Correcting Misperceptions About Evolution

Beagle writes "The science of evolution is often misunderstood by the public and a session at the recent AAAS meeting in Boston covered three frequently misapprehended topics in evolutionary history, the Cambrian explosion, origin of tetrapods, and evolution of human ancestors, as well as the origin of life. The final speaker, Martin Storksdieck of the Institute for Learning Innovation, covered how to communicate the data to a public that 'has such a hard time accepting what science is discovering.' His view: 'while most of the attention has focused on childhood education, we really should be going after the parents. Everyone is a lifelong learner, Storksdieck said, but once people leave school, that learning becomes a voluntary matter that's largely driven by individual taste.'"

Origin of life ?!

[bytesex (112972)]

Is the origin of life really a part of the theory of evolution ? I thought it was the origin of species. The origin of life, to me, seems more like a discrete (soapy, fatty) chemical process that doesn't have a lot in common with the process of evolution. Why convolute the two ?

RTFA

[evanbd (210358)]

(Yeah, yeah, I know... no one RTFAs on /..)

They discuss that, and agree with you. The reason is that in the eyes of the public, the two are regularly conflated, especially by religious hacks trying to dispute evolution. So, they discuss the relationship and lack thereof (they're not completely unrelated, actually), and also discuss why they're talking about both.

The short answer is that they were trying to summarize the current state of scientific knowledge as relates to a particular political and religious debate, and both evolution and the origin of life are part of that debate.

Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[Tatarize (682683)]

PZ Myers put it pretty distinctly:

"'Evolution is a theory about the origin of life' is presented as false. It is not. I know many people like to recite the mantra that "abiogenesis is not evolution," but it's a cop-out. Evolution is about a plurality of natural mechanisms that generate diversity. It includes molecular biases towards certain solutions and chance events that set up potential change as well as selection that refines existing variation. Abiogenesis research proposes similar principles that led to early chemical evolution. Tossing that work into a special-case ghetto that exempts you from explaining it is cheating, and ignores the fact that life is chemistry. That creationists don't understand that either is not a reason for us to avoid it."

http://scienceblogs.com/pharyngula/2008/02/15_misconceptions_about_evolut.php [scienceblogs.com]

Define "Alive"

[by Anonymous Coward]

There are self-replicating objects that do not seem to be alive, but they do grow and expand to fill their niche.

That's the problem with abiogenesis: we need to define what counts as alive before we can say what started life.

Mind you, that's a problem religions avoid quite assiduously too: where does the soul get put in? Too early and the infant dies with a soul (natural termination). Too late and we have premature babies without a soul. So where does "life" begin? Why do humans get one but not Apes? How different from a human does a human have to be before it doesn't get a soul? E.g. did "Lucy" have a soul?

PS your PZ Meyers quote means nothing. It just states a position and doesn't actually bring anything to the table.

Abiogenesis is chemistry, correct. But chemistry doesn't define what "life" or "alive" is. And that definition IS what Abiogenesis is. As I said, we already have self-organised non alive collections that exhibit many of the characteristics of life. We have a line which is "definitely alive" and a line that is "definitely not alive" but these lines DO NOT MEET.

Abiogenesis is how to bridge the gap between to show how "Not alive" and "alive" are part of a spectrum and something "not alive" can gain the characteristics we assign to the "alive" side. If we never find how that happens, maybe THAT is the "irreducible complexity". But the IDers aren't looking for it. They take on faith that anything they don't understand NOW is irreducibly complex. And that isn't how to learn. It's just dogma.

Does PZ Meyers' discourse help in that goal?

Re:Define "Alive"

[lukesl (555535)]

Abiogenesis is chemistry, correct. But chemistry doesn't define what "life" or "alive" is. And that definition IS what Abiogenesis is.

Speaking as a biologist, I think this statement is exactly incorrect. It's true, life is chemistry. The reason why chemistry does not define what "life" is is because anyone who really understands biochemistry understands that there is no meaningful distinction between "living" chemical systems and "nonliving" ones. The belief that there is some fundamental distinction between the two is called vitalism, and it was discredited a long time ago. Theories of abiogenesis attempt to explain how the chemical reactions we observe in "living" systems arose. Whether you or anyone else considers those chemical reactions to be "living" or not is totally irrelevant. Debating whether something is "alive" or not is similar to debating whether Greenland is a continent or not. It's a pointless, simplistic distinction applied post hoc for the purpose of justifying some sort of nonrigorous internal prejudices.

Re:Define "Alive"

[Alinabi (464689)]

religious modes of thought exist in every culture around the world

Until relatively recently, some form of slavery existed in every culture around the world. Eliminating it was, however, a big step forward.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[smilindog2000 (907665)]

The process of evolution is a highly confirmed theory, to the point that most of us just go ahead and refer to it as a fact. To say it's only a theory at this point requires an esoteric discussion of the definition of theory vs fact, and the only rational people I know who have any lingering doubts about it are deeply religious and take the Bible quite literally.

However, exactly what happened in the past, and when, gets murkier as we go back in time. By the time we get to the actual origin of the self-replicating life form from which we all evolved, we have very little insight. Some scientists even suspect that Earth's initial life form may have come from an asteroid, and evolved initially outside the Solar System. Others, more religious than me, suspect God had a hand in it, and I have trouble rationally arguing against that theory.

