Feedback for April 1999

Whatever you consider the "capital T" truth, you are entitled to your opinion-- it makes no difference to science in any way. It doesn't change the evidence.

The same thing is true of science. Scientific theories aren't the result of one individual according to their own biases and presuppositions. They are the result of the scientific process, which includes peer review. A hypothesis does not become a scientific theory without rigorous examination by the community of scientists specialized in that area. Speak with some professional scientists, and they will tell you of heated arguments at conferences, papers savaging the work of others, and exchanges of correspondence to and fro between those with opposing viewpoints.

Perhaps these arguments do uphold the egos of the individuals involved, but that's only a secondary effect. The primary function of these arguments is to determine the truth, taking into account the flawed nature of humankind.

Here we have the old mantra of creationist falsehoods:

Missing links that aren't missing-- Noah's Ark as a historical reality-- Mitochondrial Eve supporting the idea of the Garden of Eden-- the idea that all evolutionists are atheists-- that plate techtonics creating sub-oceanic mountain ranges supports creationism in any way--

I have formatted three very recent news stories that document fossil discoveries that fill 'gaps'. Click HERE to read them.

The statement that "there are so many missing parameters in Darwin's theory" suggests that you need to update yourself as to the modern theory, a synthesis of many different disciplines (far beyond what Charles Darwin was capable of knowing), and learn why there are no missing parameters.

The reason why "people like me" have a hard time believing creationism is that there is not one shred of evidence to support it, and above that it is an irrational concept dealing completely in speculation.

What we have here is a person who refuses to accept the idea that humans could have evolved from primitive hominids, because the idea is repugnant to him, not because the science is bad... and he is willing to abstain from all critical thinking in order to reject this idea. I'm sure he is good at employing rational thought in his engineering field, but refuses to allow this skill to force it's way into the areas of his intellect that have been shielded by the armor of faith. He should step back and look at the evidence objectively.

As much as I disagree with those who insist on a literal global Noachic flood, I find that the reader's criticism does not hold water.

If a 9 Km flood occurred, the atmospheric pressure resulting would only be a minuscule amount smaller. The reason is that all the atmosphere would be displaced. Thus, the total air column at any given spot on the earth's surface during a global flood would be only minimally changed from the usual.

There are plenty of valid criticisms of a postulated global flood. Let's stick with those.

Wesley

There are some forms of evolutionary thinking that are projections. One of these is the idea that things progress in evolution, or that evolution is guided by a goal in the same way that we are when we set out for a destination. Neither of these things are scientifically verifiable. Early versions of evolution such as Lamarck's are projections of this kind.

That, of course, refers to the Gillian Brown interview of Richard Dawkins. Dawkins made a detailed reply to that very question.

Is it relevant to ask about the processes by which genetic information changes in content and in distribution? Certainly. However, anti-evolutionists like Gillian Brown are not involved in a search for enlightenment, but rather for magic bullets to use in their campaigns to discredit the last one hundred and forty years of biology. Brown appears to have thought that she might have had one such in the referenced question about genetic information, but for the usual definition of information and a "common sense" definition of information it is easily shown that such is not only possible, but has been observed.

Wesley

The The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability is not claiming that the law is only mathematical. What it actually states is

Thermodynamics is an exact science that is based on a limited number of specific mathematical concepts. It is not explainable in terms of qualitative metaphors. In order to understand the relationship between probability and the second law, the reader must be familiar with the relationship between probability and entropy. Entropy is a mathematically defined entity which is the fundamental basis of the second law of thermodynamics and all of its engineering and physical chemistry ramifications.

Entropy is a concept that has an exact definition that cannot be ignored by those like Gish and Morris who use rough and ready (and wrong) definitions to "disprove" evolution. Yes, the law states that in a given and isolated system energy decays, but not in all circumstances, as the FAQ goes on to show. One set of circumstances is where living systems gather and dissipate energy in order to grow, with various degrees of efficiency. Evolution occurs through a sorting of those efficiencies over generations.

There is a great degree of mathematical rigor applied to evolutionary modelling, as a cursory glance at any edition of the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London Series B, or Nature, or the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, or Evolution, and so forth, will show you, if you but look. Modern statistics was in large part developed in order to extend evolutionary biology. Before making grand claims about the science, perhaps you might look at the primary literature.

Also, you might have a look at a text on information theory before stating that information cannot be created. Genes are duplicated and mutated all the time, and we can in many cases actually induce changes seen in the wild. And your blanket claim there has never been any evidence that new functional information has been "attained" is just false. I quote from a comment by Ian Musgrave on his favorite (out of many) cases of novel functions attained by genes:

Yes, my favorite example is the nylon hydrolysing enzyme. It recently came in to existance via duplication of an existing gene, followed by a frame shift mutation.

