I Believe In Gravity and that the World Is Not Flat
Joe Wolf, president of Florida Citizens for Science was quoted on March 12th in an AP News story as saying that “evolution is as widely accepted as the law of gravity in the scientific world.”
Joe - I’m sick of effectively being lumped in with flat-earthers because I’m incredulous about some aspects of Darwinism. True, I have reasons to disbelieve as a Christian, but my dissent has nothing to do with my religious beliefs and I don’t want religion taught in public schools. You say that evolution is on the same footing as gravity in scientific circles - find me 100 scientists that will go on record with reservations about gravity. Let me give you a link to a list of scientists from such places as MIT, Stanford, and Yale that signed following statement:
A Scientific Dissent From Darwinism
“We are skeptical of claims for the ability of random mutation and natural selection to account for the complexity of life. Careful examination of the evidence for Darwinian theory should be encouraged.”
This canard about Intelligent Design being nonscientific is a ruse. Please stop telling people they are idiots if they question Darwin. Censorship of skepticism is nonscientific - That’s about as widely accepted as gravity.
OC
March 13 2008 08:55 pm | Education and Legislation and Rulings and Science
Lynet on 14 Mar 2008 at 2:13 pm #
Yep, Intelligent Design isn’t religious at all — that’s why you’re defending it so zealously on a blog entitled ‘Offensive Christians’.
Mind you, I note that you are not an ID advocate. You’re a Young Earth Creationist! Tell me, do you think that scientific?
By the way, nobody believes ‘Darwin’s Theory of Evolution’ any more. There’s this thing called the neo-Darwinian synthesis. Time moves on, you know, and so does science.
The simple fact of the matter is that we do question Darwin. The basic idea holds up because it’s simple and brilliant, but the details have changed as we learn more about how heredity actually works.
OC on 14 Mar 2008 at 4:11 pm #
Lynet,
I appreciate you coming by with some comments. I’m looking forward to reading the other one on the racism post - it seemed rather well put together.
Regarding this post, Why can’t I be a YECr and advocate for some of the tenets of ID? You don’t have to pigeonhole me do you? Do you hold any other beliefs other than the ones you’ve given here?
What do you know about the scientists who hold YEC views? Do you know any PhDs? I know of more than a few so I guess I’m not alone in holding to a different view of origins and yet honoring and respecting science.
Would you please educate me regarding neo-Darwinian synthesis - Free platform if you’ll take it.
Again thanks for stopping by.
OC
Lynet on 14 Mar 2008 at 10:42 pm #
Well, yes, you can advocate some of the tenets of ID. Still, a lot of the ways in which ID tries to act like science involve, you know, accepting radioactive dating of rocks, and the geological ideas worked out by Charles Lyell and others as explanations for how rock formations come into being and are shaped by natural forces, and the incredible consilient evidence that supports plate tectonic theory and an early unified continent, and stuff like that.
Regarding the neo-Darwinian synthesis . . .
(Disclaimer: I’m not a biologist and may get stuff wrong)
The central point of Darwin’s initial theory that we’ve kept is the notion of natural selection — the idea that, if you have a species within which there is variation (between longer-necked and shorter-necked giraffes, say, or darker and lighter moths), then natural forces can change that species by making it more likely that certain types of animals will be killed (for example, the ones that don’t have such good camouflage), or by making it easier for certain types of animals to find food (such as taller giraffes being able to reach leaves that other giraffes can’t), or by anything else that has an effect on which sorts of animals within the species are most likely to survive and reproduce. In this way, nature acts sort of like animal breeders do with artificial selection, killing more of the animals that don’t have certain qualities and allowing more of the animals that do have those qualities to survive and have children.
There are certain ideas that are important in order for this to work. One is heredity. Offspring have to have similar qualities to their parents in order for it to matter which potential parents actually manage to reproduce.