I think it's best to focus on more recent evolution in discussions with less educated parents, and those who purposely avoid learning about it. I find few people who believe God made the Earth in seven days have any clue how massive the body of evidence for evolution is. To respect their point of view, I generally concede that a "day" could have been a very long time back then, or perhaps God has reasons for trying to fool us. We don't even need to settle the "fact" vs "theory" dispute. Simply educating people about why we believe evolution is happening would be a great step forward. Arguing about what happened billions of years ago to create life in the first place just gives fud-slingers an opening to refute the entire body of evidence for evolution.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[MikeBabcock (65886)]

The process of evolution is a highly confirmed theory, to the point that most of us just go ahead and refer to it as a fact. To say it's only a theory at this point requires an esoteric discussion of the definition of theory vs fact, and the only rational people I know who have any lingering doubts about it are deeply religious and take the Bible quite literally.

... or have a bad habit of believing everything they're taught instead of researching it for themselves. People who doubt evolution make better scientists than those who believe it because its well accepted. Doubt is good. Doubt is a healthy part of critical thinking. Combined with research and possibly experimentation (although mostly research in evolution's case), this makes for good science.

The facts of it are that we have an extremely limited knowledge of the process of evolution. The scientific community is pretty good with the effects as observed, but not the process, although there are some good sub-theories about that.

How and Why are good questions. Ask them more, explain your answers if you think you have them, and don't put down people who doubt if they're willing to listen and make good counter-arguments; those things will just help you refine your own thinking.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[Hatta (162192)]

the only rational people I know who have any lingering doubts about it are deeply religious and take the Bible quite literally.

If you take the bible literally, you are not a rational person.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[hey! (33014)]

Actually, Martin Gardner in one of his books discusses a nineteenth century minister who thought he had successfully resolved the creationism/evolution debate.

He speculated that when God made the universe, he made it as an ongoing affair with a prewritten history for the bits before the moment of creation. When Adam awoke, he didn't faint from hunger because he had the remains of meals in his blood and digestive tract, meals that he never actually ate. Likewise, he had a belly button for an umbilical cord that never, in fact, existed.

The world (according to this theory) is littered with fossils (not to mention descendants of the natural variations that Darwin observed in the Galapagos) of animals that never, in fact, lived. However, every trace that an actual animal living millions of years ago would have left is there.

This is a profoundly un-scientific theory, in that it is completely un-falsifiable by any observation. You really can't disprove that the universe wasn't created in this fashion, whether it was six thousand years ago or in the last millisecond. However, this notion gives science full rein to explore where it will; it even arguably puts science on par with Bible as a means to discover the mind of God. The problem is that this didn't satisfy the creationists, who weren't going after "old time religion" so much as pursuing new and rather muddled version of modernism in which science and scripture are awkwardly yoked to each other.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[hoggoth (414195)]

That nineteenth century minister had it almost right. The world wasn't created 6,000 years ago with a fully fleshed out history planted. It was created this instant with a fully fleshed out history planted, including the half-formed thought in your head "could that really be true?". Now you are thinking that instant has passed and the world was created 5 seconds ago, but no, that would be wrong. The world was in fact created this very instant with the memory of thinking you read the world was created this instant, 8 seconds ago.

Tomorrow, when you think of this, you will wonder if the world was created yesterday... but in fact that would be incorrect. Your memory of reading this yesterday is an embedded false memory. The world was just created this instant.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[ricegf (1059658)]

You missed a rather large point (God could create diversity, too), but forget that for the moment. Focus on the main point for a moment, and try to empathize.

If your goal is to convince parents that their children need to understand evolutionary theory, is it better to say, "Your most deeply held beliefs are wrong, wrong, wrong, and we're going to teach them a different view because we're smarter than you and know it's right, right, right!", or is it better to say, "Regardless of whether history played out as you believe or as we believe, the evolutionary model is the best tool that we have for understanding the biological world as it exists today, and if your children don't understand or actually misunderstand it, they will be at a serious disadvantage in the competitive marketplace of ideas and jobs!"?

If you answer the first because it better fits your world view, then be prepared to continue to fight a losing battle. Evangelicals are extremely focused on children, and will perceive the first approach as an attack on their children and their own right to raise them in accordance with their culture and beliefs. As with bears, you mess with the cubs at your peril. It's not a recipe for success; it's a recipe for irrelevance. If you don't believe me, look where it's gotten you today.

Sometimes it's the science geeks who can't see the forest for the trees...

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[samkass (174571)]

As a Christian, the way I see it, why can't evolution be the process that God has used (and is still using) to create the universe?

Although that is, in fact, my opinion, I think religious scholars balk at this concept because it pigeonholes God into a smaller player in the universe. If God has to play by His own rules (and I'm not sure we have any documented proof that He has violated them), then it comes down to the opposite of what Einstein said about quantum mechanics: God ONLY plays dice with the universe. If the only effect God can have is to change the rolls of the dice, it limits God in a way that many highly religious folks don't believe He should be limited.

The fact that we can trace most species back through DNA and how it's expressed physiologically in the fossil record means that God doesn't appear to be Creating much new life these days-- just letting the process run its course. And if you include humans in that tree and assert that there were billions of years of pre-human life that later formed humans, it again diminishes God's direct role as our immediate creator, and relegates Him to an indirect force that set things in motion a long time ago.

Anyway, I think that's the objection.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[Eivind (15695)]

Because of Occams Razor: Entities should not be multiplied needlessly.

If you can explain the development from single-cell organism to homo sapiens to satisfaction without ever mentioning God, and then you add, as sort of an afterthought; this all happened because God wanted it so.