Ohno S. (1984 Apr). Birth of a unique enzyme from an alternative reading frame of the preexisted, internally repetitious coding sequence. Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A, 81, 2421-5.

Another nylon degrading enzyme has been isolated as new mutants in the laboratory, it is disctict from the above enzyme, but I do not know if it is a duplication event.

Negoro S, Kakudo S, Urabe I, and Okada H. (1992 Dec). A new nylon oligomer degradation gene (nylC) on plasmid pOAD2 from a Flavobacterium sp. J Bacteriol, 174, 7948-53

My second favorite example is the Sdic gene, where the annexin and dynenin intermediate chain genes were duplicated in tandem, then the intervening sequences deleted to form a single new gene, (the Sperm specific dynenin intermediate chain gene Sdic). The good thing about this example is that a previously non-coding part of the sequence became the protein coding sequence, and the protein coding sequence has a non-coding role.

Capy P. (1998 Dec 10). Evolutionary biology. A plastic genome [news; comment] Nature, 396, 522-3.

Nurminsky DI, Nurminskaya MV, De Aguiar D, and Hartl DL. (1998 Dec 10). Selective sweep of a newly evolved sperm-specific gene in Drosophila [see comments] Nature, 396, 572-5.

My third favorite is the vancomycin resistance gene, where a D-alanine D-alanyl-ligase was duplicated and mutated into a D-alanine D-lactate ligase.

Park IS, et al. Gain of D-alanyl-D-lactate or D-lactyl-D-alanine synthetase activities in three active-site mutants of the Escherichia coli D-alanyl-D-alanine ligase B. Biochemistry. 1996 Aug 13;35(32):10464-71.

All these examples are in the primary literature, and you're free to go into a library and look them up.

One honestly determines beliefs by examining the evidence.

Some conjectures do not deserve the same consideration as others. Conjectures which generate claims in conflict with observed physical evidence can be summarily discarded.

Young-earth creationism is a conjecture which is in conflict with the available evidence. As such, it does not deserve equal consideration or time with robust and well-tested theories from science.

Wesley

We also have links to debating areas on the World Wide Web, which can be found in our Other Links section.

I don't know what you mean by "law of conviction." My conviction is to the empirical truth. I can believe that no amount of proof, one piece or a thousand, could convince you. Hovind's 10,000 challenge is addressed here.

Your grasp of science is really rather poor. You might try to improve it. Radiometric dating is reliable, and the Flood never happened. Try my Evolution for Beginners page.

[This site needs a standard smiley to link to ;-)]

Here is an experiment for you. All you need is a die (one half of a pair of dice). Take the die and shake it around in your hand, and call a number from 1 to 6. You say 6. Roll the die. It comes up 6. You can calculate that the odds were 6 to 1 against that you would roll the 6. Now, your calculation would mean something if evolution worked this way.

But it doesn't.

Roll the die again. But this time, don't call out any numbers. It comes up 4. Now, what are the chances of it coming up 4? One to one-- even odds-- because you didn't specify a number in advance, and no specific number was required. So what if it rolled 4?

That's the way it works. No one can predict the course of evolution, due to the random nature of selective pressures. Things are as they happen to be. The fact that we are here proves nothing (except that we are here). All talk of the probability of evolution is meaningless, unless you can provide evidence to support the notion that we are the goal of the process, and not just the result of the process.

The vast majority of reasonable people when shown the evidence of the various sequences presented here as representing transitions do find them convincing. Unfortunately, some people have an almost infinite capability to ignore the evidence.

During the Scopes' trial, Piltdown man was mentioned in a couple of the experts' affidavits, but in no case was considered a central piece of evidence. It was explicitly considered anomalous in one of those affidavits.

The reader confuses "Piltdown man" and "Nebraska man". "Nebraska man" was classified on the basis of two teeth, but when additional research turned up more fossils, it was re-classified as an extinct peccary. "Nebraska man" does not appear in the Scopes' trial transcript. It is possible that it was commented upon outside the courtroom, but I have no references to such.

The reader's assertion about the proportion of transitional fossils is also incorrect. Even Darwin knew that.

I've spent considerable time examining both biological literature and data, and also anti-evolutionary literature. I find that my conclusion is that there is plenty of evidence of historical and observable evolutionary change, and no evidence whatever of a recent six-day creation event and later global deluge.

