Correcting Misperceptions About Evolution 838
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.'"
RTFA (Score:5, Informative)
(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.
Re:Origin of life ?! (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Origin of life ?! (Score:1, Informative)
covered three frequently misapprehended topics in evolutionary history, (1) the Cambrian explosion, (2) origin of tetrapods, and (3) evolution of human ancestors, as well as the origin of life.
Origin of life was by evolution (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Comment removed (Score:5, Informative)
Re:I ran into this with my roommate yesterday (Score:1, Informative)
Sorry, it just makes me cringe when I hear people talk about the "Homo sapien" [sic].
Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner... (Score:3, Informative)
the ID "theory" does nothing of the sort. the only "innovation" it has over the overtly religious stories is the simple substitution of "god" with "intelligent designer". still, it does not explain why an "intelligent designer" is necessary, nor does it provide a fact (or a reason) that would point to the existence of such.
in other words, it performs the act known on teh internets as "epic fail".
Comment removed (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Not everyone is a lifelong learner... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Where is this evidence? (Score:5, Informative)
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.
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.
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:Going after the parents is a mistake (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Read the book first (Score:3, Informative)
It is probably better if you actually know something about the topic before you put down your comments in (virtual) print.
Mutation is random, selection is not.
Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:5, Informative)
"'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]
Re: Origin of life ?! (Score:5, Informative)
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 ?! (Score:1, Informative)
Who was the very first person to invent money? What was used to represent it? Where was it first used? Don't know? Well, I guess that calls the entire monetary system of today into question, doesn't it?
It's really easy to show that you don't need to know the *exact* time, procedure, or individual involved in the formation of a system in order to understand how it works NOW, or even how it has worked over recent history. Sometimes there are ample clues about the early stages, even if it is inevitably incomplete. And, most importantly, any uncertainty about the initiation of a process certainly isn't grounds for questioning the existence of that process at all when the evidence is all over the place today.
Re:Going after the parents is a mistake (Score:3, Informative)
There's no such thing as "the protestant church".
And most churches in the US that claim to be protestant didn't even exist when the "protest" took place that the term "protestant" refers to (1529).
Re:Going after the parents is a mistake (Score:3, Informative)
Tsk. Don't go to church much, do you?
"On the third day He rose in fulfillment of the Scriptures; He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again in glory to judge the living and the dead, and his kingdom will have no end."
Straight from the Nicene Creed. Said at every Catholic Mass, and a recital of the cornerstone of Catholic beliefs. Yes, the whole Fundamentalist interpretation of what that specifically means isn't accepted, but that doesn't mean the Catholic Church doesn't believe Jesus is going to come again. You should've just kept your post on the topic of Evolution.
Skepticism (Score:3, Informative)
It is a common meme that skeptics are "closed-minded," when the reality, as you have explored, is that it is the closed-minded who will proclaim, "BE OPEN MINDED!" to those who will not accept their chosen beliefs because they are unable to actually support them with little things like, "facts congruent with reality."
Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:5, Informative)
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:I'll come in again (Score:3, Informative)
Here's a link to it: Spanish Inquisition Part 1 [youtube.com] Spanish Inquisition Part 2 [youtube.com]
The parent post is definitely not worthy of downmodding.
Re:Where is this evidence? (Score:3, Informative)
Re:Interesting responses to the article (Score:4, Informative)
The only place in science for proofs are math and logic.
Theories are the "hows" for the "facts" of the universe. Take gravity as an example. Gravity is a fact (things fall to the Earth, masses attract each other, etc.). The *theory* of gravity is the "this is how it works". In fact, there are multiple theories of gravity *in use this very day*. Both Newton's and Einstein's theories of gravity are used, even though Einstein's is significantly more correct more often. But neither theory has been proven correct because you *can't* prove they are correct. All you can do is show how well they match observation.
As for evolution, we know about the fact of evolution. We've seen it happen in real-time. We've seen it happen in the fossil record. We've instigated and directed it ourselves. That's evolution the fact. Evolution the theory (in fact, just like with gravity, theories) are the details, the "how it happens". Exactly *why* do animals evolve? Just *how* does this happen? These are aspect of the *theory* of evolution which all seek to describe the *fact* of evolution.
Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:3, Informative)
Say what now? I like the concept of "evolution" for exactly the opposite reason - the simplicity of it. A specimen which is better adapted to the environment will more likely survive to pass on its genes. How, in the name of all that is (or isn't!) holy is that counterintuitive? A truely simple concept that provides for the complexity of live on Earth. In truth, it's staggeringly beautiful!
For much the same reason, I'm uncomfortable with talk of "chance" and "coin tossing" when discussing "evolution". Luck has nothing to do with it. At the start of life we weren't tossing a coin to try and make homo sapiens! Whatever was best survived, and it turned out to be us.
Re: How About Focus on Evolution? (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:3, Informative)
Genesis 1 clearly separates each of the events into literal days. "And there was evening, and there was morning--the first day.", "And there was evening, and there was morning--the second day.", on until the sixth day. How much clearer does it need to be?
But just in case it's not clear enough, Exodus 6:9-11 connects six working days with the six literal days God created everything. Again Exodus 31:15-17 connects six working days with the six literal days of creation.
Still if not clear enough, Matthew 19:4 Jesus reaffirms that God created man and woman. Mark 13:19 again affirms creation by Jesus' own words.
Genesis is literal history. 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. Why is thing being done with the Bible?
Obviously we can disagree on whether the Bible is real/accurate/fiction etc. but it is definitely meant as literal days.
Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:3, Informative)
1:3 And God said, Let there be light: and there was light.
1:4 And God saw the light, that it was good: and God divided the light from the darkness.
1:5 And God called the light Day, and the darkness he called Night. And the evening and the morning were the first day.
Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:2, Informative)
Romans 5:12-20 understands Adam to be a literal man, and a 'pattern of the one to come'(14). Take away 6 day creation, you remove a literal Adam, you remove original sin, and you remove the need for Christ.
I'd say it's one of my preoccupations.
Re:Actually, that's sort of a cop out. (Score:3, Informative)
Thanks! A quick example - if you're offended by religion, skip to the next message now, and please accept my apologies for the off-topic detour. :-)
Find a duck sauce packet that barely floats, and put it in a 2L soda bottle filled to the brim with water with the cap tightened. The packet should float normally, but sink when you squeeze the bottle.
Science: This is the basis for hydraulics - water doesn't compress, air does, so squeezing the bottle makes the air bubble in the packet smaller, increasing the density so that it sinks. It also shows why an air bubble in your car's brake line is not a good idea!
Religion: (From a Christian viewpoint) God gives us free will rather than lightning bolts from on high. If a Christian is sensitive to His guidance (i.e., pressure on the bottle), his heart will respond (i.e., heart == bubble).
It's called a "Cartesian diver", I believe - much easier to make that the old pen-cap-and-paperclip design I used to use. And it's not so much the kids as the adults that love to play with the bottle. :-)
I have about 250 or so lessons like this, with a dozen or two published thus far on my website [drgeorge.org] ("Lessons" on the left menu). As is not uncommon with personal websites, I have great plans but not as great timely implementation. I guess I love teaching more than writing websites. :-/