Then "God" in your theory is superfluos: your theory *with* god doesn't explain or predict anything that your theory *without* God doesn't do equally well, so there's no reason to include him in the theory in the first place.

Given equal explanatory powers, the simplest theory is the superior one. If you have 10 points from a data-set that happen to lie on a straigth line, there is guaranteed to be a 10th-degree equation that matches all the 10 points, but that's not the theory you should choose, given that data you should instead suggest the relationship may be linear.

(in general k1*x^0 + k2*x^1 ... kn*x^n-1 can always be made to fit for any 10 points)

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[cvd6262 (180823)]

You wouldn't take stories about old Greek myths and say their days were figurative and really represented a longer time. Specially when it's connected with evening and morning day x.

Sophocles would disagree with you. You know, in Oedipus Rex? The Riddle of the Sphinx?

"What goes on four legs in the morning, on two legs at noon, and on three legs in the evening?"

The answer is "A man, who crawls on all fours as a baby, walks on two legs as an adult, and walks with a cane in old age."

So, here we have an "old Greek myth" with a figurative day representing longer time, despite morning, noon, and evening being clearly represented.

It's good that my humanities degree is finally coming to use.

Next question...

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[Eivind (15695)]

The distinction is silly anyways.

If you can observe and test that a certain process works for 1, 10, 100 and 1000 generations, then the most reasonable assumption is that it'll work the same way with a 100 thousand or a 100 million generations too. Atleast absent some reasonable explanation for why it would not.

"macro-evolution" is a cop-out from Creationists that have a hard time ignoring the fact that any high-school that cares to can run evolution as an experiment (with artificial evolutionary pressure) and see clear results inside of 5-10 generations of the choosen organism. (this need not take that long, yeast-cells divide on a time-scale of an hour/generation or thereabouts, even with something larger like mice the experiment will run inside of a single school-year)

In essence, it says: "Yeah, sure it works for a day, a week, a month, a year, a decade, but it somehow WONT work for a millenium or a million years. I refuse to give a coherent argument as to why not, but will now stick my fingers in my ears, sing lalalala and pretend I won the argument."

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[ricegf (1059658)]

Reading comprehension just isnn't a strong suit on /. *sigh* I'll give it one more go.

I wrote, "if your goal is to convince parents to allow evolution to be taught to their children... would it really matter?" Your response is to claim science is seeking "truth" (how noble). Philosophy seeks "truth" - science seeks understanding. Science is horseshoes - a better model wins points, even if it's still not exactly right. Newton's theories are demonstratably wrong (i.e., not the "truth") - but they greatly help me to understand how matter interacts because they are close enough for practical purposes. That's useful!

Evolution helps me understand how life transforms itself through generational variations to fulfill environmental niches created by changes in its environment. Despite that I'm obviously not a biology major, and so have only a weak laymen's understanding of evolution at all, I find that useful. I don't give a flip whether it's "truth" or not.

I strongly believe children should receive the best training in science - all of science - as we possibly can. Toward this goal (and note it's not my only goal!), I don't care whether their parents believe life originated from the primordial sludge, God Almighty, or the Giant Flying Spaghetti Monster, as long as their kids learn how to handle science and so can better understand their world, I'll consider that a good thing.

Just as an aside, I teach three Bible classes to children most weeks, and I use science experiments to illustrate Biblical concepts (I teach the science concepts at the same time). This is right in line the St. Paul's argument that he would "be all things to all men that I might persuade a few". Because I have found Christianity to work very well for me (compared to my disastrous attempts at atheism), I'm very interested in helping children to know God (that's an even bigger goal of mine). I believe that will be very helpful to them, and having done this for several decades, I now know adults who agree that it does. And if children learn science along with the Bible, more's the better.

Anyway, now that's $0.09 worth, and I've probably exhausted my quota of words on /. for the month. I just trying to warn you that "evolution == anti-Christian" is a losing tactic at least in the USA, where 75% or so of the population self-identifies as Christian. "Evolution == a useful tool for understanding life" is a winning tactic for convincing parents to permit their children to learn about evolution. Even for geeks, marketing matters. But do what you like.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[inviolet (797804)]

People who are deeply religious and who hold fundamental beliefs without any basis of evidence are not rational. And while it might be fair to say they are irrational in this one sphere of discourse, that is basically the same as saying they are functionally schizophrenic. It would be more accurate simply to say that people can be articulate without being rational. Just because a person is intelligent enough to coherently express their thoughts, as your deeply religious friends no doubt are, that says nothing about the quality or rationality of those thoughts. It is quite possible to thoroughly and eloquently articulate extremely poor, utterly irrational ideas - just ask Hitler or Bin Laden.

Well said.

Let me add another car to your train of thought:

People who renounce rationality, are stuck with only one method to judge the truth of others' ideas: by judging the speaker's articulateness.

That is why scientists need not (and usually are not) articulate: in the rational realm, it is a secondary skill. It is certainly useful, but it isn't a requirement. Not so with the irrational realm: preachers et. al. need eloquence as a primary skill, because that is how their audiences judge the truth of their words.

Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out.

