Feedback for October 1998

1. Falsification is not to be rejected as a result of the paradox that it is not falsified (actually, that is a claim of self-defeat). What is to be rejected is the notion that only the claim, not actually made by Popper I think, that if it isn't falsifiable it has no place in science. Since the claim itself is not falsifiable, then it has no place in science, and so if science depends for its scientific nature on a nonscientific principle, there are problems if that principle excludes itself.

2. There are all sorts of assumptions in science. It's just that none of them are absolutely necessary. Moreover, none of them require faith, although they may involve acts of faith on the parts of some individuals.

3. Your distinction between facts, hypotheses and theories is too stark. It is my view that they grade into each other and that some theories - for relevant example, natural selection - have been observed and manipulated so often they are now facts. Ian Hacking once wrote of electrons (theoretical entities if ever there were any at their birth) that if you can spray them, they are real. Are you saying that it is not a fact that electrons exist even though they were initially proposed as entities in a theoretical model?

4. Proof is definitely not possible, but we can demonstrate the validity of a model to our scientific satisfaction. This can never be done in the face of rigid ideological opposition, for ideology is impervious to refutation.

5. Theories do not always get replaced by other, better, theories, but it is a general tendency. Only Kuhn made it a necessary sequence.

6. The point of the first two chapters of Genesis is best found, in my opinion, in comparing it to etiological myths of its time. The contrast shows that the Israelites who wrote it had a peculiar and unique notion of God, one who they could best compare to the Great Kings of the Hittites, and who had no equals. I agree that the point of Gen 1 is that creation is ex nihilo, but mainly the reason is that the authors wanted to show that the world is distinct from divine nature and not made from it. It is a brilliant piece of theological expression. It sucks as a scientific account, but I promise not to take my theology from science if Christians promise not to take their science from the Bible of subsequent theological authorities.

Sarcasm aside, the Archive's primary purpose is not to "disprove creationism any way we can," but to present accurately the views of mainstream science in order to clear up public misperceptions and misconceptions of that science. What we have tried to do is to distill as best we can the results that can be found in the books and journal articles referenced in the FAQs. Disproving creationism is important to us only to the extent that it contradicts scientific discovery.

Finally, evolutionary biology is not a religion. It is science, science which has been observed both directly and indirectly.

A theory must advance some testable, falsifiable predictions. The theory of evolution by natural selection does so. Evolutionary scientists do not set out to "disprove creationism", they go about their business of substantiating evolution. Creationists, however, clearly "bring the fight" to evolutionists, who naturally rise to the challenge.

It may be equally claimed that creationism attempts discredit evolution any way it can. Creationism may be more aptly named "Evolution Refutation". Since Creationists have lost every legal battle to put their own (religious) explanation of origins in public school classrooms, the only other option left to them is to attempt to disprove evolution. What means do they use? Any and all, not for the purposes of concrete falsification, but for the purposes of causing doubt and confusion in the general public.

As you'll no doubt admit, that is quite a list...

But I like a challenge. And I was in fact recently challenged to answer all the questions on the CSC (Center for Scientific Creationism) website, which are very similar to the ones you wrote.

It is a work in progress (it will take several weeks to do), and you may view it as it evolves. There are admittedly many more qualified people to answer these questions, but I know they are busy with REAL work relating to evolution and science, and shouldn't be bothered with stuff like this.

I've got the time.

To veiw the work, go to my evolution site and scroll down the page.

I have definately decided to answer the questions you posed. The 20 (really 50) from the CSC website took much less time than I anticipated.

I will email you personally when I have completed the task, and anyone else can check on my evolution site to see if it is up and finished.

However, nearly every major creationist, including Hovind, now recognize that the old claim that hydrogen peroxide and hydroquinone (the two chemicals in question) are explosive when mixed is simply wrong. You can even test that yourself. You can get a solution of hydrogen peroxide from any drug store and hydroquinone from a photo lab. Pour the quinone into a glass, add the peroxide and watch what happens. I guarantee you that the most that will happen is the that the quinone will turn brown.

