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Evolution Named Scientific Achievement of 2005
lazy_hp writes "The BBC reports that research into evolution's inner working has been named rtop science achievement of 2005 From the article: 'The prestigious US journal Science publishes its top 10 list of major endeavours at the end of each year. The number one spot was awarded jointly to several studies that illuminated the intricate workings of evolution. The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.'"
The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.
The court did not ban the teaching of the ID, it ruled that the teachers
cannot be forced to do that.
I'm afraid I can't point you directly to any research, but the general idea is that we can predict with some accuracy how a species will adapt to a chance in its environment. It is also something we have witnessed on a limited scale in real-time. One example is moth coloration in response to air pollution. We have actually witnessed and documented phenomena such as this, which demonstrate evolution via natural selection happens on a pretty regular basis, even now. Here is a (very brief) link, with discussion of the moth phenomenon: http://anthro.palomar.edu/evolve/evolve_2.htm
Check out my world simulator thingy.
As a liberal Christian, I have a certain passionate hatred for creationism. I despise creationism because it makes Christians look like a bunch of narrow-minded idiots. For example, I was reading in a Christian newspaper an article about the ICR, which stated the earth was young, and cited four reasons for this. All four reasons [1] have been long-since refuted over at Talkorigins.org or the Evolution Wiki. I was able to refute three of the four points off of the top of my head.
I have seen creationist after creationist come to this Creation-Evolution debate board I lurk on, tell us the Earth must be young because of XXX and that we are all wrong. Once we present to them some scientific evidence that the Earth is old, they get real quiet real fast.
Basically, believing in an old Earth is only possible when a creationist is in a serious state of denial. Case in point: The only people who believe in a young Earth have a religious reason for doing so. Many Christians believe in an old Earth; not one atheist believes in a young Earth.
[1] The original offending article can be seen here. The refutations can be found here (just because you can come up with one case where we got different dates doesn't mean the 99+% of cases where we get the same age via different techniques is invalid) here, here, and here (the refutation is for creationist claims for c14 levels in coals, but the process in question can make diamonds have c14 atoms also).
In this context:
predictable is a result that could be predicted
predictive is a theory that makes predictions
One is a characteristic of a result, the other is a characteristic of a theory.
The problem is really that most people don't really understand what ID is. When it comes to the issue of the origin of life, it is very difficult for people to remove their emotions from their rational process. Those that don't believe in God will look at intellegent design as something that they already know to be false and those that DO believe in God will look at Neo-Darwinism as something THEY know to be false. Thus it happens that neither can understand the other side's argument.
It is important to understand that ID and the theory of Evolution do not disagree per se. It is ID and Neo-Darwinism that disagree. There are two important issues to be looked at when attempting to discover the origin of life:
(1) the specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view, ie natural selection etc.
(2) The "big picture" of how the planet is full of human beings now where it was once only a molten planet.
When it comes to the first issue, ID does not disagree with Neo-Darwinism. Natural selection is not disputed. The fact that there are mutations that often result in new speicies is not disputed. These are the scientific phenomena that were the steps taken to get us to where we are now.
It is the second point where Neo-Dawinists and Intellegent Design proponents disagree. Neo-Darwinists think that the mainspring of evolution is natural selection acting on random genetic variation. In otherwords, it was an unplanned, unguided and random process.
Intellegent design simply states that the state of life on Earth is far to complex to be attributed to a random process. The fact that life has evolved to its current state and is flourishing is a statistical anomoly. Intellegent design states that the complexity of existence cannot be explained by simple chance, and that there must be a "prime mover" that is guiding the processes of evolution and natural selection.
The fact is, the second issue (which is the most commonly debated it seems here on slashdot) is more philisophical than scientific. For those that really want to understand the other side (I know that many cannot, for their bigotry overwhelms their intellectual hunger) I would suggest that you read this article. It is a treatise written by a prominent Christian thinker about the origin of life.
Many of you may have guessed by this point that I agree with ID. However, please do not mistake my intent. I am not trying to CONVINCE anyone of anything. I merely want people to be CLEAR on what ID really is. It is important when discussing such a charged topic as the origin of life for there to be clarity as to what each side REALLY believes.