[professionalfurryele (877225)]

I don't think that is really true. Biogenesis and biological evolution are really just sub-branches of statistical mechanics. Of course the two fields have the same features, they both apply the same principles, look for allowed changes of a system that would reduce the energy of the aforementioned system, those are the changes that occur. The problem as you have put it isn't that we don't lump evolution in with biogenesis. The problem is that we don't lump biogenesis, evolution and most of the rest of basic biology and chemistry as sub-branches of concrete well established physics.
This is why the suggestion that evolution is wrong is so absurd. Statistical Mechanics is one of the most well established branch of physics and questioning evolution amounts to questioning Statistical Mechanics well within it's established domain of applicability. The statements "the Earth is flat" and "evolution is wrong" are both equally ridiculous because the first can only be interpretted as suggesting that we cant apply Euclidean geometry to the Earth and the second because it assumes you can apply statistical mechanics to creepy crawlies.

Re:Origin of life ?!

[Nasajin (967925)]

The article does actually detail that Darwin's theory of evolution doesn't cover the origin of life. What the article details is that DNA's survival can be explained through natural selection.

He started by noting that simply defining life is as much of a philosophical question as a biological one. He settled on the following: "a self replicating system capable of Darwinian evolution," and focused on getting from naturally forming chemicals to that point. To do so, Ellington developed three different themes.

Re: Origin of life ?!

[Black Parrot (19622)]

The article does actually detail that Darwin's theory of evolution doesn't cover the origin of life.

What's interesting is that the fact that evolution is happening doesn't depend on whether the first life forms were created by abiogenesis, aliens, or even God.

Re: Origin of life ?!

[sethawoolley (1005201)]

Plato records the opinion that man was the original species. If an individual wasn't worthy it got reincarnated as a lower species. Sort of reverse evolution with a moral twist.

This also has to do with his ideology, as most pre-scientific beliefs boil down to:

Plato believed in idealistic realism. He believed that the basic types had transcendental archetypes that represented perfectly the form of an uncorrupted object.

It wasn't until the scholastic movement when William of Ockham introduced the world to nominalism -- that words are merely approximate descriptions we apply to enable generalization of a real world of many diverse specifics. Reality was reality, and names and generalizations were the source of imperfections in reasoning, not that there are ideal forms for everything.

The archetypal example is the chair. Plato believed that there's such a thing as a perfect chair that personified and was what people should think of when you think of a chair. Ockham believed that people used the word chair as a symbol, or name (nomen) for the many things in the world that we used as chairs. The names were merely conventions.

How does Plato's ideology lead to inaccuracy in his theory of evolution? Well, to him, animals are a type, and as a type, they had a perfect form, the human, naturally, since it was the smartest and most powerful. Thus, any non-human was naturally inferior to the human. Combined with the common belief among Platonists and the religious gestalt of the time that things naturally tended toward corruption when left to their own devices (without, say a Philosopher King to step in and control the masses), Humans were the first and foremost species -- all the rest are merely corruptions of the animal archetype.

Platonism (more specifically neoplatonism) was the philosophic foundation for Christianity and the Catholic Church Fathers more than any other influence. Yes, Catholicism borrowed from Jewish, Egyptian, Babylonian, Persian, Greek Mystery, etc. religions, but the philosophical foundations of its theological systems lay directly with Plato.

For more information on the scourge of Plato and Platonic Essentialism, see Ernst Mayr's "Growth of Biological Thought", particularly the 180 page introduction if you can't read a thousand page book.

Re:Origin of life ?!

[wizardforce (1005805)]

correct. abiogenesis deals with the origin of life its self, evolution governs everything thereafter.

Why convolute the two ?

through ignorance or through malice. In the latter case it's used as the wedge [wedge document that is] to try to confuse the layman into thinking that evolution is by definition atheistic in nature. it doesn't in of its self explicitly exclude the idea of a god, it has nothng to say on the matter, it merely allows for disbelief, that is to say that the watchmaker is not required to form new species including humans and that is enough reason for people to outright ignore/willfully misunderstand the evidence in favor of evolutionary theory.

Origin of life was by evolution

[presidenteloco (659168)]

Life must have originated by a generalized and initially weaker version of the evolutionary process.

Essentially, in

a. certain intermediate-free-energy thermodynamic regimes (regimes in which common
elements and molecules can co-exist in all three of solid,liquid, and gaseous phases so that rigid and semi-rigid
structure can be combined with constrained energy flows),
and with

b. the right soup of lots of different common and chemically combinable elements trapped together in a gravity well,

you get the preconditions for randomly occurring structural and process experiments.

Some of these randomly occurring but probable-due-to-the-regime-and-the-ingredients experiments
end up making structural and process fragments that alter/interact with/use their environment in such a way as to
incrementally, or in some cases dramatically, increase the probability of a similar structure or process
fragment recurring nearby in time and space to the first one. This is already a positive feedback loop.
Eventually, by chance, some cluster of these self-probability-improving structure+processes, a cluster
most likely made of smaller self-made-more-probable structure-process fragments, reaches a threshold
at which its robustness leads to a probability of 1 of structure and process like that existing in the general
area.
Pattern self-preserving functionality transcends pattern occurrence improbability.

Call it stochastic evolution transforming into classical evolution.

Call it the origin of life if you like.

Re:Origin of life ?!

[by Anonymous Coward]

there is no different between "living" and "non-living", apart from semantics

Huh? Explain, please.

There is a philosophical distinction that has lost favor over time that living matter is made of some special material (sometimes called 'magic meat') while non-living matter is different. This is used primary for religious or certain philosophical reasons. The most common argument is that if a soul is part of the body, the body must be made of something special to anchor the soul since obviously a piece of granite doesn't have a soul nor does your computer. This view continues that even if you create an object that is identical to a human in all physical ways (a philosophical zombie), it will not be a human nor will it have a soul even though it may act like a human. This is a common view of philosophers who support property dualism and they sometimes support their arguments with a more advanced version of the Aristotelian concepts of matter and form (where normal meat has the potential to be magic meat but it only does so when it is part of a living body).

