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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.'"
Common sense.
I'll form my OWN solar system! With blackjack! And hookers!
Nominated for 2006, GRAVITY!!!!
-- There are 10 kinds of people in the world, those who understand binary and those who don't.
Gravity to be named the top scientific achievment of 2006. Expect the contest for 2007 to be between the invention of Algebra and the discovery of atoms.
Not that I support Intelligent Design (I think it's hokum, personally), but I can't help thinking this decision is politically-motivated. Doesn't mean it's not deserved, but it sure is convenient, coming on the heels of the ID court decision.
Aw, what do I know?
Check out my world simulator thingy.
I thought the mail client Evolution was named "Scientific Achievement", until I got past the headline...
How about you guys just keep to your beliefs and stop trying to change ours? We don't need or want your "message" - so keep it to yourself like most other religions do. If we are interested in Christianity we will ask you about it.
And, hello -- how about the HapMap?
What I'm listening to now on Pandora...
For example,"I think the planets should be renamed because they're named after fake gods."
Given that you Christians believe in one God (or is it three?), won't it get rather confusing if you name all the planets after him?
You won't be able to tell Uranus from Urelbow.
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.
....but creationists? For some reason each and every single time a story about evolution, intelligent design or even the origins of life appears, it amasses enourmous amounts of comments in a short period of time. I predict the same for this story, with regret.
./'ers are simply venting here? This might be, but I've seen a lot of comments from Slashdoters in support for ID one way or the other. It's scary because the Slashdot readership to me is apparently amoung the most educated on the net. We are mostly geeks after all.
I'm wondering what the hell is going on? Is it just a political hot potato and
It would be scary to think that all the geeks around me actually believe in religion. When I was younger I just assummed that most people were completely secular like me, and didn't believe in religion at all; delegating it to the status of fictional works like comic books etc. It came as something of a shock to my world view that most people are not in fact secular but do hold religious beliefs. I haven't quite recovered from it.
Or maybe it's just trolling by the GNAA et al, with Slashdotters flaming back. I'd like to believe this.
May the Maths Be with you!
The elements that created everything had to come from somewhere.
Where did the Intelligent being come from? The elements that comprise the being had to come from somewhere.
Whatever you reply to this "he always existed" or whatever, is the same reply I'll give you to you about where the elements came from. It's just as logical as yours.
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.
"I think the planets should be renamed because they're named after fake gods."
You are free to call the planets whatever you wish.
But clearly what you really want is the power (through government dictate) to force others to use names that are approved by your particular religion.
I hear a lot of Christians complain about how oppressed they are.
In the end the complaints turn out to be about wanting the power to control others.
Maybe that was a Good Thing, but should decisions like identifying the Best Scientific Achievement of a year and medical decisions of vast importance be something we leave open to the whims of politics? I realize that in this case there was no "buckling" from pressure but it apparently was intended to reflect political shifts of our time. Whatever the case, it just doesn't sit well with me.
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).
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.
"Scientifically proven" is an oxymoron. No scientific theory has ever been proved. Ever.
"The announcement comes in the same week that a US court banned the teaching of intelligent design in classrooms.'" http://science.slashdot.org/article.pl?sid=05/12/2 0/1656228&tid=99&tid=14
The actual ruling was that it could not be taught in a science class. It said nothing about theology or sociology. I find the anti religion sentiment that's been becoming more pervasive more than a little disturbing.
This comment has been sent a 'cease and desist' order. Please refrain from discussions regarding 'Intelligent Falling' as it is covered by our recently granted patent.
Gekido's Lair
I think the dismissive phrase "just meat" implies that there isn't much to it. In fact you can implement some incredibly cool things using "just meat". Intelligent life, for example.
I don't care if it's 90,000 hectares. That lake was not my doing.
I wonder how "Evolution" feels about the award - 4 billion years of hard work, and now it gets recognition.
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
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.
I agree with you. To be pedantic though, I think scientific objection to ID is Falsifiability. The ID pushers make few claims that we can observe. Fortunately, they do say that the earth is only ~6000 years old, something we can measure objectively.
The social problem with ID is that the people doing the pushing are religious bigots. Make no mistake about it. They're as open-minded as the taliban. They don't care whether it's scientific. They're not interested in a dialog or the truth. They have a message for you and their only interest in you depends on your acceptance of that message.
I'm just curious now how other religions interact with the idea of evolution. What about India's Hindu population? What do they think?
Sort of off topic, I guess. But hey. Maybe someone here who's bilingual will know.
You're falling in to the same trap the fundies always do.