Yes there is. The more intellegent people are, the less likely they are to be religious. Pointers to plenty of studies that show this can be found here. The fact that there are indeed famous intelligent and religious people is not a proof of the contrary (as any intelligent person will know :-).
Besides, when refering to people like Da Vinci, one has to take into account the society that they lived in and the corresponding education that they recieved.
Linux user since early January 1992.
You seem hung up on the term "random".
The "randomness" could very well be introduced by normal physical means (such as radiation from Sun altering molecules within cell, which we know does happen). The use of the word "random" merely means that the causative effect is so minute and detailed that without tracking every single particle in the Universe, we can think of it as "random" from our macro point of view.
Now there is the issue of randomness within quantum mechanics, but I assume you are also arguing that our understanding of QM is wildly incorrect also.
Judge John Jones disagres. A direct quote from his 139 page ruling:
ID is all about religion. It was made by the religious, for the religious and to be religious. Any debate about ID is a debate about religion. This fact is unescapable.
There is a problem with evolution, in that darwinian THEORY cannot explain where life came from, only how it continued to change.... I mean how could DNA or the process of cell division 'evolve' if evolution itself requires cells to divide and carry on it's genetic blueprint.
Evolution, when combined with other disiplines, can explain every facet of evolution. It's all in the numbers. the sheer amount of oppertunies for mutation, combined with natural selection, ensure that processes are constantly being refined and streamlined for their enviornment.
And yes this process is completely random. That is in fact its primary strength. Through random mutations, organisims have a higher chance of adapting to any changes in their ecosystem, no matter how it changes.
May the Maths Be with you!
Did you even read the articles? I highly recommend them - very accessible and good reads. And, BTW, a third of the main 'evolution in action' article is dedicated to HapMap. They make an excellent case for how evolutionary science has had some really big discoveries this year. ID only gets mentioned once, in the weekly editorial. But with things like the comparison between the chimp and human genome and observations of speciation without geographical barriers, it's clear that this wasn't simply a political decision (although it might certainly of played a role). Check it out - it's all accessible without a subscription.
Seriously, how can you deny that some intelligent being had a hand in the creation of the universe at some point in time? The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
The intelligent being had to come from somewhere too, until you explain that, you've explained nothing. ID is a fundamentally question begging answer.
If intelligence can "just exist" then why can't we "just exist" without a creator?
If an intelligence needs a creator, where did the first creator come from, or is it just turtles all the way down?
Give me Classic Slashdot or give me death!
I don't think this is true or I did not understand your meaning. For example:
I would appreciate you expanding your thought here how ID would make the exact same predictions as evolution.
That's great, and all, and I agree with you. The problem is that the people pushing ID and creationism don't accept what the pope has to say. Most of them don't even believe Catholics are Christian.
Sit, Ubuntu, sit. Good dog.
What exactly is your definition of the word random?
An event that is too complex to be described as fact by finite human beings; that must be described in terms of probability because we don't want to or can't do the work neccessary to make it predictible. Thus, anything steming from a random event is by definition not predictable; thus evolution and ID are scientifically equivalent depending on the set of arbitrary rules you use to define science.
SJW: a person who perceives an injustice, and while correcting it, commits a greater injustice.
This is true of evolution as well, and in fact evolutionary theory is constantly being tweaked, like all other scientific theories.
Please also note that it is often unclear whether it's the theory that is problematic or whether it's the experiment (see cold fusion for a notorious example).
You mean, like being taught old and outdated Newtonian mechanics? I mean really, that junk was disproven a century ago.
Some questions for Intelligent Design:
1. What is the scientific theory of intelligent design (ID)?
2. What evidence supports ID and not a competing theory?
3. What predictions does ID make?
4. How might ID be falsified?
The IDers have had since 1987 (when "intelligent design" was first used as a drop-in replacement for "creation science") to come up with answers for these questions and they've failed to not only make any headway, they've failed to even attempt to answer them. So you'll excuse me and fellow research scientists in biological fields for writing them off as a bunch of charlatans after waiting 18 years for them to get off their asses and actually do some research, or maybe, I dunno, formulate a scientific hypothesis in the first place? BTW, theory in science means more than halfassed guess, and putting the term in allcaps is an indication that you don't know this.