Most people today think that there is only one type of matter and that the complexity of life is just due to this matter acting like a very complicated machine. They would hold that if there is a soul it is separate from this world. A philosophical zombie would not work in this second view not because the matter has not taken the 'magic' form, but because no soul in the parallel world has attached itself to normal matter in this world. This is a view made popular by René Descartes.

Re:Origin of life ?!

[PopeRatzo (965947)]

obviously a piece of granite doesn't have a soul nor does your computer.

You haven't seen my computer.

Re:Origin of life ?!

[Alsee (515537)]

why would we need to push this on everyone outside the context of science?

Why would we need to push "earth orbits the sun" on everyone outside the context of science? Science touches upon every area of our lives, and we are generally screwed if we don't have a population with a reasonable basic general education. A basic overview of biology needs to be covered in highschool just as much as a basic overview of chemistry does. Biology without evolution makes as much sense as chemistry without the periodic table of elements.

Going on to college to get an education as a doctor, or countless other professions, pretty well first requires a foundation learning elements and evolution and more.

There is something seriously wrong if a medical school has to teach fractions and other remedial math. There is something seriously wrong if a medical school has to teach atoms and other remedial chemistry. There is something seriously wrong if a medical school has to teach the evolutionary tree and other remedial biology.

And even then, they don't need to discount other accountings

What do you mean "discount other accountings"?

Do you mean like "discounting" the sun going around a motionless earth accounting of the solar system? And "discounting" the four element earth-air-fire-water chemistry accounting of chemistry?

If that is what you mean, then yeah, the general public rather should have enough general education to be aware that such "accountings" have been completely discounted.

-

Ma Nature is a wasteful parent?

[shanen (462549)]

From the summary there's no sign that the article says anything about what I regard as the largest misperception--but that might just be simple par for the /. course. On the other hand, if you take the time to read and consider the article carefully, then anything you post about it will be moot, because the EAS (Effective Attention Span) of /. is around 40 minutes. Ergo...

Ma Nature just doesn't care about the waste. Of course the anthropomorphism just obscures things more, but the basic thing about natural evolution is that anything goes--but almost all of the changes lead directly to death. Ma Nature's approach results in vast numbers of tiny variations of the same basic forms that are all scrabbling for survival in a tiny niche. She isn't betting on the existence of a benevolent mutation. She just doesn't care.

Lately I was thinking that one of the weirdest aspects is that things worked out so that every one of us humans is a unique permutation. It would be 2^46 possibilities if you just started with one set of distinct genes from the chromosomes of a single mother and father, but there are so many variations for each of the genes that the actual number of potential human beings is vastly larger than that. Insofar as our genes contribute anything to the situation, each of us could be uniquely suited for some niche on earth. Talk about over-engineering?

Of course the likelihood that we'd ever find such perfect niches is pretty much negligible--but again Ma Nature doesn't care. If we wipe ourselves out in our frustration, she'll just start over again with the surviving cockroaches. So have a nice day.

Re:Ma Nature is a wasteful parent?

[by Anonymous Coward]

I'm no biologist, but it's funny that by "not caring", nature can potentially evolve new and useful stuff.

Take by analogy a genetic algorithm to find some solution to a problem. Combining only the best solutions will make you fall into a local minimum and stay there. You have to keep some of the worse solutions in your set of candidates to break out of it. Similarly in real life, creatures with undesirable traits still survive and breed -- and I'm sure that that, even if simply by sheer coincidence and only in a small number of cases, leads to ultimately desirable traits in some circumstances.

I ran into this with my roommate yesterday

[skavenger (1219006)]

He demanded that I support the relationship of Neanderthals with other homo genus members (not even arguing the sapien angle) with fossil evidence of Neanderthals in Africa and only conceded error so far as to say that Neanderthals are as related to homo sapiens as snakes are related to worms. This is an otherwise intelligent person who believes he understands evolution and science fairly well. Apparently he attended a lecture a few years ago on the Lucy find and somehow mutated that lecture into his current understanding. How can you engage with people like this in a productive way without being insulting? TFA addresses the basic misunderstanding and urges for consistently rejecting these sorts of positions, but is that even my priority at this point? Everything about the thought process he's using to arrive at his conclusions is flawed, but his insistence that he knows what he's talking about makes it impossible to discuss anything he might disagree with meaningfully.

Plus, he's an aspiring breeder.

Re:I ran into this with my roommate yesterday

[Dachannien (617929)]

Plus, he's an aspiring breeder.

Of himself, or other animals?

How About Focus on Evolution?

[ilikepi314 (1217898)]

Seriously. I went to a lecture series on evolution, and was rather disappointed upon leaving.

The speakers spent most of their time discussing why Intelligent Design is wrong, and getting into semi-religion-bashing. I heard nothing about any of the things that the summary to this article mentions, for instance, which was actually something I wanted to know more about. I'm not very familiar with all of the specific evidence myself (I'm not a biologist).

