Butterfly Unlocks Evolution Secret 1130
Anonymous Coward writes "The BBC has an article about a dramatic discovery in the quest for understanding evolution. From the article: 'Why one species branches into two is a question that has haunted evolutionary biologists since Darwin. Given our planet's rich biodiversity, "speciation" clearly happens regularly, but scientists cannot quite pinpoint the driving forces behind it. Now, researchers studying a family of butterflies think they have witnessed a subtle process, which could be forcing a wedge between newly formed species.'"
One species into two? (Score:2, Insightful)
Yes!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
I am sure that given enough time, scientists can plug holes in the theory of evolution and answer questions that critics throw at it like. Remember, a theory can always be changed and disproved by evidence unlike intelligent design which can't be disproved(and no one seems to have proved it either).
And before someone starts an intelligent design rant, please remember, unprovable assumptions like 'there's a naturally occuring ipod on the dark side of the moon, since you can't disprove it, it exists' have no place in science at all. Also remember, science is self criticizing and self correcting, read up on the criticism on string theory if you have any doubts.
Re:Yes!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
I find your faith refreshing...
Re:Remember, evolution is just a theory. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember, evolution is just a theory. (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Remember, evolution is just a theory. (Score:5, Insightful)
Please make sure your kids get taught every possible theory or you will probably wind up in hell... or worse.
I refuse to worship a god that claims to be all-loving, but threatens us with eternal torture if we don't do what he says.
Re:Yes!!! (Score:3, Insightful)
Otherwise, point taken.
Re:Creation (Score:3, Insightful)
No we weren't. Get used to it. And Grow Up.
Creationists attacks (Score:5, Insightful)
>"But speciation has never been observed" has been the strongest rallying cry of evolution-deniers for more than a century...
And it has been a falsehood for at least half that time. Speciation has been observed in both the field an in the lab... repeatedly. Creationists trumpet the no observed speciation line until they are called on it, and then it becomes, "But they're still [fruit flies, fish, whatever]," The moving goal posts are the hallmark of creationism.Remember, the "scientists" at the Institution for Creation Research have to sign an oath that nothing they "discover" will ever conflict with a litteral interpretation of the Bible.
Re:Yes!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Suppose u have a huge roulette wheel with 10,000 numbers around it and u spin it and it arrives at a number, lets say 6283. The probability of it arriving at 6283 is 1/10000. But it did happen didn't it?
Life on earth is similar to it and if you want to look at all the failed attempts, take a telescope and see how many planets and stars have inhospitable planets. Those show the other cases in which the right mix didn't work out.
Also, remember that once evolution gets started, it's anything but random and probabistic. Natural selection and survival of the fittest pushes life to better and more complex forms.Re:Remember, evolution is just a theory. (Score:5, Insightful)
*Note the parallels with gravitation: gravitational attraction between objects is a fact. Theories of gravitation seek to explain how that attraction works, thus allowing us to make predictions about how systems under the influence of gravity will evolve over time.
Re:And racism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Seems like the concept of Social Darwinism [ http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Social_darwinism [wikipedia.org] ]. Pop philosophers tried to aply the findings of Darwin to modern social stratification as a sort of apology for the rich.
But since when have humans played by the rules of nature like that? We don't eat our young just because other species do. We don't appoint a single woman as the breeder for a group like ants. This should have no effect on anything that far out of its field.
Re:Wasn't this obvious? (Score:3, Insightful)
My guess (having about as much expertise on the subject as you seem to) is that insects that hatched prematurely instead of staying in the egg until they reached their final form were more likely to survive because they were moving targets dispersed over a wide range instead of a delicious pile of eggs waiting for a predator. It also means the eggs don't have to hold as much nutrition since the larvae forage for their own food. This may make things easier on the egg layer, or allow her to lay more eggs at once.
Of course, having hatched, they still have to obey their DNA and develop into their final form, which is where cocoons come in. How they figured that one out, I have no idea.
Re:Wasn't this obvious? (Score:3, Insightful)
Think of the chrysalis as puberty for the caterpillar. I'm actually envious--I'm sure many of us would have just as soon lived out our teenage years laying in bed, sleeping, twenty-four hours a day until we were ready to emerge into the wonderful world of twenty-year-old, sexually mature adults instead of being pressured to explore the opposite sex while at the same time dealing with voice changes, oversized feet, and females who matured two to three years earlier than the males.
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:4, Insightful)
Newton published his laws of motion in, I belive, 1679. Einstien published his special relativity paper in 1905, "disproving" Newtonian mechanics.
And we're still of course not sure Einstien has the last word. In fact, it's almost certain he doesn't.
No, 150 years isn't enough time.
Re:Wasn't this obvious? (Score:5, Insightful)
It seems to me that you are just completely glossing over the non-obvious part. The part where the members with the mutations stop reproducing with the rest of the non-mutated species for long enough that the two branches are unable to breed with each other at all after a certain point. Why should a mutation stop breeding with members who haven't mutated. Or if it is built in to the behaviour that the species will not breed with mutants then how do the mutants not have this behaviour so that they may breed with each other. It is this stage that is being observed in the article.
Your butterfly question seems cute but quaint. Really, I think if it seems obvious to you how eyes evolved then I doubt you fully understand the problem. There are just too many very bright people out there who are interested in this as a problem (I'm talking about people who believe in evolution but can't explain all the mechanics) for it to be trivial.
Re:And racism? (Score:2, Insightful)
However, I'd think that the more violent form of racism in human populations is more a result of many cultures with different fundamental ideals all living in the same place. Confusion leads to frustration, and frustration leads to aggression.
Re:And racism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Personally, I believe that all of mankind is not created equal, but that we all have the same rights.
Observation alone proves nothing (Score:3, Insightful)
Evolution is a fact. It has been observed in the fossil record, and observed in the present day.