But wait, I've got some more questions for you:
5. Why does ID go directly to the courts and political process to try and get their idea accepted, instead of, doing some actual research?
6. If ID is not an entirely religious objection to established science, then can you explain The Wedge Document?
7. Explain why the Discovery Institute is funded largely by Howard Ahmanson, a person who also funds relgious extremists such as the Chalcedon Foundation, which has the express aim of turning the US into a theocracy?
8. Why is it that prominent proponents of ID frequently speak in churches, just like proponents of creation science?
9. Why was the Dover school board defended by the Thomas Moore Law Center, which is "...a not-for-profit public interest law firm dedicated to the defense and promotion of the religious freedom of Christians, time-honored family values, and the sanctity of human life. Our purpose is to be the sword and shield for people of faith, providing legal representation without charge to defend and protect Christians and their religious beliefs in the public square." (from their own website) if ID is not religious?
10. Why was it that "Of Pandas and People," the ID textbook that was a major focus in Dover, written by creationists?
11. Why would Bill Dembski say "Intelligent design is just the Logos theology of John's Gospel restated in the idiom of information theory," (quoted from wikipedia, refering to Touchstone Magazine. Volume 12, Issue4. July/August, 1999)?
12. Why would Touchstone Magazine, a "Journal of Mere Christianity", devote an entire issue to supporting ID?
Or maybe ID really is just a religiously-motivated argument from ignorance like all of us biological scientists think?
Most of the Slashdot discussion on this story I've read is about Intelligent Design and religion. Indeed, if you say "hostility to the implications of evolution," most people will assume you're thinking of religious-based opposition.
But some of the work acclaimed in the Science article is eventually going to horrify a large community of believers for a completely different reason.
You can read a well-written summary of the situation here.
It really isn't the job of the state or of the scientific community to prop up untenable beliefs, nor is it their job to insert the Designer into holes in a theory real and imagined.
What Behe and his ilk want is no different than having a cancer researcher say "we can't be sure why these types of tumors metastasize, so it's quite possible that demons have some part in it".
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
Einstein was not "very religious", he was agnostic. From Autobiographical Notes (bolding mine)*:
You can find the above quote, along with many others pointing firmly in the same direction, at http://www.stephenjaygould.org/ctrl/quotes_einsteAs for your assertion about the lack of correlation between intelligence and religion, most studies point to a negative correlation:
Wrong. Just because someone presents an alternate conjecture about the accuracy of a scientific principle does not mean that said conjecture is automatically on the same level of legitimacy as whichever principle one seeks to disprove. If that were the case, I could argue that computers run on magic, and then protest when my theory of devine computation was not taught in computer science classes. The antecedents of ID are undoubtedly religious in nature; ergo, the conclusions postulated by ID proponents are derived from sources known to be false, or at the very least untestable. I said "effectively trampled on", because ID was rejected for being unscientific in this particular case.
ID, not being a scientific hypothesis, will *always* be rejected by legitimate scientists, due to the fact that it:
That is the fault of the defense, and I can't actually fault the judge on that count, from what I've heard at least. However, if ID ever gets a decent legal and scientific team on its side, we should make some headway.
While what you say is probably true, I find the truth of the statement to be a sad reflection on public education, and the gullibility of American Christians. Allow me to be blunt-- ID is not science, and no amount of legal or psuedo-scientific doublespeak will make it so. Science is a process wherein the natural laws governing the universe are explored, tested, pulled, stretched, and examined. A key aspect of scientific study is impartiality; which is to say that a true scientist will not endorse any particular outcome to an experiment until that experiment has been performed and tested by many independant researchers. ID differs from science in that the key promoters of its hypothesis begin with their own surity of their ideas, and then disregard conflicting facts.