Wesley

I would not say people here are obsessed with evolution. For some of them, it's there job- they work in related scientific fields. For others, like me, it's a facinating interest. One thing I am obsessed about, and that is reality. Creationism is anti-reality and anti-science, and I'll work against it as long as I am able. You can call that an obsession, if it makes you happy.

I'm glad you think evolution makes sense.

Which, by the way, begin at The FAQ, the Must Read FAQs, the Evolution FAQs and the general navigation page.

How's that for a segue?

Dr. Laurence Moran has extensive experience in discussing these topics with various kinds of anti-evolutionists in the talk.origins newsgroup. I can assure you that Dr. Moran has examined the merits of arguments from people on both sides of the debate, and is not reticent to tell people on either side when they are in error.

In my own experience in dealing with anti-evolutionary creationists, I'd say that Dr. Moran is far too restrained in suggesting that such people could benefit from getting a clue. Young-earth creationism is religious doctrine which is anti-scientific at basis. YEC adherents doing science do so in spite of rather than because of their YEC beliefs.

In case the reader might mistakenly believe that I come to this point through ignorance of YEC, I will note that I have read many different books offered by the big names of the ICR, and a wide variety of other anti-evolutionary material. It confirms to a high degree of confidence the essential rightness of Dr. Moran's request that YEC anti-evolutionists should endeavor to understand what they presume to criticize.

Wesley

Thank you for your kind comments.

Let me invite you to do more than just appreciate our resources, though. If you teach concepts of biological evolution, consider sharing your most effective means of getting the ideas across. This archive could use some lesson plans or study units prepared by educators for use by other educators. If you or other teachers you know would spend a little time sharing these kinds of resources, then perhaps we could look forward to future students having better general knowledge of biology and evolution.

Wesley

• Natural Fossil Fission Reactors provides a detailed description of the Oklo discovery; what it is and what it did.
• Radioactivity in Nature includes a short description of the Oklo natural reactor.

They should take the hint from Pope John Paul, who said 1992 (speaking of the persecution of Galileo): "The error of the theologians of the time, when they maintained the centrality of the earth, was to think that our understanding of the physical world's structure was in some way imposed by the literal sense of Sacred Scripture."

In other words, it's a mistake to base your understanding of the physical world from a literal reading of the bible.

In more general terms, parsimonious explanations are generally preferred by all scientists, but sometimes what is the more simple depends very much on how the subject is characterised. Simplicity is usually the deciding factor only in restricted hypotheses (such as "this fish taxon evolved from that taxon") not in the more general area of theories ("diversity of living forms evolved"), which tend to be preferred on the grounds of their generality - how much and how well they explain phenomena.

For example, "God created all things as they are" explains everything, but gives us no way to proceed - how to explain why the leopard has its spots, for instance. It is overgeneral and a bad form of explanation (unless we can infer why God so chose to create leopards with spots). Choosing between "leopards have spots because it camouflages them" and "leopards have spots because they have a certain developmental pattern" is usually harder than choosing between "leopards have spots because <insert biological explanation>" and "leopards have spots because God chose to given them spots", which means that a perference for one of the first two alternatives has a lot more information and explanatory power.

Science is a method, not a body of knowledge. Science is a method of discovering the way the universe works. If the evidence indicates that the world works differently than we had hoped, the scientific method is to not ignore or alter the evidence. Sometimes, science uncovers information that is uncomfortable, disquieting... demoting humans from their imagined centrality. Creationism represents an attempt at resisting this knowledge. Creationism, designed to protect a specific religious dogma, is a construction of scientific-sounding rhetoric that satisfies the faithful, confuses the undecided, and wastes the time of scientists. That is what this website is against.

Also see Irregularities of the Earth's Rotation, a brief guide from the International Earth Rotation Service.

Here is a set of 36 questions and answers about the rotation of the Earth, from the pages of NASA's Ask the Space Scientist.

I've been to that URL before. I don't feel like a hypocrite at all, and don't see why I should.

I just checked, and the URL given by Mark is already in the list of other web sites that are maintained here at the archive.

It is interesting to compare the extensive list of links here at the talk.origins archive to those provided at Pathlights' link page. Both in number and willingness to link to sites with opposing views, the talk.origins link page is clearly superior. We who have contributed to this archive feel that those who research the issues are far more likely to agree with our viewpoint, and we encourage people to have a look for themselves what the anti-evolutionists put forward for arguments. This means that we link to those anti-evolutionary sites. Go to the anti-evolutionary sites, and see how many provide a link back to here or to any other site which provides the mainstream science view of evolutionary biology.

Hypocrisy? I don't see it in what we have in this archive.