Now look -- as a scientist, I can completely respect and agree with the fact that ID is not science, for a multitude of reasons. But look at it from the point of view of someone "new" to science that was curious -- they showed up to an event, hoping to learn more about what evolution is and understand the "debate", and all they heard was how Creationism is wrong and how we need to fight religious groups and educate the people about the truth. "Educate with what?", that person will ask. "They haven't given any proof yet, and just seem to talk about how much they hate religion when they get together.". THAT is what the average person sees, and it doesn't really make scientists look good, and gives ammunition to the people that spread misinformation about evolution. Will that person ever go back to an evolution talk in order for us to clear up misconceptions? Probably not; forever, that person will now think "Wow, Evolutionists are crazy, I'm not going to that again.".

There's other issues of course, but the public image of an evolution scientist right now needs to be cleaned up before many will even bother to listen.

Re:How About Focus on Evolution?

[wizardforce (1005805)]

You have a point, the actual science behind evolution isn't reaching people who are interested as well as it should be. thee's a lot of very interesting things being done that just don't make it into lectures very often outside of the occasional college lecture in the biology dept. like how chromosome 2 was formed from the fusion of two chromosomes which we found vestigial telomeres, which telomeres are normally found on the ends of chromosomes, in this case we found them buried in the chromosome as well as a second although vestigial centromere which is found only in chromosome fusion events. the subtelomeric duplications are located at base pairs 114,455,823-114,455,838 from the article in nature. which is located here: http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v434/n7034/full/nature03466.html [nature.com] as well as the wikipedia article on chromosome 2: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chromosome_2_(human) [wikipedia.org] this explains why humans have 46 chromosome while the primates in general have 48. the chromosomes were not lost, two chomosomes fused into one, since each chromosome is paired, it went from 4=>2 [48-4+2=46]

Lets clear some misconceptions.

[tempest69 (572798)]

The initial concept was that man was able to change the traits of livestock and pets through selective breeding, or manual selection.. and that the forces of nature may be doing the same, creating multiple species of iguana, as we do dogs.

This has some big consequences.. that recursion would mean that whatever was a common ancestor would need a common ancestor,, all the way down. and perhaps plants and animals are fundamentally different arising from different organisms, and a few trunks might appear for bugs, fungus, and bacteria..

By choosing traits carefully, a phylogeny was developed, which related animals to each-other.. strangely this worked really well.

Anyway, evolution predicts that there is a tree structure, and that endpoints dont cross over.. so mammals dont get 4 chambered lungs like birds, but might still have some egg laying abilities like reptiles. Not should we see the octopus eye structure in humans. or bug armor on birds. Armadillos will have armor from keratin like a rhino horn, or fingernails.

Anyway, once molecular biology and sequencing came out, it solidly backed the theory.. Phylogeny people have been re-mapping the tree, bacteria took some serious adjustment, larger organism less so.

Now there is a push to generate "ancestral genomes" so that we have an idea of what the predecessor organisms were capable of... and where some of the novel enzymes popped into being. So enzymes which appear to be adaptation from our last ice age might be related in some way to survival of the cold, or eating rodents without GI distress. But with some timing, and some idea of the climate, the flora, and fauna some good guesses can be made as to why a subtle change might have happened.

So evolution theory may help in figuring out why humans stopped making vitamin C, and rats never need a vitamin C pill or fruit in their lifetime.

Or it can confirm things that we might already have guessed.. that humans make less stomach acid during pregnancy might be an evolutionary adaption to morning sickness.. because most pregnant women don't seem to have chronic bulimia problems, ie rotten teeth, esophagus ulcers, which would occur at higher acid concentrations. anyway, once they find the control mechanism I'm betting that it'll point to roughly the time when we started bipedalism.

Yes evolution is science, it does matter, knowing the history of automobiles lets us understand why tempered glass isnt appropriate for a windshield. Knowing the path that our ancestors evolved with lets us know what we should watch out for when we start tinkering.

Storm Storm

Re: How About Focus on Evolution?

[Black Parrot (19622)]

The speakers spent most of their time discussing why Intelligent Design is wrong, and getting into semi-religion-bashing.

Unfortunately, science his come under a concerted religious/political attack, and scientists can't just sit back and ignore it anymore.

(Not that that invalidates your points. Scientists need to find a middle ground.)

Going after the parents is a mistake

[syousef (465911)]

Three reasons:

- No, not everyone is a lifelong learner. That's the ideal not the reality. Just look at how hard it is for some older people to pick up computers after 40.

- The religion that's indoctrinated them has done so since birth. You're going to ear bash them for an hour or two and expect them to change their lifelong beliefs? You'll only create resentment.

- You have a much better chance at reaching the parents through the children. However if you only reach the children, it simply won't be an issue in 40 years.

Limit going after the parents to insisting that science is taught in science classes and religion is not.

Re:Going after the parents is a mistake

[Jafafa Hots (580169)]

I once heard a guy blatantly state "gravity is what makes things fall to the ground." His arrogance was especially grating considering the fact that I have a book about a boy who could fly.

Re:Going after the parents is a mistake

[by Anonymous Coward]

Hi. I was raised as Roman Catholic. I went to a Catholic elementary and a Catholic high school. I was baptized, had my First Communion, and even was Confirmed (on my own, more or less). I was even an altar boy for many many years. You could say that my education as a Catholic was complete.

In my studies, I read the Bible in Hebrew and Aramaic and Greek (with help of course) and learned that many things that are said in English are either out of context or blatantly wrong due to translation and just plain *HUMAN* error. Yes. The original Christian church showed me all of this in theology classes. The Church didn't seem to have a problem telling me that "P" and "J" and other sources wrote down the Old Testament and that Moses was looooooong dead by then. Or that the English "7 days" in Hebrew really meant "a long time." Among other things.