"Observation" proves anything. For hundreds of years everyone "observed" that a heavy stone falls faster than a feather. The Scientific Method proves things: http://teacher.nsrl.rochester.edu/phy_labs/Appendi xE/AppendixE.html [rochester.edu]
1. Observation and description of a phenomenon or group of phenomena.
2. Formulation of an hypothesis to explain the phenomena. In physics, the hypothesis often takes the form of a causal mechanism or a mathematical relation.
3. Use of the hypothesis to predict the existence of other phenomena, or to predict quantitatively the results of new observations.
4. Performance of experimental tests of the predictions by several independent experimenters and properly performed experiments.
Observation alone does not satisfy #3 and #4.
Re:Yes!!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Please, don't lump all "religious people" together under the umbrella of fundamentalists. I know that there are a very large number of people out there, including myself, who find no problem with saying "God did it! I'd like to find out how!" And discovering that evolution (which is really a fascinating process, and deserving of study) is our current best guess. I find no contradiction between the idea that God created the world and the idea that evolution happened and happens. And I know that there are a lot of people out there who agree with me. If I had to guess, I would say that the majority of "religious people" haven't really thought about it, but among those who have, the group who claims incompatibility between creation and evolution is a vocal minority.
You are correct that undisprovable statements are not science. However, this does not necessarily preclude them being true. I heartily agree that the fact they are undisprovable does not make them true, but neither does it prevent them from being true. Not that you claimed it did; I'm just throwing that out there in addition.
Re:Evolution of submissions (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm a physicist and I believe in God. I believe that God created the world with the evolution, etc so that there would be a man in this world. I require no proof for that and neither do I expect science to provide me with any. In fact, I'd look very suspiciously at anyone pretending to have such "proof". It's my religion, not my science.
Re:And racism? (Score:4, Insightful)
There is no racism in finding yourself sexually attracted to certain racial characteristics such as skin colour.
You ask, "Isn't racism a social form of speciation". No. Racism is racism. There are many reasons why this racist segregration would not lead to speciation, even if it were not a morally repulsive proposition:
1) No reinforcement, i.e. segregration is not selected for. As far as evolution of humans is concerned, offspring of people of different races are not "weedy and less likely to thrive" as in the butterfly example, but quite the contrary. So from a biological point of view, we should not expect to find ourselves splitting into seperate species as there is no "reinforcement" (as mentioned in the article), but instead the opposite. Of course humans are still very much the same species, and are currently showing no signs of speciation, and comparing human races to butterfly species is stretching it.
2) Very little gene flow is needed to prevent speciation. One "mixed marriage" out of one hundred is plenty to keep genes flowing between subgroups within a species. This coupled with the above (the offspring being strong and healthy) makes it nearly inevitiable
3) Most people's concept of race is misguided. For example: Humans were originally black. So it's not surprising that there are people within all (eight?) major branches of our collective tree with black skin. Human movement and migration has lead to us all being much more related than you'd probably guess.
4) Timeframe: butterflies may have several generations each year. Even so, the researchers in the article don't appear to even witness speciation in action, but takes a snapshot and explains how it has occured. Speciation takes a long time. It's likely to take 100,000 years for humans to start showing signs of speciation, that is, if there was an evolutionary push towards it. Justifying racism on the basis that your great great great great great [25,000 "great"s removed to prevent this comment from violating the "postercomment" compression filter] great great great great great great great great great grandson or daughter may belong to a different species as the person next to you, is pretty fucking stupid.
Re:I'm a born-again evangelical christian (Score:3, Insightful)
There have been several published papers which document this.
Re:Those who don't learn from history... (Score:5, Insightful)
On the other hand, for a scientist "believe" means "I think that this is true because it's a logical conclusion drawn from occurances which I or someone else have directly observed. Additionally, if presented with compelling evidence (i.e. direct observation) that refutes this conclusion, I will cease to believe it."
That's the key here: evolution is the best explanation (so far) for what we observe without relying on "because somebody said so." That's why it's a theory: It's a conjecture derived from observable facts through logic. Moreover, this also explains why creationism isn't a theory: it relys on assumptions that cannot be derived from observable facts (at least, so far).If you apply what I said about scientists' use of "believe" you should now understand why this isn't the "act of faith" you think it is. The scientists aren't saying they disregard the facts in front of them; they're saying that those facts aren't enough to disprove evolution and that they also don't have any scientific explanation that fits the facts better than evolution. Creationism is right out from the beginning because, as I've said already, it isn't a rigorous, logically-deduced argument to begin with.
If you can think of an explanation that fits all observed facts better than evolution and doesn't rely on Faith, then you can start complaining about some kind of conspiracy among scientists to reject anything that's not evolution.
Re:Evolution of submissions (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Markings in "domesticated" animals (Score:1, Insightful)
It's no surprise that different breeds of cats and dogs start to diverge, because we're restricting the gene pools artificially. The same goes for all the examples you gave.
You go on to draw a parallel with humans ("even humans themselves seem to have more variability when compared to other primates"), but this is a quite different reason. Humans have spread over a much wider area than any other species of primate, and there was no easy movement around the world until just a few generations ago.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:5, Insightful)
IMO, the true scientist witholds judgement until the experiments have been done and the data is in front of them.
OK, bring on the experiments. Describe an experiment that can be used to disprove design in a given organism. If you are unable to do this, then -- at the most fundamental level -- ID is not amenable to the scientific method, and is not worth any further scientific enquiry.
So, name the experiment. Go on, I'm all ears.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:5, Insightful)
Your confusing dismissing after evaluating and dismissing out of hand. Havign 0 predictive power, 100% made up rationalization, and lacking any evidence it's very scientific to reject that theory.
Perhaps a redefinition of science is in order, something closer to the definition of religion... 'Thou shalt not challenge the orthodoxy.'