Evolution is not the 'big bang' theory. Evolution doesn't give two shits about cosmic expansion, collapse, black holes or matter/energy interactions. It doesn't care where Earth came from, how long it had been there, or what color the sky was when the Flying Spaghetti Monster first set the amino acids rolling.
Evolution is about the trends of change among individual organisms. That's IT. There are other theories about all the other events, but they are off-topic.
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.
What does science have to say about awareness? Anything? I mean, isn't awareness kind of a big deal? If we start with the simplest creatures—self-replicating proteins—and procede to bacteria, then insects, then, finally, the most complex creatures that we know of: ourselves—well, at what point does awareness begin? Are there degrees of awareness? Is awareness a function of life, or vice versa?
What I'm getting at is, you say God had to come from something else. I ask, is that consistant with our current understanding of awareness? I don't have any answers myself, but I wonder, how long can science continue to ignore consciousness before it finds its collective self against a brick wall?
Food for thought.
I believe that the same comment has been made about "String Theory", and while I would admit that it isn't falsifiable in general (though there are specific tests...such as mathematical correctness), I would still maintain that it's a scientific hypothesis.
A more subtle definition appears to be needed. Falsifiability is needed for many purposes, but it doesn't seem (to me) to be the bedrock of what is scientific.
I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.
String theory is a working hypothesis. A good many of the physicists out there will shuffle their feet if not outright proclaim it not yet a scientific theory. It isn't yet testable, but it does offer at least some potential means, though it's going to take a few generations of particle accelerators before we get to that point. But that is key to even a hypothesis, it must at least hold out the possibility that it can be tested and falsified. ID cannot even provide some hypothetical means by which one could falsify, it is compatible with all observations, and thus has no explanatory power.
The world's burning. Moped Jesus spotted on I50. Details at 11.
So if something has not been observed, it cannot happen? Interesting philosophy. Stupid; but interesting nevertheless.
What have explosions got to do with anything?
Technically speaking, a defined sequence is information, even if it is random.
Except creationism doesn't match the criteria of a scientific theory, so it rather fails at the first hurdle, doesn't it?
Bullshit. Bullshit. Bullshit.
Feel free to take four minutes and eight seconds to learn precisely how the human eye probably evolved.
If you can handle the four minutes and eight seconds, perhaps you'd be willing to do some reading about how a bacterial flagellum could form without a designer.
I'm also sure you've heard the name Behe before. Did you know that in 2001 Michael Behe admitted that his work had a "defect" and does not actually address "the task facing natural selection." Futhermore, irreducible complexity is rejected by the majority of the scientific community. The main concerns with the concept are that it utilises an argument from ignorance, that Behe fails to provide a testable hypothesis, and that there is a lack of evidence in support of the concept. As such, irreducible complexity is seen by the supporters of evolutionary theory as an example of creationist pseudoscience and amounts to a "God of the Gaps" argument.
Can ID answer the following questions?
If you can't answer the last one at the very least, stop reading now. Go back to the link above, click on it, and spend the four minutes and eight seconds educating yourself.
The point to those questions is that NONE of them can be answered with ID. Can't be predicted with. Can't be tested with. None. Zero.
But do you know what can? Evolution, every one of them.
That said, while you accuse others of not understanding what ID actually is, I contend that you do not understand what evolution is.
First of all, the article this discussion is linked to references how scientists have learned new "specifics of how life evolved from a scientific point of view..."
Second, evolution has NOTHING WHATSOEVER to do with how life was created on what was once only a molten planet. Nothing. At all. Evolution is the transition -- of a population -- from one form of life to others forms of life over (usually long periods of) time.
Creation of life where there is no life is what is known as abiogenesis, not evolution. Now stop what you're doing! I can see you reaching for that reply button and Googling for references to the Miller-Urey experiments from the 1950s.
Stop it! You didn't even read that abiogenesis link, did you? I didn't think so. Nothing I can say can convince you to if your mind is already made up (read: clouded by mindless dogma). However I will leave you with one thing so that you can look it up yourself and do the research.
Abiogenesis experiments conducted by Dr. Sidney Fox. Don't even b
- I don't need to go outside, my CRT tan'll do me just fine.
And speaking of eyes, how come we got ripped off in the eye department? Octopi do not have the blind spot you and I have. There are species of shrimp who can see colors we can't even imagine as they have six different color sensors compaired to our three. Bees (and other insects) can see into the ultraviolet. We can't. An hawk can spot a mouse in the grass from half a mile. Can you even see a dog at half a mile?
And the problem with a theory is? Or do you not know what at theory is? It's not just a collection of wild guesses and half-assed ideas.
