Convergent Evolution Upends Honeyeaters' Taxonomy 186
grrlscientist writes in with a beautiful piece of science, beautifully explicated. The poignant bit is that the birds in question are all extinct. "Every once in awhile, I will read a scientific paper that astonishes and delights me so much that I can hardly wait to tell you all about it. Such is the situation with a newly published paper about the Hawai'ian Honeyeaters. In short, due to the remarkable power of convergent evolution, Hawai'ian Honeyeaters have thoroughly deceived taxonomists and ornithologists as to their true origin and identity for more than 200 years."
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:5, Insightful)
Proposed text: "Evolution, like gravity, is just a theory. Please act accordingly."
Re:Who is this grrlscientist? (Score:3, Insightful)
How do you know that "she" isn't really a "he"? We're posting on the internet after all, where that 23 year-old hot chick who's all over you in the chat rooms is really a 47 year-old obese man living in his mother's basement.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:5, Insightful)
I think you need to look up what "law" means in a scientific context. The only "Law" of gravity I'm familiar with is Newton's Law of Gravity, which is known to be inaccurate and has been supplanted (at the theoretical if not all practical levels) by Einstein's Theory of Relativity. So tell me how a law is something more than a theory again?
The scientific community is completely open to other explanations that have actual evidence behind them. Debate about evolution happens all the time, and is ongoing as further evidence is accumulated. Now if you mean that science hasn't embraced whatever non-evolutionary theory you think is being neglected, well that's probably because outside of some blogs there's little to no evidence for it. We've watched evolution* happen in controlled environments. If you've got anything resembling the tiniest fraction of the evidence for evolution, your theory would be considered. If it had as much evidence as evolution, you'd up-end biology (much like evolutionary theory up-ended it).
Lastly, am I supposed to be shocked or dismayed that a textbook contained an error? Scientific knowledge advances, things previously held to be true are corrected, and freshmen-level textbooks often lag behind. And is your argument really that a false "missing link" means that humans (as opposed to all the other life forms on the planet) didn't undergo evolution? That's not the "proof". It's a step in the family tree. Just because you incorrectly identified your grandmother does not mean you have no family tree.
* Deliberate trap for the "Well sure microevolution is observed fact, but that doesn't mean anything about macro" response. Feel free not to take the bait.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:5, Insightful)
"Just" a shift in population ratios? Nice attempt to drive a wedge into the non-existent space between "micro-evolution" and "macro-evolution".
For the record:
Shift in population ratios = change in allele frequencies = evolution.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:5, Insightful)
It only seems to contradict global warming if you have only a superficial understanding of it. "Monotonic increase of temperature" was never a theory of global warming, so because a piece of data contradicts your understanding means nothing.
Also, the moth thing is more an example of natural selection than the evolution of a new trait. We've observed evolution in labs with flies and plants. Again, just because a layman's example and understanding doesn't seem to completely explain the theory, that doesn't mean that's all the understanding or explanation possible.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:4, Insightful)
Except that axioms, by definition, are not subject to modification based on observations. Theories are. Which is why scientists aren't called "natural philosophers" any more, and why the scientific approach to the world is so useful.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:5, Insightful)
the moth thing in England was brought up, even though I'm pretty certain everyone agrees that no evolution occurred there, it was just a shift in population ratios
"A shift in population ratios" is evolution by definition. Look it up.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:4, Insightful)
Well, if you want me to take what is in the next textbook seriously, yeah. Or at least, if you want me to believe in evolution as firmly as most scientists believe it
And you should get beyond that textbook if you want me to take your skepticism as anything more than that of an a-priori prejudice. If you will not believe in anything for which there has existed errors, then you cannot believe in anything, including anything you yourself have reasoned about.
(and I attribute that to having no alternative that matches their religious views or social pressures).
You mean no alternative which stands up to scientific scrutiny. There were alternatives which were hotly debated between until there was sufficient evidence to throw one away. To this day there are hotly debated variations on the theory to evolution. Sorry but as much as the disbelieving like to talk about the "religion" of science, having a scientifically valid way of upending the "orthodoxy" is highly desired, since that's how you get your name in the history books. What do you think Charles Darwin was in his day if not, in your parlance, a "heretic"? Oh and no he isn't a "saint" or "prophet" now, since we've modified and corrected his theories just as we have Newton's.
As for micro evolution, I decline to take the bait. But I will say that the delineation between micro- and macro- evolution appears to come down to a philosophical, rather than observable, difference.
Good for you. There is no observable difference, which is why it's not considered a difference by biologists, and only part of the "philosophy" of deniers who think that's a way to drive a wedge between theory and observed fact. The "trap" involves showing how it is logically impossible to believe in one but not the other.
And, lastly, the evidence of evolution thing... refer back to the interpretation-of-evidence comments that I made. Data does not support this or that theory by simply existing. Data is interpreted into evidence. The question of whether or not evidence is being interpreted correctly appears to be a very poignant consideration in light of the numerous errors that have been latched on to in support of evolution.
Fair enough, though I have to warn you that it's very telling that you yourself latch onto the errors, as if that's the only support of evolution and without those data points, the whole edifice is called into question. There are mountains of evidence for evolution, much of it verified as well as anything in biology can be verified.
As much as I'd like to get into a discussion about evidence for evolution or other theories and against evolution and other theories, I unfortunately don't have time nor is slashdot the best place anyways, hehe... so I'm constraining myself more to the philosophy of science side of things.