The idea that chance is the engine of evolution is a misunderstanding. Chance is only one factor involved in evolution. Non-random natural selection another.

1) Just because something happened a long time ago, and no one witnessed it, does not mean that we cannot get a clear picture of what happened and how. As a simple analogy, a man can commit a murder, with no one watching him, and he can still be executed for the crime. Forensic science can reconstruct what happened with a high degree of certainty using the evidence that is gathered from the scene. We learn how evolution happened in the same way.

2) Speciation, or the emergence of a new species, takes many generations to happen. In most cases, the lifespan of species, especially large animals, is too long for us to observe changes directly. For very short-lived species such as insects, the emergence of new species has indeed been observed. As far as your face speculation, it is not framed quite clearly enough for me to offer a proper response. Animals do not have one eye or three because the capacity for such does not exist in the gene pool, and if such a feature arose through a random mutation, it is doubtful that such a trait would provide a survival advantange, and therefore would not be passed to the next generation.

3) The fitness of a species is simply the ability of the individuals of the species to efficiently make use of the resources of its environment. This has nothing to do with the species "evolving to another species". If the environment changes, or if the species relocates to a new environment, or a new species enters the area and competes, evolution will probably occur- or the species may become extinct.

Their second major purpose is to confuse people like yourself, people who know enough about science and evolution to know that most of what passes for "scientific creationism" is pure bunk, but who don't know enough about all the detailed evidence to understand why the creationist is wrong. As such, occasionally you hear something that sounds plausible, but you don't know how to refute it, so you begin to wonder if it might be true. I understand completely, because I used to be like you. So take it from an old campaigner: 90% or more of what these showman creationists say has been thoroughly refuted nine ways from Sunday for years. Just because you may not know the answer does not mean that no one else has been able to figure it out by now.

Now, as to your specific questions. Mats Molen is wrong about his description about how scientists "reconstruct" fossil species. First of all, no species is "speculation" if it leaves hard physical evidence -- bones or teeth -- of its existence. All we may have of a species is teeth or a few key bones, but all we need to do is show that these teeth or bones are sufficiently different from any known species, alive oe extinct, to prove that they belong to a new species.

Secondly, his description of how scientists "reconstruct" a species from a few bones is overly simplistic. If all you have is a jaw bone, say a mandible, you cannot reconstruct the species' appeareance in life. However, you can say whether the species was fish, amphibian, reptile, bird or mammal; you can say whether it was a carnivore or a herbivore; you can approximate how large it was; you can make informed speculation about what its generally anatomy and lifestyle was like. You can in fact say alot about that species; you just couldn't paint its portrait.

Thirdly, a mandible would in fact prove evolution, if that species was transitional between two others and if one the features that evolved were the jaw bones. If the mandible possessed features that only the ancestral species had, possessed features that only the descendent species had, possessed features that both the ancestral and descendent species had and possessed features that neither the ancestral nor the descendent species had, then it would in fact be very strong proof of the fact of evolution.

You know, what's interesting about all this is that these very things that Mr. Molen says science cannot do are exactly what the science of comparative anatomy says is natural to do. By the way, a creationist first invented comparative anatomy; his name was Baron Georges Cuvier and he is also the father of vertabrate paleontology.

Yes, there are gaps in the fossil record, but there are also enough transitional fossils filling these gaps for us to still get a good idea of how major kinds evolved. We don't need to have a continuous series, just enough to show the major morphological changes. However, there are other fossils series that are very nearly continuous, especially those series which show how various species evolved from a single parental species.

• Evolution and Chance: John Wilkins and Loren Haarsma examine the role of chance in evolution.
• Intelligent Design: Humans, Cockroaches, and the Laws of Physics: Victor Stenger talks of intelligent design and probability.
• The Talk.Origins June 1998 Post of the Month: Nathan Urban discusses probability and the "fine-tuning" of the universe.
• The General Anti-Creationism FAQ: Jim Merritt presents common arguments involving complexity and chaos.
• The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability : Frank Steiger examines the link between thermodynamics and probability.
• Feedback for March 1998: Darren Provine responds to William Mayercheck's probability arguments.
• A probability bibliography.