The Roman Catholic Church does not say that Evolution contradicts religion. In fact, the Church even explicitly said it had no argument against Evolution and that science is just fine.

It appears to me that it's the Fundies/Literalists with their King James translated Bible and absolutely no theological training whatsoever that are coming up with this Religion vs. Science debate. There isn't one. The writers of the Bible "the Jews" don't even have a problem with it.

Oh, and I hate to break it to you, but Jesus isn't coming again. His second coming was his Transfiguration (after he rose from the dead). It's just that the Fundies/Literalists don't even bother looking up "Revelation" in a dictionary. Revelations is basically another story about Christ *in the past* but written with a lot of religious symbolism. No prophecies.

What are you going to do with your free time now? Please consider donating your labor to charity groups such as Habitat for Humanity.

Pluto

[PMuse (320639)]

Getting people to change their opinions, beliefs, or conclusions is just difficult all over. For example, a group of smart -- really smart (I mean two-plus-standard-deviations-out-of-the-global-mean and scientifically-trained smart) -- people recently debated [wikipedia.org] how to define a planet.

They and their fathers had grown up thinking that Pluto was a planet because of mankind's relative inexperience at astronomy. Recently, mankind learned facts [wikipedia.org] that required rethinking of what "planet" meant so that when the term was used, everyone knew what it did and didn't mean.

Remember how easy and sensible that debate was? When it was "over", the definition had as many footnotes [wikipedia.org] as principles.

And those were scientists. Heaven help us when we have to reteach anything to the general public.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[thefekete (1080115)]

"Think of how stupid the average person is, and realize half of them are stupider than that." - George Carlin

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[zippthorne (748122)]

Ah yes, George Carlin. One day you'll learn the difference between median and mean.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[sethawoolley (1005201)]

Ah yes, George Carlin. One day you'll learn the difference between median and mean.

Mean ("sum over count" average), median ("middle" average), and mode ("the most" average) are all different types of averages. He was using the median in his joke, which, yes, is an average. You can only criticize Carlin for being not specific enough, not for being wrong.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[linest (157204)]

Ah yes, George Carlin. One day you'll learn the difference between median and mean.

And after that, could we review the difference between comedians and mathematicians?

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[Jafafa Hots (580169)]

I think he just knew that the average person in his audience had only heard of the word average, not the others.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[Knuckles (8964)]

Median and mean are both a type of average. So no, he was not wrong, just not specific enough for some tastes. And anyway, assuming that intelligence has a normal distribution, median and mean are the same.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[mmarlett (520340)]

The problem is not that people do not learn, it is that people learn how to reinforce their prejudice. That is, as a species we tend to gather information that reinforces our fears. My mother in law will forever fixate on anything that proves her theory that leaving the house in general is a bad idea. Information to the contrary -- statistics about airline safety, for example -- will be disregarded. Anecdotes about blonde women raped and murdered in the Caribbean will be referenced on a daily basis.

As soon as we learn a model for the world, we want to actively support that model. We emotionally invest. Few of us have the capacity to re-examine that model constantly. Sometimes, overwhelming evidence will cause a sea change in certain groups' world view, but generally we like to stick to our own.

Some people have a world view that includes a just and active Christian God with a book that explains the way the world works; any evidence to the contrary is dismissed out of hand and any evidence to support it is grabbed on to no matter how irrational. Some (a few) people are just the opposite: they would dismiss any evidence of a deity and hold fast to any seeming contradiction in dogma, no matter how badly translated. I'm in the later group, and I dismiss out of hand anything anyone says about the existence of any god. I'm prejudiced that way, for better or worse.

But simply trying to explain things to the parents will probably not make any great inroads in society. Perhaps, but probably not. More likely, you'll get a group of 10 people pissed off and they'll have nothing better to do than to repeatedly call your boss/underwriter until you are forced to go sell hot dogs on the street for simply suggesting that we should all get along and that no one should be nailed to anything for it. I'm just saying.

Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner...

[Jafafa Hots (580169)]

Wrong. Scientists don't leave the basis of evolutionary theory to random chance "luck." There are hypotheses and theories to explain how and why the genetic changes happen, and experiments to back them up. Copying errors, environmental factors, etc. There is WAY more to it than just "it was random chance."

Whereas there is no suggested mechanism for a god intervening, let alone a suggested mechanism of a god itself.

Re:Where is this evidence?

[darthdavid (835069)]

I think that the physical facts, such as the massive quantities of rapidly-buried fossils, the Grand Canyon,

http://creationtheory.org/Arguments/Hartman-6.xhtml [creationtheory.org]
While this link more or less covers these points I'll summarize as it's a lot to slog through. The fossil record is sorted based on time. Radiological dating coupled with clear evolutionary progress as you look at progressively higher layers proves this. If much of the life on Earth died in a flood then you'd expect to see sorting based on density, size and swimming ability with the metal and stone tools of the time at the bottom and a spectrum of animals ranging from big slow creatures that couldn't make it to higher ground and live longer or swim very well on top of the tools and birds, bats and things that can swim for a long time at the top. Considering that the remains of tools are all well above the likes of T-Rex skeletons this is clearly not the case.