Wesley

That's a very good point. I think that a FAQ on ethology that shows the various evidences that behavioral traits are just as reliable for the analysis of interrelationships between species as morphological characters would make a fine addition to the archive. I would encourage you to try your hand at it. Put together a draft and then post it to the talk.origins newsgroup for commentary and revision. Eventually, it should wind up here.

Darwin's "Origin of Species" and "Descent of Man" also influenced the development of psychology. Darwin's outlook that the human mind generally differed quantitatively rather than qualitatively from other animals was a crucial step in placing psychology in the empirical sciences rather than as a branch of mysticism. There is no dearth of people who will claim otherwise concerning how the "uniqueness" of human thought is established, though, even today.

Wesley

That's if you want to copy the text of the article, in other words, cut it out and paste it onto your own Web site. If all you wish to do is link to an article from your Web site, you may do so without further permission. Just copy the text from the "Location" box on your browser into an HTML link on your page. All we ask is that if you link to any of our pages, you also link to our home page, like so:

<A HREF="/">The Talk.Origins Archive</A>

Good luck with your project.

As the FAQ notes, the individual isochron data points travel along a straight line of slope "-1" as decay occurs. The isochron rotates with time not because the data points travel on curved paths, but instead because the data points furthest from the origin on the X-axis move a greater distance per unit time. (Since they have higher ratios of ⁸⁷Rb to ⁸⁶Sr, they increase their ⁸⁷Sr/⁸⁶Sr ratio more rapidly).

I'm not sure what the reader means when he speaks of the "worshipping organ" in humans, but the reader should be aware that the theory of evolution concerns itself with biology, not with the societal and cultural influences that may affect a person's behavior. Not everything in a person's life is determined by biology, after all. I don't know why the reader thinks we should see idolatrous monkeys; other primates also don't light fires, drive cars, or bake at 350 degress for twenty-five minutes or until the fork comes out clean.

"Evolutionists" aren't "aggressive on disproving creationism." Evolutionary biologists, for the most part, ignore the creationists and concern themselves instead with doing good science, as they should. Even those of us who participate in the debate don't do so because we want to see creationism necessarily disproved. I, for one, would be perfectly happy to accept the scientific conclusions of the creationists if they were arrived at according to the methods of science. What we are concerned about is not the ends, but the means that creationists use to reach those ends. For the most part, creationism consists of out-of-context quotation, distortion or avoidance of evidence, predetermined conclusions, and some flat-out lies, all masquerading in the guise of science. I wouldn't care if people were deluding themselves, but students (and decision-making citizens) deserve better than to have pseudoscience passed off as real science.

There are other types of eyes which evolved independently, such as insect and arachnid eyes, which are obviously very different from the types mentioned above....

5% of an eye is exactly 1% better than 4% of an eye. Once a light sensitive cell, by chance, evolved on top of a fish's head, there is then selective pressure to evolve a better "eye". With a little thought, you can realize that a partial eye will offer some benefit to a species. Consider that it would be beneficial for sea-going creatures to be able to distinguish where the surface of the water is. Therefore, light sensitive cells on the head would be very useful, wouldn't they? Would a predatory fish that had light-sensitive cells benefit if those cells were able to distinguish movement and shapes? Would prey fish have a better survival rate if they could see the predators? Every slight improvement on a light sensitive cell would serve a purpose. An optical "arms race" had begun, and the selective pressure must have been enormous, until an optically perfect eye evolved.

You do not need to see perfectly for eyes to serve a purpose. Even people with 10% vision can make out objects and avoid colliding with them. They certainly would not want to lose whatever vision they have, would they? If you had a choice between one eye or no eye, you would of course choose one. Color vision is better than color blindness, which is better than nothing. Any slight benefit could have offered a survival advantage. According to Richard Dawkins, the eye evolved independently about 40 times during the history of life on earth, and a 'camera eye' could evolve "rapidly" from a light sensitive cell.

Now, certain biological events, such as the evolution of the eye, leave few physcial traces. One reason is that the eye is soft tissue, and does not preserve well as a fossil. The second is that the time period in which the first eye evolved is extremely ancient, and precious few fossils are discovered from those levels in any case. But these are not reasons to conclude that the eye could not have evolved naturally. We can suggest how the eye might have evolved, because scientists understand some of the processes, but we cannot say "This is absolutely, positively the only way the eye could have evolved". We can't say that, and I don't think we need to. Just because we cannot state the exact circumstances of the evolution of the eye does not mean that the theory of evolution will be overturned.

We have clear evidence that evolution occured... the fossil record speaks to us unambiguously of the rising complexity of living organisms over millions of years, including humans. The fossil record mirrors the genetic record. The appearence of major groups in the fossil record is substantiated by relationships later shown by DNA comparison testing. There is no other explanation for this relationship between DNA and fossils besides evolution.