Attempts have been famously made to draw moral conclusions from evolution. One of these is the so-called "social Darwinism" movement, and another is the eugenics movement (the latter is far more closely connected to Darwinism than the social stance that misuses its name). However, the main objection to this was stated first by David Hume in the 18th century - no description of actual states of affairs, past or present, can tell you what ought to be done. If the fittest survive in biology, is that a claim that only the fit should survive in society? Not without a whole series of ancillary assumptions, none of which are purely factual claims.

To play that game, and make evolution a moral, not a theoretical and scientific, issue is to give the game away from the beginning. While I respect those who wish to discuss the moral implications (for them) of evolution (an example is Howard Bloom's The Lucifer Principle, which reprises Hobbes' pessimism about humanity), there is no rigid chain of argument from it to them.

This is a website about science. Science, for it to remain science, cannot embrace "absolute infallability", does not pretend to have "unerring accuracy" and cannot recognize the stamp of "divine authenticity".

Science is a search for truth that does not assume its own infallability. It is self-correcting, and as new data is obtained through improved observations and technology, our model of how things work is drawn into sharper focus.

Science is fully capable of answering how, who, when, and where, but you are fully entitled to reserve the question of why for your religion.

You might read the God and Evolution FAQ

The formation of so-called "polystrate" fossils was understood by geologists over a century ago. They present no mystery to geologists. See the Polystrate Fossils FAQs.

I just wanted to provide an easily understandable explanation of how a theory can be a fact.

Here is the definition of theory from the National Academy of Science:

"Scientific theories are explanations of natural phenomena built up logically from testable observations and hypotheses."

Read that sentence carefully, and then ask yourself "What part of that definition excludes a theory from being a fact?" Look at the definition again...

It's true that not every theory withstands the test of time and goes on to be considered a fact by nearly all of the scientific community, but evolution is one that has. More from the NAS- they say that evolution is "something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong."

The evidence is presented all throughout this website. Granted, it takes a great deal of time to sift through it all, but that is a matter of motivation.

The response is easy: your claim that "all five" of your alleged requirements must have arrived at the same time is false. Had you bothered to perform even a tiny bit of research into the lifeforms that can be observed today, you would have known that there are many creatures which survive just fine despite meeting only a subset of your requirements. I'd recommend you obtain J.T. Bonner's The Evolution of Complexity (1988, Princeton University Press, ISBN 0-691-08494-7) and come back once you have read it.

In nature today we can observe:

• Single-celled creatures that live in colonies (e.g., some kinds of cyanobacteria). These meet only one of your five alleged requirements (and that one only weakly).
• Colonies of single-celled creatures with a very simple division of labor between only two cell types (e.g., spore-forming bacteria, and other kinds of cyanobacteria). These meet one of your alleged requirements strongly and two others weakly, and not the other two.
• Simple organisms with up to four cell types (e.g., Volvox and Ulva). These meet two of your requirements strongly, two more weakly, but not the fifth. The sea lettuce (Ulva) may reach the size of a hand.
• More complicated organisms with perhaps seven cell types (e.g., mushrooms, giant kelp and some other seaweeds). These satisfy four of your five requirements but not the fifth.

Note that I am not presenting these examples as a single evolutionary lineage. I am using them to illustrate that your five alleged requirements do not all need to appear at the same time, and in fact some of the individual requirements may be only partially fulfilled in definitely viable creatures.

The maintainers of this website appreciate you comments.

Well said statements. One reason that people don't get their "pseudoscientific creationist arguments exposed" is that Creationist debaters are so frequently on the aggressive, quickly positioning themselves to attack every facet of evolutionary biology. Scientists are hard-pressed to put out all the fires lit all over the place by creationists. But many of us are realizing that it's time to start disregarding their long-refuted objections, in favor of going into attack mode, and bringing the claims of creationism out into the light. I think if people knew the insurmountable problems with creation "science", they might think twice about allying themselves with it.