Evolution is not a thoery. It is a fact. It happens. It is happenning as we speak. The "theory of evolution" (of which there are several) is our attempt to explain how it is happenning, what makes it work. Not knowing how every part works no more invalidates that it doe shappen than not knowing how the insides of a pocket watch work means it can't keep time or that our incomplete understanding of how gravity works means things will not fall down.
I have to ask, which group of anti-evolutiuonsists do you hail from?
- The "evolution means Genesis is wrong and invalidates my religion" group?
- The "evolution means we're all just animals and not God's favorite" group?
- The "evolution means the universe is billions of years old and that makes my life an insignificant eye-blink" group?
- The "I'm not a monkey, damn you!" group?
- The "if we all evolved from Africans, that makes us all black!" group?
- The "if I'm wrong there is no Heaven and death is final!" group?
Yeah, I've heard all those as last-ditch reasons to not beleive in evolution. I don't buy into any of them.Boobies never hurt anyone. - Sherry Glaser.
The weird suggestion that the human eye is a perfect design and so establishes the existance of God is rather stupid and irrelevent - there are better eyes out there and evolution is a better answer than something stupid like God stuffed up or hates blind people.
As the man said, "If atheism is a religion, then not collecting stamps is a hobby."
Uh, and what exactly would looking at the pilgrims tell me about the structure of the united states? They lived in the same place a few hundred years earlier, and they were brutal religious zealots; what exactly is looking at them supposed to show me? Just a reminder of how glad I should be that such dogmatic savages had nothing to do with the forming of my nation?The scientist that have studied long and hard and thought through the physics, biology, mathematics, geology etc. have very powerful reasons to doubt the evolution
That would be simliar to the number of scientists who reject the sun being powered by nuclear fusion, and who instead support the "Electric Universe" crap that oddly keeps appearing on Slashdot.
In otherwords the number is essentially zero.
Roughtly 99.9% of professional biologists accept evolution. There is no genuine scientific controversy over evolution. A negligable number of crackpots making arguments and claims that have been reviewed and invalidated by all the the rest of the experts in the field does not make a genuine scientific controversy
Go ahead, check out what fraction of professional biologists reject evolution.
1) life never comes from non-life
I thought we were talking about evolution?
That's like attacking the theory of chemistry because it doesn't explain the origin of elements. The theory of chemistry is perfectly valid science even if we DON'T yet have a strong well supported theory of nuclear fusion to explain the origin of elements.
Evolution explains the behaviour of life once it exists, just as chemistry explains the behaviour of elements once they exist.
The theory of "the origin of life from nonlife" is abiogenesis. Considering that it attempts to address a singular microscoping evend shrouded behind the mists of several billion years, and that it has left no direct trace, it is hardly supprising that it is a poorly developed and poorly supported area of science. And no one is disputing it is poorly developed and poorly supported. However it is a lot better developed and better supported that you realize. However I'm not going to even try to get into it with you. Lets simply agree that poorly developed and poorly supported science has little or no place on a highschool science curriculum. There IS NO FIGHT over the origins of life in or highschools. The all of the fighting is over evolution.
2) explosions don't bring order
ARG! that argument is a pet peeve of mine, and I really hate seeing it (and explaining it) over and over and over and over.
Basically the argument is that the second law of thermodynamics prooves evolution impossible. That is the statistical law that says entropy (disorder) increases. That law only says the average disorder must increase, and it does not apply at all when there is a system with energy flowing through it.
It is quite normal and common for structure and order and complexity and information to spontateously arise out of nature when you have a system with energy flowing through it. In particular the sun is pumping energy into and througha variety of systems on the earth. For example the sun evaporates disordered water molecules into even more disordered and chaotic water vapor, which can then cool and condense as highly ordered complex snowflakes.
Order and structure and complexity out of chaos. The sun metling ice and evaporating water *is* your metaphrical explosion blasting apart the water molecules into random bits of water vapor, and the final outcome of that explosion is an increase in complexity in the final snowflake.
3a) Mutations occur but almost always bring harm
Most mutations are neutral. A population builds up an increasing library of mutations, beneficial ones and neutral ones, and even mildly harmful ones. And in fact evolution would proceed with no trouble even if we assume there were NO beneficial mutations. Each generation mixes and suffles that library of neutral and mildly negative mutations looking for combinations that are valuable. A mutant gene producing a mild toxin on the blood is a negative mutation, and a mutation where the sweat glands leak blood protines onto the skin is negative, leaking out valuable blood protines. However if you combine those two negative mutations you wind up with a frog leaking and building u
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