Although my explanation given above is hypothetical, there is nothing unreasonable about it. But to avoid the question and suppress science because of uncomfortable implications is wrong.

It does not take faith to accept geology, paleontology, genetics, chemistry. Hundreds of transitional fossils have been discovered since Darwin's day. Evolution has been witnessed in short-lived species both in the lab and in the wild, and the fossil record is extremely well documented. The fossil record demonstrates unambiguously the continuous evolution of life. You NEVER find people with dinosaurs, or dinosaurs with trilobites. It is very clear. There are NO fossils found out of order. There are no paleontology discoveries that conflict with our understanding of how life evolved over the ages. The appearance of major groups in the fossil record is substantiated by relationships later shown by DNA comparison testing. There is no other explanation for this relationship between DNA and fossils besides evolution.

Your main argument seems to be that you cannot accept evolution because you cannot believe that it could have occurred. That's not much of an argument. Yet you opt for another solution which offers no evidence whatsoever to support it. You hold on fast to the idea that what is unknown now will be forever unknown.

Your continual use of the word "accident" leads me to believe you need to read up how how evolution really works. You might try Evolution for Beginners or Introduction to Evolutionary Biology.

Personally, I do not accept things that are UNPROVABLE. Every discovery in the history of science has been based on processes that are natural. No discovery has ever supported a supernatural explanation of ANYTHING. Why should the scientific study of the origin of life prove any different? I think scientists will eventually find all the answers. You seem to think that that which is unknown is forever unknowable. It think, based on the history of science and the rapid development of technology, that what is unknown today will be known tomorrow. For some strange reason, you and other creationists insist on calling that faith. Well, if that makes you happy...

If one has faith, why search any further for the answers which one supposedly has? To quote Benjamin Franklin: "In the affairs of the world, men are saved, not by faith, but by the lack of it."

If an individual received a degree in biology, and still can make comments like "evolved from chimps or out of pond scum 190,000,000 years ago", either he/she:

1) is untruthful about the degree,
2) received the degree in spite of cutting class every other day, or
3) bought the degree by mail order, or from a creationist college.

A person who makes those kinds of statements isn't prepared for any sort of debate. You should know something of the topic you're supposed to be debating beforehand. This person apparently does not understand evolutionary biology, and certainly made no valid arguments.

My answer to her, you, and anyone else who would come here to "debate", is as follows: Please describe, in as much detail as you can, how evolution takes place. I realize you don't believe in it, but in order to take an adversarial position, you must have an accurate representation of the opposing side. Okay? So let's hear it...

I think it would go something like this:

Me: "How does evolution work?"
You: "It doesn't."
Me: "But can you describe how evolutionists claim it works?"
You: "No."
Me: "Try harder."
You: "They say we came from chimps, and before that, pond scum, and before that, a rock. I don't believe it."
Me: "I would hope not. I wouldn't believe that stuff either. You might try finding out how it really works."

New species will often have roughly the same genetic diversity as isolated and quite functional populations of the parental species, since that is what they usually are at first.

More genetic diversity arises from mutation (slowly) and from recombination of existing variants that may not have tended to recombine in the larger group of populations of the parent species.

You need to read a good text on population genetics. In the meantime, read Chris Colby's excellent Introduction to Evolutionary Biology or look up Coyne, J. A. 1992. Genetics and speciation. Nature 355:511-515

Moreover, it's not even a relevant question. Chemical reactions depend solely upon the starting materials and the conditions they take place in. Given the same combination of inputs, heat, pressure, concentration, catalysts, etc., the same products will result. The chemicals couldn't care less whether they are somewhere "in nature" or in an Erlenmeyer flask, so long as the conditions are identical. The question (for abiogenesis, at least) is really (1) whether a particular reaction takes place, given certain conditions, and (2) whether those conditions were present on Earth at some point in its history. Part (1) can be investigated in the lab; part (2) requires investigation of other geological, chemical, and physical evidence.

As for the hominid fossils that we do have, readers can see some of them here. A completely intact (or even mostly intact) fossil find of any sort is an extremely rare occurrence in paleontology; consequently, paleontologists have become extremely skilled at reconstruction from fragmentary evidence. They don't do so simply by guessing; they do so against a backdrop of millions of observations of other fossil remains and existing creatures. It's detective work, not sheer speculation, and good scientists try not to overstep the bounds of what they can demonstrate. But sometimes they get lucky and find a mostly complete fossil. See, for example, the "Turkana Boy" specimen of homo erectus.