The use of the Darwin fish goes beyond simple support of evolutionary theory. Someone who is using the Darwin fish feels that the constant, IN YOUR FACE display of Christianity, either with symbols, advertisements, legislative attempts to get the 10 commandments into courthouses and creationism into public schools, would- be missionaries testifying on our doorsteps, assertions that this is a christian nation, and so on and so forth... all of these things create an atmosphere that is both hostile and exclusionary to all non-christians.

Use of the Darwin symbol, at least for this darwinian, is not as a personal affront to Christians. It is to show that there is one more person who does not agree with them. The fish that evolved legs is an intrinsic idea to biological evolution, and at the same time serves as a visible rebuttal to Christians who feel the need to show the rest of us their Icthus fish.

I, as a darwinist, do not disrespect all Christians... only the militant, extremist Christian Coalition type who feel that their way is the only way. Some darwinists are Christians, some are not. This is not a scientific matter (and not really a talk.origins topic). It is a question of freedom to express one's opinion, and the right to dissent from the majority.

A completely non-scientific poll conducted some time back in talk.origins of those who displayed the "Darwin fish" emblem revealed the following:

• Some of those who displayed the Darwin fish did so as a gentle taunting of those who feel the necessity to display their religion upon their sleeve. (Quite literally; I am thinking of the "WWJD?" paraphernalia which has become common in some areas.) No disrespect of Christianity is intended, just of those who treat Jesus as a brand name to be displayed. Consider the expulsion of the traders from the temple (Mark 11:15-16, Luke 19:45-46).
• Others thought of the Darwin fish as a legitimate symbol in its own right. After all, the symbol of a fish with feet is referring to the lungfish, the sort of transitional form one expects to see with evolution. As such, the Darwin fish proclaims the evidence for evolution.
• Some used it as a declaration of atheism and an overall rejection of Christianity.
• Some used it to express both their Christian faith and their acceptance of evolution. (One respondent had an "ICHTHYS" fish on one side of his car and a "Darwin" fish on the other.)

So you see, it would be simplistic to ascribe only one motive to those who bear the symbol. The same is true of any symbol, such as the swastika, which is an ancient Hindu and Jain symbol for good luck.

By the way, there are several different stories as to how the fish became a symbol of Christianity, but that is neither here nor there.

(For those who don't know, Dr. Wise is a young-Earth global-flood creationist who is, in the opinion of most who follow the issue of creation/evolution closely, rather responsible in his treatment of facts and issues.)

Information is defined in communications theory as, basically, the transmission of signals over channels. This is not the sense of information that most intelligent design theorists make use of. There is a tacit appeal to the more common sense notion - meaningful information, information about something. So, genes are "about" traits of organisms, metabolic processes are "about" survival, and so on. How did these things get here? The trick lies in assuming that "here" is where they had to get.

If they could have gone anywhere that would result in survival, and there is nothing much significant about "here" then the Darwinian explanation is just that there is no design, just survival. The intelligent design answer depends on assuming that "being here" is special, and so that Darwinian selection and drift explanations fail.

As Wesley Elsberry has argued in a recent thread ( in Deja News), Dembski's Explanatory Filter evades the "Not known" alternative and instead splits everything into "Designed" or "Not designed". This points up one major failing of design theory: it is subjective. It is a matter of what fits the criteria of the observer and his/her model. It is not something that is true just of the things that are being studied, but of the process of studying them. Of course, this is also true to some extent of panadaptationism in evolution.

I'm not sure what the reader means by a "more complex form." Evolution does not imply that goats will give birth to pigs, or something like that. Large-scale changes in populations usually take place over large periods of time. But speciation has been observed, both directly and indirectly. See the Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ and More Observed Instances of Speciation FAQ for more details.

If a "more complex" species is uprooted and brought to a different environment, it probably wouldn't do very well. It's complexity would give it no survival advantage over the more "simple" organisms, which had evolved to adapt to that environment.

If humans can make such major changes in species like dogs, cats, livestock, flowers, cereal grains, etc., just by Artificial Selection (by selecting the individuals with favorable traits over the last few thousand years), what must nature, working through natural selection over millions of years, be capable of?

For more information see Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe.