Yes. If you actually had evidence for an alternative theory, /. is the last place you should post it. A scientific journal would be the ideal place, as it would be the start of your ascent into the history books. Of course when this doesn't happen, it's because the religious cabal rejected your "truth" for their own "religion", and not that your idea fails scientific rigor. It couldn't be that coming up with a better hypothesis is excruciatingly difficult because the current theory is very, very good. Oh no. That's impossible. It must be that you are Galileo and science is the Catholic Church.
very curious (Score:5, Insightful)
AC cowardly says...
This, of course, is why most things ending in *ology aren't real science.
I'd be very curious to know how you managed to decide that from an article and a comment about taxONOMY (i.e. the study and method of naming the taxa)...
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:4, Insightful)
I very much beg to differ there. If you think scientific "proof" doesn't include, at the very least, some amount of belief, I think you are very wrong. For example - if this or that was proven in science, makes it into a science book, and is proven wrong later... what would you call it? Was it proven? 100% sure? It was wrong, so it apparently wasn't actually 100% sure.
You seem to be living up to your handle. Others have tried, and failed. I figure, I'm bored, waiting for some code to compile, so I'll take a whack at the pinata!
As someone else eloquently explained [slashdot.org], scientific theories can never be proven, only disproven.
Note that there are some very specific meanings to these words, in the context of science (which has roots in philosophy). Most people hear about proof for a theory and assume that the theory is being presented as 100% incontrovertible fact. And then these people (yourself included, apparently) crow about the hypocrisy of science and the shams being perpetuated when a theory is disproven. In other words, the thinking seems to be "Well, Theory A was PROVEN last year, and now it's been DISPROVEN! Science is a lie! All theories are equally valid, including my wild idea about how to travel through time/dinosaurs coexisted with humans/noah's ark existed/etc!"
Let's break it down (again):
1. Observe some phenomenon
2. Hypothesize something about said phenomenon
3. Search for evidence which supports/disproves hypothesis
If the body of evidence found (via research) supports the hypothesis and doesn't kill it, then voila, you have your own personal theory. Now go and publish your paper for peer review, which works like:
4. Publish paper with hypothesis + supporting evidence
5. Watch as your scientific peers attempt to eviscerate your theory and prove it wrong, stupid, and otherwise useless as a contribution to the pool of human knowledge
If no one can find evidence to disprove your theory, then congratulations, you have your own theory (hopefully named after you, or something catchy, anyhow). Maybe you'll get a Nobel, or a nice lab somewhere with go-fers, or at least a nice bonus.
Your theory will be used as fact until something comes up to question its usefulness as an explanation for whatever phenomenon was the starting point of this magical journey. Why? Because at some point you have to stop asking so many damn questions and just (logically) assume some things for the sake of argument. Until we build the Omni-Mind 8000 which interfaces with the quantum brane junction and knows everything, we'll just have to deal with the human mind and all its limitations. Having a body of educated guesses about why things do what they do allows folks to get some damn work done without having to build up a whole freaking theory of everything whenever they want to do something.
Now you just have to hope that some aspiring grad student a few years down the road doesn't revisit your theory and blow it all to hell with better equipment that finds inconsistencies with your theory.
As has been pointed out by others, this most certainly does imply that everything we know via the scientific method could be wrong! The thing is, though, that theories which stand the test of time (e.g. Evolution) do so because they are consistent with what we can observe. To date, no one has found credible evidence to support an alternate explanation for the origin of species. If you can cook something up, find evidence for it, and, most importantly, it survives the gauntlet of people looking for any logical reason to kill it, then more power to you!
Get it? It's not a religion. It's not an arbitrary belief system. It's not the same as whatever you go to church for. It is a process which we as a species have reached common consensus on as the best way to advance human knowledge.
Certainly there are those who try
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:4, Insightful)
I'm not sure what you're referring to, but the Arctic ice caps are growing because it is getting colder. This is exactly as expected with global warming. It's still colder in winter and warmer in summer.
Now if, on the other hand, global temperatures showed a long-term (more than ten years) decreasing trend, that would be evidence that global warming is not happening. The problem is that people who don't understand the long-term view hear that there is cooling over a period of a few months or a few years, and think that it somehow disproves global warming. These are the same people who lose big in the stock market because they panic when the market drops and pull all their money out, locking in their losses. It's all about the long term, folks!
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:3, Insightful)
This isn't evolution
It's natural selection
Not in the scientific sense -- natural selection refers to competition within a species, not between species. This [wikipedia.org] should help.
Re:Predictive power of evolution! (Score:4, Insightful)
What I more object to is that 'science' has ruled out anything supernatural, and in doing so, has decided that everything can be explained without the supernatural.
Science has done no such thing. Science is not capable of decoding the supernatural and thus must leave it alone. This is completely different than "ruling out" the supernatural - in fact, it by definition CANNOT rule out the supernatural.
Something like 40% of scientists consider themselves religious, so clearly you have a fundamental misunderstanding here.
and scientific evidence that could point to a, shall we say, "supernatural" explanation (creation) is disregarded on the premise that the theory it supports (creation) is not a scientific theory.
No. This, I think, is the key to your misunderstanding. Science rejects creation as a scientific theory, not as an impossibility. This is why scientists bristle more at "intelligent design" than at creationism... intelligent designers are trying to claim science, when at best you could call it philosophy. Grabbing the title of "science" is analogous to me starting a dog-worshiping cult and then grabbing the title of "Christianity". The Christians would get pretty worked up if it picked up steam.