A common logical fallacy used by pro-ID people. How ever using the exact same criteria you use to evaluate all scientific theory, ID fails very very badly. The scientific community is not like the libral literary community, everybody is out to "revolutionize" the community with a new idea. It might be contriversial but if it passes the tests placed on it, it will eventually be accepted.
Re:Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
Numerous issues with this one. First it is wrong to think of evolution of lifeforms as increasingly getting "smarter" or "better". If an attribute provides a survival or propagation advantage it will be selected and maintained. If being dumber presents a survival advantage then this quality will be selected.
As far as the second law arguement, as is noted in various places, life on planet earth is not a closed system. Life just inserts itself within the chain of energy conversion path (Solar to Low Level Heat) and constantly generates entropy while doing so.
Consider a thought experiment. Say you have a Bingo style box with several different shaped balls being batted around by an air stream. If you cut in the top of the box a hole that conforms to one of the balls, say a triangle shape, you would constantly decrease in entropy in the state of the balls since you would be filtering out the triangle shaped balls and increasing order within the system. However if you consider the complete system including the power to drive the balls you have a total increase in the entropy by converting high quality electral energy into low quality heat. In the above, example the hole in the top of the box is akin to natural selection as it is a filter that differentially selects a quality combine replication and well you know...
Another examples exists of unclosed systems becoming increasingly ordered (lower entropy) such as different size rock on the beach with wave action.
Re:Logic (Score:4, Insightful)
Simple, energy is being put into the system by the sun. The total system to be considered is the whole of the local solar system. There, entropy is increasing, but because there is a flow of energy to the earth, there is a mechanism that can allow the local entropy on the earth to decrease. There is no conflict here, you just need to consider a bigger system than just the planet.
5) Spontaneous generation. It's never been proven
That's because it doesn't happen, and has never happened. Life on earth doesn't depend on SG, it depends on a very slow process that went from inorganic to organic chemistry to some form of self-replicating system (not DNA, that is a much later evolution of whatever came first). There is probably no evidence to be found for this because as a process it took place an incredibly long time ago on a very different earth - all traces wil lhave been long obliterated. And besides, the emergence of life after the formation of the earth took a mind-bogglingly long time, which indicates that whatever this process was, it was either very slow or very chancy. Odds are this will always remain a mystery - we have to accept that there are some things that can never be known, only speculated about
because we *could* be the 1 in septendecillion instance
This is the "weak anthropic principle". We could be the only life in the universe. Why us? Because we are here to observe it, so nothing else could observe it. It's a definite possibility.
Evolution of the eye. We have no indication of how or why the eye evolved
Oh, that old chestnut. The eye has evolved separately numerous times, and is actually pretty obvious! Read Dawkins. The eye is so obviously useful for a creature's survival that its evolution is more or less guaranteed. More difficult to answer would be subtler thing such as sexual reproduction, etc. Evolution of the vertebrae
Not sure why this one should be tricky. The vertebra is easy to undertand from the point of view of mechanical efficiency when propelling oneself through water. Tiny creatures experience water as a viscous medium but as they grow larger then simple propulsion methods such as cilia or flagellae become very inefficient. Hence muscle will tend to evolve from the motility cells, but muscle will work best when it has a framework to work with and so that will co-evolve - this has happened twice at least - insects evolved exoskeletons and animals evolved endoskeletons. The endo- route proved more suitable for even larger creatures and a simple way for a creature to get larger is to replicate parts of its existing structures - it's easy to imagine how a gene for building a vertebra could mutate and get expressed twice and so there were then two vertebrae, and so on. I don't see how any particular body part every "disproves" evolution. Usually their very ad-hoc-ness tends to show that a natural process is at work. If bodies had been designed there are many things that could be drastically simplified for no loss of function. Macro-evolution is not falsifiable. If something is not falsiable, like creation for instance, it's considered part of a belief system or religion.
I'm not entirely sure what you mean by macro-evolution not being falsifiable. It has not been observed taking place yet - speciation at any rate. But macro-evolution is observable - it's all around us in every different living creature. The key
Re:Yes!!! (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Logic (Score:2, Insightful)
where are the fossils of these transitory species? Start diggin. The chances of finding a fossil are very small since the chances of a good fossil of a species forming tiny by itself. Yet look at everything we've found so far.
Micro-evolution is observable and falsifiable. Macro-evolution is not falsifiable. What the hell do you mean by that? To prove that it is true, we simply need to observe it enough times to show that it *can happen*. There are infinitely many logical arguments that are proven this way... there's no falacy in it.
We have no indication of how or why the eye evolved. Yes we do. This was even posted here on
Evolution of the vertebrae. IMHO, this may be the strongest argument against evolution. How so? A small hardening of the organs that surround vital nervous systems that gradually gets stronger as the organisms evolve sound unreasonable? You don't think the guy with the stronger back will win out in a fight?
Your arguments are not logical. Sorry, but they're not. You say that "we have absolutely no idea why or how...", but this can easily be disproven (and in your case, it is. Go talk to an actual biologist to find out, or hit up google for 5 minutes and avoid the creationist websites).
Re:And racism? (Score:5, Insightful)
Don't get me wrong, I'm not racist. In fact in moving to VA I find the higher percentage of non-white folks refreshing and believe that interracial breeding will generally make better humans.
Just like "pure bred" dogs typically have horribly high tendencies to have breed-specific problems whereas mutts whose component breeds aren't even discernible live much longer and healthier. This coming from a guy who grew up in areas with lots of "pure bred" humans. *shudder*
However, in closing I wouldn't say racism is speciation. Racism is irrational, ignorant, stupid dislike of other races. Speciation is more what I'm talking about. How some people aren't attracted to other races may cause it among humans.