Literal Creationism has at least four main tenets: - the earth is young, probably around 6000 years old - God created all "kinds" of animals within 6 evening-morning days (fish vs. birds vs. land mammals vs. humans, etc.) - the earth was devastated by a global flood early in its history - all humans descended from a single couple known in the English Bible as Adam and Eve
Allow me to rebut:
The Earth is not young. Carbon dating, fossil records, geology, atomic theory, astronomy, and many other scientific disciplines have all independantly dated the earth at more than four billion years old.
If God did create the world, and all the things in it, in six days, then how were days reckoned before the creation of the sun?
If God created all the animals, why were so many of them such complete failures as to become extinct?
If all humans are descended from Adam and Eve, then why the biblical prohibition on incest? And, furthermore, I am not a genetic researcher, but I'm fairly certain that thousands of generations of familial in-breeding would result in a rather, shall we say, shallow gene pool.
If it could be shown that any one of these propositions does not hold, then Biblical creationism would crumble. The fact that they are extraordinarily difficult to challenge certainly does not mean that creationism is not a scientific theory. Furthermore, all of the evidence we have ever uncovered and understand quite we
Ok, repeat after me: Mutation means nothing. It is an insignifigant force that basically means Jack to evolution. Mutations usually die off, and rarely get to reproduce.
Variance and selection explain a lot of how species change. Why a species of moths may change color over time, or a species of birds gradually get a longer beak. It doesn't explain very well how new species suddenly come about, hence the reason the anti-evolution crowd likes to point out the "gaps" in the fossil record. The gaps are where a species will suddenly appear in the fossil record, which is determined to have derived from an earlier species, yet there are no transitory fossils to be found that are part old species, part new species. You need mutations to bridge this gap (well, unless you believe in the "intelligent design" arguement).
Of course, you are right about most mutations being bad and dying off. But if 99.99% of mutations die off, and there is only a 0.00001% chance of an actual beneficial mutation - just give it a few million generations, it will quite likely happen.
Actually thank the bible for that one.
The bible states numerous times that the earth is "firm" and "immovable". Therefore it cannot be a sphere orbiting the sun now can it?
Also the bible references "earths four corners" something that's only possible if the earth was flat, and Daniel 4:10-11 references a tall tree that is visible to the farthest reaches of the earth. Also only possible if the earth was flat.
So if you take the bible literally, then you must believe in a flat earth.
Tesla was a genius. Edison however was a overrated hack who liked to torture puppies.
The government can maintain neutrality in one of two ways: either teach every single religious faith that is or has ever been held by any group of people, or teach none of them at all. Given that the former would require a standard education to take about nine hundred years, there really only seems to be one viable approach.
Remember, that neutrality for which you ask means that the pink bunny in your head doesn't get treated any differently than the green bunny in the head of some splinter Incan sect.
Uh, theistic creationism doesn't "account for" anything. It simply pushes all the questions off onto a scapegoat which it then completely declines to explain. Did you maybe miss the part where the Bible starts off with two completely different and mutually exclusive stories of creation? The seven-days story and the garden-of-eden story are both very specific about the order in which events happened, and they are not compatible.If the Bible cannot even be reconciled with itself, how can you possibly expect it to be taken seriously as a reference on anything else?
The bible is a lovely collection of folk stories. And I'm grateful to R for putting it together, but in about the same way that I'm grateful to the Brothers Grimm. I don't think either work is particularly well suited to a science classroom.
The problem with the latter is that then *insert favourite diety* must have deliberately placed dinasaur bones everywhere, put mountains there that have clearly been eroded over a much longer time and to top it off put it in a galaxy that has been there for, er, slightly longer than 6000 years.
;-)
I'm not suggesting that dinosaur bones were "placed" everywhere, nor that already-eroded mountains were created; rather that dinosaurs were still alive as recently as 2,000 B.C. and those mountains eroded a lot faster than you think. I don't expect you to agree, I just want to make sure you understand what we disagree on.
Being able to see stars over 6,000 light years away is a much bigger problem for the Creation theory, and although I've heard several explanations, none of them are particularly satisfactory. The Bible does say that God created light before God created the stars, but that's still kinda weird.
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