If you know where it says that talk.origins is unbiased towards "creationism", please inform the administrator. It will be removed immediately! If you have seen that statement anywhere on talk.origins, it must be an oversight.

This website was created and is maintained by mainstream scientists, who do not have a vested interest in using evolution to maintain an ideological world view, but do have an interest in intellectual and scientific integrity.

There are no "proofs" of anything in the mathematical and logical sense, outside mathematics and logic. The case for evolutionary theories is made on masses of evidence and their ability to explain the biological facts. There are no knockdown simple arguments that are not just rhetorical devices. As Plato in the Sophist observed, the use of rhetoric to convince people of matters of public importance is dangerous and anti-rational.

Also, this is not a struggle between evolution and the doctrine of creation, or any other doctrine of the theology of any religion. It is a struggle between reasoned science and irrational literalism, primarily for the minds of our young and those that make public policy. The doctrine that God created all that is, and sustains it, is not inconsistent with the best of modern biology.

The reason to bother with such a Web site is to present the findings of mainstream science. It is an archive for the talk.origins discussion group; thus the name, Talk.Origins Archive.

You want other opinions? Fine. Go to the talk.origins newsgroup; you'll get plenty. Or check out our list of other links; you'll find more opinions than you can shake a stick at. Or read the links to creationist rebuttals that we put directly on a number of the FAQs. Or best yet, read one of the books or articles referenced in the FAQs.

We have never, ever, ever, claimed to be "impartial" or "unbiased" or "trying to present all viewpoints." We have a definite bias; it is clearly stated in numerous locations; and we give links to plenty of other viewpoints. We want people to read other viewpoints. We expect them to read other viewpoints. And we give plenty of regard to other viewpoints. Why else would we have all these FAQs? Why else would we have this very feedback? "Giving regard to" other opinions doesn't mean "agreeing with unquestioningly."

Oh, dear. I think I've been a bit harsher than I meant to be. I apologize for my tone. But do count how often this question has come up in feedback in just the past few months and you'll begin to understand my frustration. In fact, as far as I can tell, this Archive has been accused of bias at least once in every month's feedback since it began in May of 1996. The point has been made ad infinitum; let's move on, shall we?

In Netscape, you will find the option under the Edit->Preferences menu. Each different computer has different fonts, screen resolution, and browser software, and so what works fine on one site will not work so well on another, and this is all out of the site administrator's control.

We have no interest in presenting half-truths or "slanting" responses in any direction. Indeed, we seek the best feedback, for that gives us the most to respond to. See my response to "Andy" in the August 1998 Feedback for a more complete discussion of this issue.

I fear the reader has been woefully misled on most of the rest of her points. The Pope and many other Christians do indeed accept all of the conclusions of science regarding evolution, including the evolution of humans from other primate ancestors. (Not "half apes," by the way; see the Fossil Hominids FAQ.) They do not at all find this to contradict the Bible or call the Bible and God "liars," because they understand Genesis to be metaphoric, rather than literal truth. After all, Jesus spoke in parables; why shouldn't God? That is why many Christians who oppose creationism do so not on the grounds that it is bad science, but rather that it is (in their view) bad theology.

Finally, let me put Wesley Elsberry's statement into context. Those of us who have been regulars on the talk.origins newsgroup for some time have become quite accustomed to seeing people make the error of assuming that evolution implies atheism, or that the Bible must be completely false if evolution is true. This is not the case, but it is a common misunderstanding. As a result, many well-meaning people believe that those who accept evolution must therefore be atheists in need of conversion and attempt to proselytize them. It is the "If you believe in evolution, you will burn in Hell" argument, and Wesley has undoubtedly seen it hundreds, if not thousands, of times. It's hard not to be a bit flippant when confronted with that old chestnut once again. I sincerely doubt, however, that it was meant unkindly. May I suggest that the reader should not jump so easily to assign harsh motives to the actions of others?

Evolution is a process of change that is highly chaotic. This means that very small differences in the starting point and conditions along the way will mean that the end result is very different. Unless we could predict the exact conditions and the actual starting population, then even if we had perfect knowledge of how evolution works, we could not make any such long term prediction.