For a while, this was problematic. Mendelian genetics (you know, recessive and dominant genes and stuff), which was discovered prior to Darwin’s theory of evolution but didn’t become famous until afterwards, gave an explanation for heredity — so far, so good — but seemed to suggest that potential traits were selected from a finite number of possibilities. For example, sweet pea flowers could be red (two red genes), white (two white genes), or pink (one white and one red), but nothing else. There was no obvious mechanism for making purple, no matter how hard you tried. Under a system like that, there would only ever be three possibilities for natural selection to act on, so significant changes would not be possible no matter how long you waited!
The neo-Darwinian synthesis combined Mendelian genetics with evolution to produce a new theory that altered both while still keeping the main ideas intact. Unfortunately I don’t know how much of this was sorted out prior to the discovery of DNA, but once you have an understanding of DNA you can make sense of the whole thing and give details of the mechanisms that Darwin could never have dreamed of because we just didn’t know those things back then.
It works like this. Mendelian genetics acts on the genes (i.e. certain types of DNA sequences) already in play. Some are dominant over others, some can combine, etc. However, occasionally ‘mistakes’ can happen in the copying of DNA. When that happens, we get an entirely new gene that can change the whole system. Most of the time, the new gene will not be helpful and may even be fatal, but sometimes, by luck, it is helpful (or at least not unhelpful) and so its holder can survive and have children with more copies of that gene, and so on. Because new genes can be introduced into the system, we can have the very broad scope of possible variations which is necessary for evolutionary theory, while still having a genetic system that is capable of producing the patterns Mendel noted.
celdd on 17 Mar 2008 at 8:12 pm #
I highly recommend you read the new book “Your Inner Fish” by Neil Shubin:
http://www.amazon.com/Your-Inner-Fish-Journey-3-5-Billion-Year/dp/0375424474
It’s relatively short, and can be completed in a day or two. The author is very engaging, and has a gift for explaining complex, highly technical information in an understandable down-to-earth way.
You will get a small glimpse into the depth and breadth of observations that support the theory of evolution. These include the fossil record, body plans, anatomy, DNA, molecules, function, etc. that provide overwhelming EVIDENCE for evolution.
Your religeous leanings will probably still claim that “God did it (that way).” However, you will gain an understanding of the overwhelming amount of evidence in numerous scientific fields that all reinforse each other in the conclusion that evolution best explains the documented relatedness of life on earth. And why scientists consider the evidence overwhelming in support of evolution.
OC on 25 Mar 2008 at 6:50 pm #
Lynet,
Thanks for the piece on NeoDarwinian synthesis. I don’t see, however, how this makes the theory of macroevolution immune from scientific dissent. There are still the problems of irreducibly complex organelles, abiogenesis, elasticity of species change… NeoDawinism doesn’t avoid these.
celld,
Thanks for the recommendation, I’ll see if my library has a copy.
OC
Lynet on 25 Mar 2008 at 10:45 pm #
No scientific theory is immune from scientific dissent
I was pointing out that the theory of evolution does change in reaction to new evidence.
There are those who say that methodological naturalism in science is immune from dissent. Such people say that the existence of God is not a scientific question and hence that neither God nor the lack thereof can be part of a scientific theory. Such people would say that science can neither prove nor disprove God. People who claim that evolution means there is no God are not in this camp. They would include the existence of God in the list of possible scientific hypotheses — indeed, Richard Dawkins devotes the second chapter of The God Delusion to ‘God: The Failed Hypothesis’. (Where do I stand? Rather than defining ’science’ I’d prefer to define indicators of knowledge — well, one indicator of knowledge, actually — but we can discuss epistemology another time.)
Returning to evolution, let me address the specific points you raised.
Irreducibly complex organelles:
An ‘irreducibly complex’ system (as defined by Michael Behe) is one such that, if you remove any one of its parts, no longer functions. It is claimed that such a system can never evolve. This claim is plainly false. Such a system can evolve in several ways. For example:
(i) It could once have had an extra part which made the system no longer irreducible, which was then removed by evolution.
(ii) Removing one part might remove the system’s current function, but it could be that the system then functions as something else.