Re:Creationists attacks (Score:3, Insightful)
Theological horseshit. The bible has been edited.
Re:And racism? (Score:3, Insightful)
Racism is a *very* touchy subject, and I may get flamed just for bringing it up, but doesn't this sound like butterfly racism? If this were, in fact, a provable, natural, biological mechanism, then, wouldn't we, as biological organisms, be falling prety to much the same effect? Isn't racism a social form of speciation?
What impact would this have on the ACLU? Hiring quotas? The civil rights movement in general?
I'm not suggesting that racism is good. But, might these be related?
I don't belive racism is valid or productive, there is too many counter-examples showing race has little all that much to do with any individuals potential. Smart parents of any race will raise and have generally smart kids.
However I do beleive in culturalism. Some cultures just get more done. Namely some european cultures, East Indian Culture, Chinese Culture and Japanese culture. Others just can't get much done, like Native American culture, Rastafar culture, and various other group havent' been very successful at adapting to the modern world.
Big deal (Score:1, Insightful)
First: The only difference between the 'species' of butterflies (or theorized 'pre-specisation'} is colour? What about different coloured humans? There is some tendency among humans to mate with humans of similar colour, (however, Enlightened Minds frown on doing that exclusively) but that hardly makes our different races different species, and God forbid you actually theorize that it is even a precurser to specisation.
Second: I'm not sure how the researchers were able to follow the entire butterfly lifespan from egg-maggot-butterfly reliably enough to be sure what colour who's mommy and daddy were, or if colours change with age, like many other animals (human hair for instance.)
Third: I hate it when scientists sensationalize like this (I guess it's mostly news writers, but still) "I just discovered the secrets of our universe!" NASA did that with the whole comet screwing thing, "We hope to unlock the secrets of the universe!"
Re:Cue creationist trolls (Score:3, Insightful)
My personal theory about religion is that it served as an early attempt to control the masses, so that it held society together around a set of principles, which prevented the early civilisations from decending into total anarchy. Now that most of us have constitutions and quite extensive legal systems to prevent this, i dont see why religion still has any importance to society. Especially not when it seems to harm progress, rather than promote it*
*This comment only reserved to fundamentalist groups who frowns upon science.
Re:Remember, evolution is just a theory. (Score:5, Insightful)
Most creationist will agree that this butterfly "anomaly" when the butterfly becomes a bird
Standard rediculous creationist claim. Under evolution nothing can become anything other than a variation of what it already was. For example cats: house cats, lions, tigers, pathers, lynx, cheetah, jaguar, puma, they are all cats. Across the entire cat family they are clearly separated by nothing but a bunch of "micro" evolutions. Lions and tigers are seperated by different hair patterns and a handful of other trivial differences. In fact lions and tigers can even interbreed. A house cat is seperated from the cheetah merely by a larger number of "micro" evolutions. They are simply a diverging branching tree from some original cat. The entire existing cat tree converges on a single ancestor roughtly 10 million years ago. [pipex.com] A cat cannot become a dog. Working backwards over a far longer time span, the cat family and dog family and bear family and raccoon family are all branches from a common carnovour ancestor around 40 or 50 million years ago. There are merely four or five times as many "micro" evolutions between cats and dogs as there are between house cats and cheetahs. Again woring backwards cats and cows and dolphins and humans are all mammals. They are simply a diverging branching tree from some original mammal roughly 220 million years ago.
A butterfly cannot become a bird any more than a dolphin can become a fish. However dolphins are a perfect examply of just how far one one thing (a mammal) can diverge into something that "completely different" and look a lot like a fish after 220 million years of "micro" evolutions. Given 220 million years worth of "micro" evolution, yes some butterfly will become something extremely "macro" different, it might even resemble a bird in the way a dolphin resembles a fish, but it will never be a bird.
Macro evolution is just a meaningless creationist term to wave away the mountain of scientific evidence that they can no longer deny. It's like attacking the theory of gravity because we have not yet seen Pluto make a full orbit. We first discovered pluto in 1930, and we will not see it complete an orbit until the year 2278. We will not see the Milky Way galaxy complete an orbit for about 228 million years. None of this weakens the theory of gravity.
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We have an experiment, and ID fails (Score:5, Insightful)
While we see plenty of beauty and elegance, we also see large numbers of botches: mistakes no intelligent designer would ever make. Examples include the human back, which is flawed enough to keep chiropractors in business because we descend from four-legged creatures and the back isn't really optimized for walking on two legs. But there are bigger ones: the nerve that connects the larynx to the brain goes through the heart, both in the human and the giraffe. We have a blind spot in our eyes because of the way the optic nerve is connected, though it isn't hard to come up with a design that lacks this flaw.
Evolution will get rid of botches that interfere with survival and reproduction, but it's neutral with respect to botches that are just annoying. And that's what we see.
On the subject (Score:3, Insightful)
That said, I think it is ridiculous to assume that evolution does not exist. Here's an example why.
The Bible never mentions bacteria, but it most definitely does exist. Why no mention? Because people had not discovered germs yet. Anyway, bacteria is the reason why undercooked pork will make you sick. Instead of confusing people by trying to describe bacteria, something they had absolutely no concept of, and how it can be bad for you, God said "Don't eat pork," and that was that.
Similarly, people in early OT time had no concept of the number one million. IIRC, the Greeks were the first civilization with a word for "million." Combine that with the fact that genetics research was just a few thousand years away, trying to describe evolution as a way of creation would have been impossible. He said "I made it all in 6 days," and that was that, because either way the important part is that God was responsible for it. Heck, people these days have a hard time conceiving millions of years, and it's a few thousand years after the Greeks.
Expecting science to conform to religion, especially one particular religion, is madness. Science by its nature is a-religious and deals only with what can be directly observed, and for the most part the supernatural cannot be directly observed. It is up to religious leaders to interpret scientific findings in the context of their religion.
