Break it down.
Ah damn, this is a funky jam!
I'm about ready to kick this bitch back in.
Check it.
Verse 2
Fuck the damn creationists I say it with authority,
because kicking their punk asses be me paramount priority.
Them wack-ass bitches say, "evolution's just a theory",
they best step off, them brainless fools, I'll give them cause to fear me.
The cosmos is expanding every second, every day,
but their minds are shrinking as they close their eyes and pray.
They call their bullshit science like the word could give them cred,
if them bitches be scientists then cap me in the head.
Chorus
Trash Talk
Bass!
Bring that shit in!
Ah yeah, that's right, fuck them all motherfuckers.
Fucking punk ass creationists trying to set scientific thought back 400 years.
Fuck that!
If them superstitious motherfuckers want to have that kind of party,
I'm going to put my dick in the mashed potatoes.
Fucking creationists.
Fuck them.
Creationists are a lot like zombies. Slow, but powerful and numerous. And they all want to eat our brains.
Concrete and conclusive are different words. Scientists have long surmised (since Darwin himself, in fact) that the eye evolved from a very crude light-dark sensor by way of various kinds of primitive eye. Now we actually see common chemistry between an existing primitive light-dark sensor and the vertebrate eye. This provides concrete (ie real) evidence to support this view. It is not conclusive (the same chemistry could conceivably have evolved independently), but they don't say it is.
It's kind of like science proving that God is not real. The effort is meant to fail because science cannot deal with God because it isn't designed to. On the other side, religion cannot, for the most part, deal with science because religion rests on a premise of faith which is by definition, unprovable belief.
When both sides are not even supposed to have common ground on which to argue, the creationist/evolutionist debate is a non-sequitur on both sides.
Both sides in this Evolution v Creationism flamefest have it totally wrong.
The creationists are wrong because they misunderstand their own religion. The key factor in religion is faith. It is not necessary to prove that God exists. In fact, that's missing the entire point. A true religious person will take the existence of God on faith, and will neither need nor desire to prove His existence.
The evolutionists are wrong because there is no reason to try to prove that creationists are wrong. Doing all of this work just to show that somebody's imaginary friend didn't create life seems a bit strange.
Mod down posts with a "Free Mac Mini/iPod" sig, they're spam!
I'm sure someone will correct me if I'm wrong ... but I learnt somewhere that not only are octopus eyes as complex as human eyes they are actually better "designed" since they do not have blind spots. I've always thought that was as compelling argument as any against creationism. God may think you're the bees knees, but he gave the good eyes to the celaphopods...
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But there are those who insist that the Earth was created "with age" 6000 years ago, and that fossils, etc, are a diversionary trap for the unfaithful.
Of course, this could be true. It could also be true that the universe was created last Thursday and that all appearances of age, including fossils memories, are simply manufactured. The problem with this view (Omphalism) is that it's unfalsifiable. There is no observable consequence to distinguish a universe that's actually old from one that simply has the appearance of age or even from a universe even older than our estimates that's been altered to look young for that matter. And even if we could somehow be sure that the universe was created with the appearance of age, then it simply doesn't tell us anything new. The supposition doesn't help us explain or predict any new observations.I recommend this site: http://vuletic.com/hume/cefec/ It has a bunch of commonly used creationist arguments and rebuttals to them.
Vivin Suresh Paliath
http://vivin.net
I like
Since the "God planned it all along" argument is non-falsifiable, those promoting it will never have reason to abandon it.
Non-falsifiability means that it's useless from a scientific point of view. A useful scientific theory must make predictions; if those predictions turn out to be wrong, then you discard the theory. You almost never know anything 100% certainly in science, but falsifiability lets you know 100% for certain when something is wrong. Lack of falsifiability means that it makes no predictions and is therefore useless. I can assume that it's true, or that it's false, but that doesn't change what I expect to happen in the world.
Intelligent design arguments are not necessarily non-falsifiable. They predict the existence of features which could not have evolved. The eye was one such feature, but this discovery tends to refute that. There are others, such as mitochondria, which are basically a challenge to evolutionary theory that says, "Show me how that could have evolved".
(Not to mention that God himself could, someday, speak from the sky, cause plagues of locusts, and generally prove his existence in the scientific sense. His reasons for not doing so remain obscure to me, but then, by definition they would.)