The Grand Canyon is pretty much a poster-child for modern geological theories. It's layering is not consistent with a rapid flood and the canyon its self is best explained by the long slow process of erosion by river. I could probably find some detailed studies if you'd like.

the mitochondrial DNA studies performed at Berkeley in 1987 [1]

I don't know where you're getting that 6000 years figure. The study you cite puts her as living approximately 200000 years ago and it's a bit more complex than "our common female ancestor". I'm tired and it's three am so here's a link...
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/mitoeve.html [talkorigins.org]
If you have more questions about this part I'll gladly answer them when it's daytime.

and the existence of comets

Seriously? WTF...
What about comets causes problems for you. Tell me and I'll do my best to clear up any misunderstandings you may have.

Also, I've noticed you seem to have a problem common to many Creationists, you conflate geological evolution, astronomy, abiogenisis and biological evolution. Geological evolution is, as the name suggests about the changing of our planet over time and includes stuff like erosion, desertification and plate tectonics. Astronomy is the study of the stars and can include stuff like the big bang and the formation of our solar system.Abiogenisis is the idea that life originated from non-life due to the chemical conditions present on Earth at the time. Biological evolution is what you seem to want to debate and it's all about the adaptation of animals over subsequent generations due to natural selection. Even if one is disproved it doesn't necessarily invalidate the others because they're all separate theories with their own evidence and implications. The fact that they all tend to support each other where they overlap just adds credence to them all.

Talk more when it's day
-David

Re:Where is this evidence?

[LaskoVortex (1153471)]

Also see Ann Gibbons, "Calibrating the Mitochondrial Clock," Science, Vol. 297, 2 January 1998, p. 29 for evidence that our common female ancestor lived approximately 6500 years ago. I'm not making this stuff up; the sources cited are evolutionists.

First, you really should link to the articles in question, as that would be the polite thing to do: Cann [nature.com] | Gibbons [sciencemag.org] (pdf [dnai.org]).

Second, it is obvious that you have chosen a belief system and grasp at any evidence to support it, blatantly disregarding all other evidence. A google of those papers make them look to be two "classics" that creationists refer to again and again. The youngest is over 10 years old. Where are the more recent Science/Nature papers that confirm the conclusions of these papers? They don't exist.

Here is an acid test for good research: Does it stand the test of time? Is the field explosive in the scientific field 10 years later? Some examples of paradigm shifting fields are stem cells, apoptosis, and RNA catalysis. The papers you cite do not measure up to these standards and so are highly suspect. Good science gets confirmed by other scientists and not by conjecture or preachers who thumpin bibles. Where are the papers confirming the 6500 year old mitochondrial clock or have recent advances shown problems with the previous model? Do the research yourself if you are objective like you think you are--or you can remain blinded by your belief system. But if you wish to remain blinded by your belief system, don't burden others with your belief system like you are doing here.

When uninformed people have opinions on science that smell of belief and bias, my suggestion to them is to go spend five to seven years to get a PhD in a field of natural science. Don't cop-out and pick some religious school where you end up with a thesis full of bible quotes. Find a real state-run university without any allegiance to any religion. Do actual research out in the field (dig bones, sequence DNA, dissect plants, count the strata of geological formations, etc.), synthesize the data and write your thesis on what you have discovered. Don't lie and make up data to support your belief system! Even [insert your favorite religious prophet or diety here] wouldn't do that, right? Integrate the comments of your committee and defend your thesis in front of them. Once you have your PhD from the accredited state-run university without any religious affiliation, come back and examine your belief system from the perspective of a trained scientist. Until then, you are simply fooling yourself, discrediting the members of your faith, and annoying the knowledgeable.

Re:Error in TFA: Last time life started, not first

[Alsee (515537)]

It seems quite feasible, possibly likely, that the first few times life started on earth, in the early solar system, it got extinguished by another big impact causing a global disaster.

Actually this is a fascinating subject.

The evidence shows that life appeared just about at the earliest point it could have, pretty much as soon as the earth cooled from a molten ball to a solid surface. And at that time the earth was still taking the occasional insane extermination-level impact.

Allow me to define "insane extermination-level impact". An impact that covers the earth in vaporized rock, boils the oceans bone dry in a matter of days, and leave the entire surface of the earth hot enough to melt lead. Serious sterilization.

Which left a bit of a puzzle on how the record of life on earth is apparently a continuous fixture, from its very first appearance.

In the last several years there has been quite a bit of biological research/exploration in conjuction with commercial mining. It turns out that mines are loaded with all sorts or never-before-seen kinds of bacteria. Exotic bacteria that live off the chemistry of the minerals themselves, and living and spreading throughout the endless cracks in the rocks. Our deepest mines are well over over two miles deep and drill sampling even deeper, and the rock is loaded with bacteria and water creeping through the cracks. At 2.2 miles down into the crust the temperature rises to over a hundred degrees F, and just keeps climbing the deeper you go.

And someone did a neat computer calculation. They modeled the temperature gradient of the crust as it goes down to the sterilizingly hot molten depths below, and they modeled the incinerating heat of a megaimpact. The heat from above works its way down through the crust incinerating everything as it goes for months and years. But the impact is a heat pulse, and the surface does begin to cool back down over time. The downwards pulse of heat decays.

It turns out that the molten sterilization zone below and the impact sterilization pulse from above never quite meet in the middle. Deep down in the crust there remains a merely "very very hot" zone in between where some extreme heat tolerant bacteria could and would squeak by. Bacteria which would work their way back up to recolonize the surface as soon as it cooled.

A seriously neat little chunk of science :)

We are descended from heat-extremophile rock-eating bacteria that survived multiple insane incinerating impacts by hiding out in the deep crustal cracks.

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