I don't expect biologists to be theologians, nor theologians to be biologists. That's reasonable, right?
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:2, Insightful)
I'm not certain how your example does anything to dismiss the parents' point. Are you trying to say that just because something cannot be disproved via experiment it is worthy of scientific inquiry. Are leprechauns worthy of serious scientific inquiry now?
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:5, Insightful)
When somebody makes an assertion, it is not the responsibility of the person who is being skeptical to disprove anything. I don't have to prove anything with a "not" in it.
You have misunderstood my post. I was asking that proponents of ID demonstrate how ID can be falsified. As I'm sure you know, falsifiability is one of the general prerequisites of any scientific hypothesis.
I'm not claiming that supporters of evolution must falsify ID; I'm asserting that supporters of ID must show how their own claims might be falsified by evidence from the natural world. If they cannot furnish a hypothetical situation in which there claims can conclusively be falsified, then their claims cannot be evaluated within a scientific framework.
Re:We have an experiment, and ID fails (Score:3, Insightful)
I agree with everything you say, but you have missed the point of my original challenge. Which is this: in the face of the myriad deficiencies of life in the world today (e.g., the human back problems you highlight), ID can always sidestep any challenges regarding the competence of the 'designer' by claiming that we cannot presume to know the intent of God in designing organisms this way. All ID says is 'God did it' -- an utterly worthless assertion, that has no ability whatsoever to shine any light on the world around us.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:4, Insightful)
- precisely defines what "intelligent design" is,
including a thorough description of
how "intelligent designing" works, and
- describes a set of experimental measurements
that
says "if these values are found, then
intelligent design is real, but if they are
not found, intelligent design is not real"
then ID might have something to do with science. Otherwise, it is pure theology.Re:Logic (Score:5, Insightful)
This is just one of those arguments that have absolutely no basis in science or common sense, yet keeps getting repeated because no one has bothered to stop and think about it. Basic light sensativity (the kind that exists in single-celled organisms) is better than none at all. Color sensativity is better than basic light sensativity. Color sensativity with a very crude lense (only partially focused) is better than no lense at all. And an entire, perfectly focused eye is better than a half-focused eye. If you doubt these things, just think about how much very basic information an eye supplies--the time of day, the movement of a predator, the color of a poisonous plant, etc. There is no mystery, only a basic origin (a light sensative cell) and a chain of cumulative improvements.
Some animals (though not bats) are blind, probably for brainpower reasons. Visual processing takes a lot of energy, energy that could be redirected into other endevors, such as sound/smell processing or greater intelligence. If little is to be gained by sight, for instance if a creature spends its entire life underground or in deep ocean, then there really isn't a strong evolutionary incentive to keep (or develop) those eyeballs.
Your other arguments are fairly moot, too, but this one is a pet peeve of mine. For all the logic it contains, you might as well say that the ocean is conclusive proof that lakes don't exist.
Re:We have an experiment, and ID fails (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Yes!!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Please, don't lump all "religious people" together under the umbrella of fundamentalists.
An unfortunate shorthand. Not all religious people are fundamentalists but all fundamentalists are acting in the name of religion. We need louder moderates.
Intelligent Design is bollocks (Score:3, Insightful)
There is overwhelming evidence, however, for the fact that those insisting in intelligent design badly want and need to believe in god. They just are unable to accept any alternative explanation, as that would leave them stranded in an ocean of insecurity, guilt, and despair.
Moreover, the religious discourse of those who insist in intelligent design keeps repeating the ages old axiom that truth requires you believe, and that disbelieving certain facts is a sin that will be punished. People who hold that axiom (and that include phicisits who believe in god) will always be dubious scientists, twisting facts here and there in the name of "god".
Beyond that, I find it funny that when confronted with evolution, which is a simple and understandable mechanism which can be watched in action even in a computer, proponents of ID say "this is hard to believe". Instead, the bible with all its miracles and baroque medievalisms is for them the most plausible thing of all.
Re:Wasn't this obvious? (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:2, Insightful)
1. Balls on the outside
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:1, Insightful)
As for all of the 'probability calculations' that are frequently levied against abiogensis, every single one suffers from flaws. Typically, the argument calculates the probability that a cell would randomly form, and neglects that modern biology doesn't claim that cells were the first kind of life. Other claims invlve the probability of certain proteins forming, but typically neglects that there were probably millions to thousands of suitable enviroments, and that once a protein has begun to form (ie, it has begun folding) the process is likely to continue.
A simple way to think about these kinds of probabilities:
1-picture yourself playing a random lottery with a weekly chance of 1:1.7mil of winning
2-picture that 150k people are playing this lottery
3-It is nearly certain that somebody will win the lottery, if it's repeated 12 times.
Think. Each person would view themselves as having been extremely unlikely to win, but with a large amount of people all playing, and given some time SOMEBODY will win. Many lottery winners, upon winning a jackpot (often about 1/month in the state0run lottos of America) make claims that it was God/Allah/whatever's wish they win. Their individual odds weren't likely. The aggregated nature however, makes it likely that unlikely events will happen. And now, think of winning the lotto as the birth of self-replicating life. The players of the lotto are the areas of Earth with suitable conditions. It may seem counterintuitive to think of it like this, but models like this are applicable in many scenarios (from evolutionary population growth models to computer science to quamtum mechanics to everyday events).
If we go beyond that argument, and think of all the possible planets with suitable conditions for life (even if restricted to life as we know it and rule out some of the more exotic possibilities) throughout the universe, then it becomes incredibly likely that life would naturally arise on a planet somewhere. Hence, no probability based argument could disprove evolution.