Personally, I believe that if there were an intelligent designer we wouldn't have to search so hard for evidence. An intelligent designer had many, many options; if we're not descended from ape-like species, then it was unnecessarily parsimonious of that designer to make us so extraordinarily similar, down the the levels of individual bones and individual nucleic acids. Those pieces of evidence that claim to falsify evolution are few and far between and it generally seems possible to find the refutations for them, given time either to piece out the genetics or the necessarily gap-ridden fossil record.
But that won't change the minds of anybody who believes a non-falsifiable theory in the first place. They don't place the same priority that I do on predictive powers of theories. They're more interested in the moral implications, and will disregard any theory that denies their morality, no matter how much closer it comes to "truth" in the scientific sense. It's just not something they care about.
It's not my cup of tea, and of course I'm upset when they try to force on me a version of truth that I can prove is wrong (using a version of "proof" that they don't accept but which has proven very useful for developing things like toaster ovens and rocket ships). Especially when that version of truth contradicts my moral beliefs. But without even a single point of overlap between us there appears to be no rational place to resolve that. It must be an article of faith. If you wish your faith to contradict perceived reaility, or to make no statements whatever about perceived reality, then I will certainly outcompete you in the building of toaster-ovens and rocket ships, but that may not matter.
It's all OK until:
- Someone else's religious beliefs get in the way of teaching my kids proper science.
- Someone else's beliefs mean my taxes are spent on quack treatments such as homeopathy and therapeutic touch instead of stuff that actually works.
- Someone else's beliefs prevent me from conceiving a child, or choosing not to conceive a child.
- Someone else's beliefs are used to determine funding for the scientific and medical research that may one day save my life.
- Someone else's beliefs are prominent in the election of the leader of the world's most powerful economic and military force.
At this point, someone else's beliefs very concretely become my concern, and I reserve my right to disagree with them and oppose them if necessary.
Sean Ellis
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Of course, this could be true. It could also be true that the universe was created last Thursday
Oh, great! It had to be a Thursday! I never could quite get the hang of Thursdays.
Sure, but you get a different common ancestor depending on what gene cluster you pick, which is to be expected.
It is an easy thing to misunderstand genetics and think that, say, Mitochondrial Eve could have been Eve of the Bible, but thinking so would betray a lack of understanding about what these mathematical common ancestors mean.
Mathematically you can back-calculate that since you have two parents, and 4 grandparents and so on, that pretty soon you'd outnumber the past population, meaning everyone is inter-related. Picking different genes you can find out how long ago the common ancestor for that gene was, but it does not tell you that the common ancestor was the only human at that time.
You and your siblings share common ancestry through your parents, but there are plenty of the rest of us around.
Oh, and take another look at the Tasmania example at the end of the article.
Please alter my pants as fashion dictates.
It seems like an aweful lot of people on here have a really low view of creationists. Many people are assuming that all Christian creationists believe that God created the world in 7 days, 10000 years ago. That's just as ignorant and uninformed as saying that all geeks are fat or all black Americans eat fried chicken. Almost all mainsteam Christian groups believe that the whole "7 days" thing is a metaphor. Only a small percentage of people take it to be literal.
Actually, the paper says that their mathematical model suggest that everyone alive today SHARES A SINGLE ANCESTOR who lived about 3500 years ago. Not that he's our only ancestor from that time.
If X is the new Y, and Y is "X is the new Y", solve for X.
Had it ever occured to you that the reason cephalopods have better eyes is that Cthulhu created the earth?
The scriptures are ambigious in many areas. It is not the place of a man to fill in the details with opinion. Did Judas hang himself, or did he jump over a cliff? Depends on which Gospel you consult. Did Christ point to the crowds or the Scribes in his famous "you brood of vipers" line? Depends on which Gospel you consult. What were Christ's last words? Considering that none of the Apostles were there, whatever is recorded in the Gospel is a secondhand telling. And even there, it depends on which Gospel you consult.
Ambiguity is just something you have to get used to folks. Fundimentalism, or even a strict interpretation of the scripture, isn't even supported by scripture.
"All scripture (is) given by inspiration of God, and (is) profitable for doctrine, for reproof, for correction, for instruction in righteousness." 2 Timothy, 3:16
You can't quote a single passage of the Bible, without considering what other passages might have to say.
Nowhere in the Bible does it state that the Universe started on any particular day. Nor does it state how man was created, save that God formed us from Dust. Exactly what is meant by that? Was it literally from dirt molecules? Or figuratively, say from a more lowely form of life? Are we reading what the ancient Hebrews understood, or merely the best translation into the written word that their language allowed.
I'm ranting, but I definetly agree with you on all points.
--Sean
"Learning is not compulsory... neither is survival."