Figuring out such paths can require ingenuity, but it’s been done many times for systems that were claimed to have been impossible to evolve. One of the most famous ‘examples’ of irreducible complexity is the bacterial flagellum. It has been discovered that the bacterial flagellum has an obvious precursor in the Type III secretory system — see this youtube video. A summary of a more complete explanation for how such a thing could have evolved my be found here
There are lots more examples of irreducibly complex systems for which we have a good idea of the evolutionary pathway here.
Are you one of those people who doesn’t think the eye could have evolved? If so, I saw a nice YouTube video on the subject once and might be able to find it for you.
Abiogenesis:
Unsolved problem; different problem to evolution. Nobody has yet thought of a mechanism that will work for that one — well, more to the point, people have ideas, and they’re working on them, but none of them yet appear to be complete explanations. You may stick your God in that gap if you wish, just please don’t squeal if the gap gets filled at some time in the future.
Elasticity of species change
Which specific claims are you referring to here? I’ll be happy to go to my favourite evolution sites (and/or search my memory) and give you some answers.
At any rate, I hope you get the idea. The reason evolution may seem ‘immune’ from dissent is because there really isn’t any good dissent out there — there are just a lot of Americans who would like there to be evidence against it.
There is also positive evidence in favour of evolution, of course. The fact that Neil Shubin knew where to look to find that fish/amphibian transitional fossil, for example . . .
Even better, consider this. Human beings have 23 pairs of chromosomes, but our nearest evolutionary relatives (as conjectured by the theory) all have 24 pairs. It isn’t possible to just ‘lose’ a chromosome — lose that much information, and the fetus wouldn’t survive. It also isn’t possible to that all the others just duplicated a chromosome. Chromosome duplication isn’t nice either. It’s usually fatal but I believe there’s one chromosome that, when duplicated, only gives you Down’s syndrome . . .
So how could this happen? Well, either two of our chromosomes got mashed together, or all of the others had a chromosome split into two at some stage in their evolution. The former possibility is much more likely. Thus, we have a prediction: if humans and apes do share a common ancestor, we should be able to find a chromosome in the human genome that has the remains of ‘end parts’ of the chromosome in the middle, instead, where two chromosomes were such together. There’s no reason to suppose we’ll find such a thing if we were created separately, but if we don’t find it evolution is in trouble.
Cool, huh? I once stopped at this stage and referred to another website for the rest of the story, only to have the person I was arguing with offer me a bet: he’d change his mind if we found evidence of two chromosomes stuck together, provided I’d change my mind if we didn’t find it. I’d have loved to have taken that bet, but it wouldn’t have been fair, because I know the answer already. It’s on chromosome 2, and it’s very clear.
I’m sure there are other places where we can predict fused chromosomes, though, for other species. And in any of those cases, if we don’t find the fused chromosome (and if we also don’t find split chromosomes in the surrounding species), the theory of evolution will be in trouble.
That’s a whole lotta predictions. Want to make a bet with me? Seriously, if I can find data that just lists nearest evolutionary neighbours and numbers of chromosomes, we can make some predictions if you like.
jwinks on 07 Apr 2008 at 12:34 pm #
Lynet,
It seems clear you have faith that science can explain why we are here even though “No scientific theory is immune from scientific dissent”.
What if you’re wrong? Or, even a more important question…what if you’re right?
jwinks
Lynet on 16 Apr 2008 at 10:49 pm #
Sorry, jwinks — didn’t see your reply. I’ve answered the “What if you’re wrong/right?” question elsewhere, of course. With regard to having ‘faith’ that science can explain why we are here — no, I don’t. It’s possible that we’ll never know, after all. The point is, just because I don’t know — even if we’ll never know — that’s no reason to accept the first explanation that comes along.
Without evidence for God, the whole ‘God’ idea is pretty much on an equal footing with the Flying Spaghetti Monster, you know? Better to admit ignorance.
Mind you, I have to admit, if I had to guess, I’d say science probably will explain abiogenesis in time. I wouldn’t say I have ‘faith’ in that, though. It’s just a guess. If you’re willing to admit ignorance, you don’t need faith.