Any argument that evolution is going to be replaced by a theory (typically ID) suffers from a fatal weakness, for the design camp. Any theory that replaces evolution must explain why neo-darwinian evolutionary theory has explained all of the data presented to it so far. And for something to be scientific, in the standard sense, the theory must be naturalistic, because the supernatural (by definition as acting through non-repeatable miracles and other nonrepeating events) is ruled out. Naturalistic is here defined as anything which is rooted in repeatable and observable events that satifies the intersubjective testability requirements of true science (see: Pierce). ID fails both thse counts. If you notice, all of IDs efforts go into saying "Look at all the problems in evolution and related naturalistic/materialistic theories. It can't explain everything, therefore its wrong." and then posits a theory that says, in effect, "We don't understand what happened, therefore, God(Allah)(transdimensional aliens from planet Omicron Perseii 8) did it."
For much better, ie less abrasive and more technically proficient, arguments, see talkorigins.org and talkdesign.org for elucidation.
-Steven LePire, professional statistician writing at 4:42 in the morning EST and about to fall asleep
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:1, Insightful)
Evolution as a fact (ie, that there is genetic change over time) can only be falsified if it is shown that evey genetic sample taken from populations over time has been faked.
Evolution as a theory (ie, that the above listed fact has resulted in the variety of life found found today) can be falsified through any number of means. One example of such is to find in the fossil record a skeleton of an animal that could not possibly have evolved from other existant enviroment/species. Could be that you find a dinosaur that apparently is descended from an allosaurus, but with a short period of time had a brain to body ratio a dozen times that of the alosaurus and its bones were actually made of honey-combed titanium and coated in carbon-laminate fiber. Something like that would probably prove that there were forces at work in the development of life that were either supernatural or non-natural. The problem with dsproving evolution at this point of the game, is that it has such a massive body of evidence supporting it, ie every fossil and creature as yet discovered and catalogued, that the very thought of it being false seems ludicrous, to those who know the evidence.\
As far as a belief in science being based on determinism, so what. The fact of the matter is that science won because of pragmatics. Can naturalism ever actually be proved... no. Can any philosophy... no. Since its inception, science has been a thorn in the side of that ever present group dedicated to prolonging human suffering and misery, religion. What does science have over religion to make it worthwhile? Simple, it works. Religion and magic simply don't have the power to give a person a modern life with AC, cars, computers, and such. When it comes down to it, people have historically wanted science because it results in more comfortable lives, governments have chosen science because it results in better weapons, etc. Could it be that this universe is in fact not the final one and that some religion/magical tradition/whatever gives all those promised benefits like it says? Who knows. But science works in this life, in the here and now. That's fscking good enough.
-Steven LePire, a very slepy statistician
Re:Stop a moment and observe.. (Score:3, Insightful)
Ahh, the incontrovertible "I just know" argument.
Re:Stop a moment and observe.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The very process
of proving beauty
is ugly.
You're entitled to your own opinion and world-view, just as you are entitled to deny everything that is not proven. Personally I think you're missing out, but that's your choice of consciousness..
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:3, Insightful)
Unless you can provide evidence for this assertion, it's nothing but hot air.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:1, Insightful)
Now causality is an assumption of science, that's true. Assumptions in science are evaluated pragmatically on how productive they are in terms of understanding. It's easy to see that if we assume design not causality in the origin of species, our understanding would stop right there, for we presumably cannot understand the mind of the designer. The assumption of causality has been extremely productive for science.
It's a shame when folks like yourself become fixed on religious beliefs and try to straightjacket science into them. My best advice to you is to stop doing that and instead refer to the products of science the way scientists do, as conditional knowledge that may change at any time. Those who understand what scientific knowledge is don't refer to it as truth; rather, they will often refer to it as "current theory," subject to debate and revision. You would never allow that in a discussion of ID because of its centrality to your religious beliefs. That is the root of your confusion.
My advice--learning some more about the philosophy of science and the scientific method would be a far better use of your time than reading whatever ID pamphlets you read.
Re:We have an experiment, and ID fails (Score:3, Insightful)
Also, even if this designer's criteria matches yours, why must it be perfect? Perhaps this designer is not the final overarching power in the universe, and only a sub-god. Or even if this being IS at the top of the heirarchy, who's to say that the universe is "meant" to be perfect?
Disclaimer: I am in no way advocating intelligent design, but if you decide to argue against it, flawed arguments will only make things worse.
LS
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:3, Insightful)
A squids eye would perform very poorly under the conditions humans live in, and vice versa."
So, basically, they -evolved according to their circumstances and environmental needs-?
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:2, Insightful)
No, but religion DOES state, matter-of-factly, that God -is- perfect, and incapable of making a mistake. That includes creating anything that is less than perfect because, by definition, that would be an imperfection on His part.
"God can be perfect and create something imperfect."
See part A., above.
"I'm not a proponent of ID, but it seems you're too eager to dismiss it that you can't see your own fairly obvious logical fallacy."
I have no desire to turn this article's discussion into an anti-religion debate, but if you want to talk "obvious logical fallacies," may I direct your attention to the fact that "The Bible is God's own Word, because the Bible says it is," as well as that "The Bible is true, because the Bible says the Bible is true."
From everything I've seen and/or read, proponents of Evolutionary Theory do not use circular-arguments to 'prove' what they say is true.
Re:Stop a moment and observe.. (Score:5, Insightful)
If you prove or disprove something, you stop wondering about it. Your progress is halted. The trick is to keep wondering and go further.
Suppose we prove God's existence here and now, by a simple scientific method nobody can dispute and everybody test for themselves. Then what? What has that amounted to? It won't help this world one iota. The arguing and bombings will continue as before, maybe even worse.
You can live life based on God's existence, and in the very process you will create God within yourself. Wether you believe God is a bearded man up in the sky or a universal principle, doesn't matter. Arguing is only for people who cannot tolerate other opinions. In the process, you miss the other perspective and lose respect for others. Arguing about God, you make him a Thing. That misses the point entirely!