--Dr.W.Edwards Deming
The fucking sorry state of America is such that religious morons think that they can invade every aspect of society with "religion", including scientific thinking.
It is such a fucking sorry state that one must argue evolution *all over again*, because morons refuse hard evidence. We are back in the middle ages, when someone takes the Bible literally.
What a drawback. Would this be the beginning of the end for the great U.S., a nation that thrived on independent thinking and scientific investigations brought on by the great influx of immigrant brains post WW-II? I guess so...
What developed the West, what set it apart from the rest, was *science*, not religion.
In that respect, religious rednecks are very much like the fundamentalist muslims they fear and loathe so much.
You seem to have a misperception of scientists' motives. If there was concrete evidence of God creating the universe, that evidence would be used by scientists to better understand reality. You're confusing science with atheism. BTW, scientists have a tendency toward agnosticism, not atheism.
I find it frustrating that religious people (which by your post I suppose you are one, that or badly misinformed about science) think that because they base their worldview on faith, that everyone else does as well. Some of us are perfectly happy admitting that there are things which we do not yet know, and striving to find out in due time.
Your statement is also ironic, seeing that science is constantly challenged/attacked by the religious, who refuse to accept things because they are worried about implications for their beliefs.
To really consider the relation between the science and religion, there's some homework to do. Philosophically speaking, God can not be proved nor disproved. David Hume showed that all proofs of God beg the question of God's existence. That means they're circular proofs; they prove nothing. Similarly, when you're discussing a being/force which can by definition "do anything", it's child's play to refute any assertion based on faith; if someone says that God doesn't exist because of observation X, the retort is that God wants it that way, and is hiding.
If religious people want 100% of the population to believe in God, I have two suggestions: 1) Stop trying to assert that science is untrue on the basis of your personal beliefs. 2) Stop using your social identity as an excuse to do things which are clearly prohibited in your own code of conduct.
This still leaves the religious more "wiggle room" than I would like; but I think we can agree that we'd all get along better if we are considerate of each other's beliefs. And frankly, I have as much right to believe that physical reality has no cause but itself as others do to believe that physical reality must have a cause other than itself because nothing causes itself, therefore it's cause must be God, which has no cause because God has no cause but itself.
When Galileo concluded that the earth must go around the sun, it wasn't because he wanted to disprove God or destroy religion; it was because he observed reality. Galileo didn't attack the church; the church attacked Galileo. When Darwin published the Origin of the species, it wasn't his way of casting doubt on God or religion; it was his theory as to why animals are the way they are. Again, Darwin didn't attack the church, the church attacked Darwin.
What bothers me more than anything is that people who use faith to explain everything seem to have the least understanding of the nature of the spirit and the debate which they wish to participate in. Religion's value is in its charge to its followers to do the RIGHT thing. To help the weak and poor. To repay a wrong with a right. To love and forgive instead of hating and avenging. Religion also has speculative answers to questions which once were considered unanswerable. Now that some of those answers are proving to be *ahem* inexact, *certain* people are very upset. Instead of keeping their cool, they attack the messenger, and everyone who doesn't agree with them. The US is very backward, philosophically, in many places, and this is perpetuated by conservatives for political reasons. Liberals don't want to take your religion away people... we just want the same freedom you take for granted; to believe as we will and live as we choose. Evangelists have missed something here; that their right to swing their fist stops at my nose. You don't want schools teaching that God doesn't exist.. well guess what, they don't address that issue at all. We don't want *you* forcing us to live your lifestyle. You think you're "saving" people. But if atheists were to go around "saving" people from
"A witty saying proves nothing." ~Voltaire
"d'Oh!" ~Homer
I'm an atheist, and I don't think they are compatible. The main problem with the compatibilist attitude is this: evolution is a blind, mechanical process. There's no need for an agent like a god to do anything; evolution just happens on its own! It doesn't need a god to mutate genes, or put pressure on prey to see their predators better, or urge the lions to catch the slow gazelles, etc. Saying "god did it that way", is to arbitrarily stick a god in the background, where he somehow "endorses" the process of evolution..but there's nothing to do there (besides give believers their security, presumably). In just the same way, you don't need to postulate a shoelace gnome who keeps everybody's shoelaces tied (but uses the mechanism of friction to do it).
You have to look at the motivation of people like the pope when they say these things. They're smart enough to realize that evolution is an incontrovertible fact, but they don't want to give up their religion. So what else are they going to say?
The thing in the box has no place in the language-game at all; not even as a something; for the box might even be empty.