However, some things are likely. Large population sizes tend to mean that the gene frequencies are kept more or less stable. If humans survive "in the wild" for a million years, then we'd probably look much the same as we do now. Large vertebrate, mammal, species tend to survive for between 2 and 10 million years relatively unchanged.

As Kevin notes, technology may change this equation a lot. But if it does, then again we cannot predict what fashion will introduce into our gene pool, nor what the fate of those genes will be once introduced, just as we cannot in principle predict the behaviour of the market in economics for very long.

As to the definite bias, it is thoroughly explained in the third link contained in the FAQ which Greg did read, cleverly camouflaged as "the Archive welcome file".

The example that is claimed to be untrue deserves examination. Was there really no definition given? I read, "Biological evolution is a change in the genetic characteristics of a population over time." That looks a lot like a definition to me. Is it clear? It looks clear to me. Is it unbiased? Well, it is the definition that biologists use, so whether it is unbiased or not in one's view depends upon whether one grants the people who study a subject the privilege of defining the terms they use. I think it is reasonable to grant that privilege, else one is dependent upon people who are admittedly ignorant about a topic for the definition of its terms. The links provided substantiate the claims in the FAQ entry. The purpose of the Welcome FAQ is not to provide completely delineated answers all on its own. It is a hypertext document for a reason: longer and more comprehensive expansions of the summary answers are provided in links.

Greg is encouraged to keep reading. The archive may or may not reduce Greg's problems with accepting that evolutionary biology is a valid scientific endeavor, but it represents a resource all too infrequently encountered on the WWW. If Greg is not interested in possible cognitive dissonance, he can still use the archive's extensive list of creationist and anti-evolutionist links as a resource to find more comforting material. Greg is invited to survey the sites linked there to see how many are unbiased, or even to assess how many link back to the talk.origins Archive.

If Greg does have the time to expand upon his views in the future, the appropriate place is the talk.origins newsgroup.

Wesley

Why do you think a theory cannot be a fact as well?

The definition of the word "theory" from the National Academy of Science:

"theories are explanations of natural phenomena built up logically from testable observations and hypotheses."

What part of that sentence excludes a theory from being a fact? None.

The rest of the paragraph:

"Scientists most often use the word "fact" to describe an observation. But scientists can also use fact to mean something that has been tested or observed so many times that there is no longer a compelling reason to keep testing or looking for examples. The occurrence of evolution in this sense is a fact. Scientists no longer question whether descent with modification occurred because the evidence supporting the idea is so strong."

Also, while I am here, you said you had problems with evolution as a theory. Yet you failed to list any reasons for your problems. Why so?

P.S. Microevolution and macroevolution are the same thing- evolution. It is just a matter of time for microevolution to be perceived as macroevolution. Creationists ask: "Why don't we observe macroevolution going on right now?" Timescales are too large (at least for large organisms) is one reason, the other is that they fail to identify a species in transition. Evolution is most easily identified in retrospect. Case in point- seals. How do you know that seals are not in a transition to a fully waterbound mammal? We don't. They probably are. The only way to know is to build a time machine, and zip into the future a few million years. Hindsight identifies transitional species.

I hope you will not be sad any more. Evolution is a very exciting, and intellectually stimulating subject.

Science, in my estimation, is incapable of teaching us about (for example) the spiritual significance of anything. One must look to such disciplines as philosophy and theology for answers to questions of worth. To arrive at answers, these disciplines may consider various scientific facts. However, it is important to realize that it is still a philosophical or theological (and not a scientific) answer. Science is silent about such matters.

Either somebody looked at your note and fixed things before I took a look at the file, or you have a problem on your end of the connection. Make sure that your modem is not giving you problems.

There were some other spelling glitches in the file, but the sentence quoted above actually does not have the spelling errors indicated in it.

Most authors here would appreciate direct communication of possible errors in their work.

Wesley

So-called "polystrate fossils" present no challenge to either conventional geology or evolution. Geologists have understood their formation for over a century. See the Polystrate Fossil FAQs for more information.