What matters is how you live life. Is it a struggle, or is it something beautiful and simple? The human values are the same for every religion and culture. We should nurture and cultivate them, in order to solve our differences and generally be more happy. It is really very simple knowledge, which the world is in need for at this time.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:5, Insightful)
The problem I have with the idea of "intelligent design" is that it breaks several important rules, not the least of which is the KISS principle. The need for an Intelligent Designer rests on the notion of Irreducible Complexity. But there is no irreducible complexity in nature. On the contrary, an Intelligent Designer would introduce irreducible complexity.
The Universe embodies the principle that simplicity is beauty. {Why does the pressure in a fluid act equally in all directions? Because it was simpler than favouring a particular direction. Why does light travel in straight lines? Because it was simpler that way. Why do men have nipples? Because it was too complicated for them not to.} If we take that logic to the extreme, it is simpler for the universe to have created itself somehow {and here I am making no assumptions about the process by which this might happen}, than for a creator to have been created as an intermediate step. My assertion is: There is no process that could have created a creator, that could not instead -- and more simply -- have created a fully-formed universe.
{The predominance of D- over L- enantiomers in nature is not evidence for Intelligent Design. It can be shown by analysis of potential reaction mechanisms that right-handed would favour right-handed and vice versa. It is probable that the primordial soup was close to racemic, but somehow more D- than L- proto-organisms survived and eventually L- forms became extinct. It ought to be possible to synthesise and culture the opposite enantiomer of an existing DNA sample, resulting in a "left handed clone". Pending the perfection of the necessary equipment, this must be left as an exercise for the reader
The argument against life being created by random chance ignores the obvious fact that the improbable event has already happened. In fact, given the sheer magnitude of the universe, it was close to inevitable that life would develop somewhere. Remember that the many necessary attempts were taking place in parallel, not in series {if you throw six dice at a time, the odds favour at least one of them being a six}. And not everything in the process is truly random: certain chemical elements are predisposed to bond in certain ways.
Remember also that radioactive decay events, which we know today trigger genetic mutation, would have been more common the further back in time we travel. We cannot know for certain {though we might infer from decay products} whether or not some especially radioactive isotope existed in the past but has become completely exhausted today.
{I realise that there are quite a few dangling "somehows" in this essay. It is not my intension to offer explanations for them here. These are "closing" rather than "opening" questions, which is to say that the answers will not in and of themselves raise further questions.}
Re:We have an experiment, and ID fails (Score:3, Insightful)
Actually, to avoid the 'separation of church and state' issue, most IDers don't say 'God did it'. They say that some Intelligent Designer did it, maybe aliens. By pointing out the flaws that a perfect god would not have incorporated, you have shown that while ID may or may not be debatable, the one thing that can be ruled out is ID by a perfect god. Now all we have left on the ID side is a bickering pantheon of imperfect gods, or some hoopy froods from outer space.
Re:Evolution of submissions (Score:3, Insightful)
> Good thing you didn't describe yourself as a "scientist"
You idiot. Lots of respected physicists and scientists of other disciplines believe in God.
Re:Dogs (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:Stop a moment and observe.. (Score:5, Insightful)
Logical fallacy.
If conditions were even slightly different at any point in the history of the universe, all current species would be extinct. You can't say our current ecosystem contains all possible species for every possible set of environmental conditions and physical laws, so you can't say that no life would exist, merely that our current form(s) of life wouldn't.
We evolved in these conditions - it's no surprise that we're extraordinarily tightly bound to them. You're confusing cause and effect.
For another example, riffle through a pack of cards and pick one. Put it back and do it again. You pick the four of clubs, followed by the ace of hearts. So what?
So what? At this point, the four of clubs is looking around and thinking "Wow, what are the odds, eh? The chances of me and Ace here existing are 1 in two thousand and four!. Yeah, but the chance of "two cards being picked" is pretty much 1:1 (leaving aside the possibilities of spontaneous combustion or weird quantum tunneling effects half-way through
You're looking around, assuming this is the only way "life" could possibly ever evolve, and positing the fluke was down to an intelligent creator.
First off, we still don't have a complete understanding of what even constitutes "life", so you can't claim a definite conclusion of any kind. All you can do is construct theories, using rational, logical inference and falsifiable hypotheses.
Secondly, it could well be that "life" is merely an emergent property of a sufficiently complex organisation of matter left for a long enough time, in which case the chances of life appearing in the universe would be about 1:1.
Short answer: Science teaches us to adopt the leading falsifiable hypothesis only until a better one comes along. In other words, keep investigating, and don't ever assume you know the complete answer.
Religion teaches us unsubstantiated irrational heresay from thousands of years before the scientific method, and expects us to treat it as the final answer. In other words, shut up, sit down and stop asking awkward questions.
"I just know that there is a Big Mind behind it all."
No, you think there's a Big Mind behind it all. This is the central point of ID/creationism/religious zealotry of all types - a complete inability to differentiate between "know", "believe, based on the preponderance of evidence" and "believe, with no evidence whatsoever to support your conclusion".
I have no problem with someone believing whatever they like - it's when they mistake that for "knowing" and attempt to force their own irrational beliefs on others that I feel compelled to stand up.
"Then what's the point arguing about it? Like ants arguing about the demi-god roaming around the garden making large craters.."
Amen to that - it's essentially unknowable, so it's not science, but philosophy. If Creationists/ID-proponents wanted religion discussed in Philosophy I'd have no problem.
Re:Stop a moment and observe.. (Score:3, Insightful)
The problem I have is with fundamentalists who believe Science is opposed to Religion, then try to dress up Religion in Science's clothing in order to depose it.
I'm happy to let Science handle the "how" and the "when", and let Religion handle the "why".
Unfortunately, while scientists by and large are careful with their assertions and strive to stay in their niche, religious fundamentalists often play fast and loose with semantics, logic and reason, and seem intent on invading and conquering science, depriving us of our most useful tool in our (physical) arsenal.
FWIW, I believe you're correct in your assertion that modern life is entirely too materialistic, and that we lose a great deal (including, studies indicate, mental stability) by focusing on stressful living and material acquisition rather than what truly makes us happy.
That said, I'd lay the blame for that more on economics, fashion and advertising (all avowedly non-scientific) than on science.
Science just gives us the tools - it's up to us whether we use them to promote a comfortable utopian equality for all, or to plaster the freeway with high-pressure paranoia-inducing adverts telling you no-one will have sex with you if you don't replace your car every 18 months...
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:3, Insightful)
Nor does any evidence exist to the contrary. Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. They are obviously superior in one way--they have no blind spot.
How the eye evolved from the primitive verted type common to invertebrates into the inverted eye of vertebrates is
This is another stupid "absence of evidence is evidence of absence" argument. Do you really expect to find fossil eyes? And in fact, many plausible explanations of the evolution of the eye have been provided. The hard thing is figuring out which of the many possible ways an eye could have evolved is the right one. Indeed, based upon modern knowledge of photochemistry, evolution of vision seems virtually inevitable, and it is not surprising that eyes seem to have evolved multiple times.
Re:And racism? (Score:1, Insightful)
Yes there is.
But it's ok.
Racism is discrimination based on race.
You aren't allowed to be racist when it comes to jobs, loans, law enforcement, etc, but you're allowed to be racist when picking you sexual partners, because all discriminations are allowed in personnal relationships: Financial, racial, musical, height, weight, etc.
But people equate "racism" with "an absolute bad thing", instead of "discrimination based on race", which is where the confusion comes from.
Re:The mathematics of evolution (Score:3, Insightful)
Please....please find me a math prof to help with that one.
There are plenty. See references in the above wikiepedia link. Keep in mind however, that good science proceeds by testable theories, and evaluating the probability of various phenomena is tricky until more research is done. For example, the number of solar systems being discovered is currently increasing our estimates of various parameters in the Drake equation.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:3, Insightful)
A better analogy would be to imagine that for some reason, your watch was unable to display any time between 12:00 and 1:00, even though between all other hours it displays minutes and seconds, and even though other watches from the same manufacturer are able to display times like 12:30 just fine.
Re:We have an experiment, and ID fails (Score:1, Insightful)
Wait, wait, wait. God is omnipotent, right? And omniscient, right? And, uh, didn't God make the rules to begin with?
You've set up your own straw man, because the base assumption of religion is that -God makes all the rules-. Moreover, God is himself supposed to be -perfect-. So you're saying the all-powerful all-seeing being couldn't create perfection? The old testament God clearly wanted moral perfection from his followers, so why would he be unable to create perfect designs?
Suuure...
Re:Intelligent Squids? (Score:3, Insightful)
I'm all for the philosophy and meaning, but there is a lot of junk here that has been disproved many times over. There are clear theories for how complex systems that seem to need to function "whole cloth" can actually evolve -- usually by re-purposing complex systems used for something else-- like the mitochondria in DNA being first parasite, then symbiote, and finally a part of most cells.
And let's let the whole "better eye" discussion rest. I'm not perfect and I can tell from looking at people that they are at best an interim design-- a "hodge-podge". Human eyes are mostly inferior to birds eyes -- even if you try to throw in arguments towards different uses or "economy of design" -- these are all Evolutionary arguments anyway. We could talk about the poor design of the foot. Or, how come we have a bunch of delicate bones and a tail on our spine? As a designer, I would have piped the nerves through another series of bones like the legs and had two maybe three large joints --tops! People could have more flexibility and strength and less damage to a large-boned three jointed back. Human bodies make sense if you look at environment and circumstances forcing an animal out of one habitat into another. We could have come out of the trees into mangrove swamps, for a few millennia, then been forced to walk upright as the water dried to desert. Throwing rocks becomes a technique for defense and hunting that allows humans to be weaker per pound than almost all other animals. My personal theory is that hominids beat out neanderthals by being weaker, so as to preserve energy and better survive the food shortages of the ice ages. All these ideas are up for debate -- but they make more sense than a human built from scratch to live just as a human does today.
And why are there so many bones in the hands and feet? I could go on. The human body is a sacrifices functionality for brain power in a lot of places. We are weaker and slower and have poorer senses than many other animals. Was that because we have big brains or in order to have big brains? I don't know, but, we'll fix all that through genetic engineering. Religious groups will bitch about that plenty enough -- I can assure you.
ID is about theocratic power. Those in the pulpit who want to think for others need explanations. When discovering that evolution was helping too many people understand things, the pseudo-science of ID "evolved" from a more primitive form called "creationism". This is a discussion about evolution from those interested in science. Don't get religion in the argument unless you want me to show up at your church and talk about the Gospel according to Mary Magdalen. Which is tempting, really tempting. But, as I've matured, I've realized that having THE WHOLE TRUTH is kind of impossible -- so fighting about who has the better truth is extremely wasteful. The best we've managed so far is the scientific method. It is a process by which theories can compete and be proved or disproved. That was a pretty good accomplishment for flawed humans--leave it be!
Also, I'm too late for this post to make much impact--but I hope that future societies who excavate the internet stores will look kindly on this post.
Did any of this cover the speciation and diversity discovery? No. Distraction has been achieved.
Re:Intelligent Design, explained Intelligently (Score:3, Insightful)
Saying 'there isn't enough time for evolution to work' given the fossil record which clearly proves in great detail that it certainly has worked is about as crazy as seeing a large building, then stating that it could not have been built, after someone has shown you all the photos of its construction.