posted
The ID topic kept coming up in the thread "Comment on Card's ID article: Evidence for evolution of new species?" http://www.hatrack.com/ubb/main/ultimatebb.php?ubb=get_topic;f=1;t=003975 which was started to explore which evolutionary events have actually been observed and which are part of the theory.
To keep that thread from becoming an ID discussion or an attack on ID or the theory of evolution, I created this one where people can express their thoughts on the validity of ID.
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posted
It won't work, John. Threads naturally migrate, and attempting to stand in their way will only exhaust you. Ride the wild lightning, grasshopper.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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Not knowing what the basics of ID was I've been doing some reading. Here are the arguments proponents raise. Does anyone have a reasoned (as opposed to ranting) answer to them?
--We have not observed "macro-evolution." New forms simply suddenly appear and then persist.
--Cellular life would have to evolve all aspects immediately to be viable.
--The issue Card raised of complex biological systems.
--Monkey business with the fossils of other homo genuses, or assumptions.
I'm going to suggest that we look at these issues as questions, not proof that the theory is wrong. But questions to determine what the theory explains and what it doesn't. And I hope that even though the quotes below are stated a bit to positively, that we can avoid replying with ranting because it only muddles the issue.
quote:Intelligent Design is different because it does NOT base its arguments on the text of the Bible. Instead, it points out the flaws in Darwinism and other scientific theories that assume that there was no purposive action involved in the creation of the universe, of the Earth, of life, or of the development of life.
ID simply shows that Darwinism does not fulfill its promises and predictions. For example, Darwin admitted that the Cambrian explosion, in which all of the major “body plans” of living things came into existence in a very short time, challenged the prediction of his theory that evolution would proceed through innumerable small, relatively continuous steps. The fact that the fossil record actually shows no change in species for millions of years, and new species erupting with distinct characteristics, to stay the same for millennia, is why Stephen Jay Gould proposed “Punctuated Equilibrium” as an addendum to Darwinism, suggesting that the REAL evolution of new species takes place “off stage” in small, isolated groups, which then rejoin and replace the older versions of the species. PE is NOT supported by a majority of Darwinians, though.
The biggest gap in Darwin’s theory is right at the beginning of life. We know of no way that anything less than a complete biological cell can be called alive. Before Darwinian random mutation and natural selection through differential survival can operate, there must be a cell with DNA that can be mutated, and which can reproduce. How do you get that cell in the first place? Darwinism, by definition, CANNOT EXPLAIN IT. And the National Academy of Science and Richard Dawkins can only wave their hands and say that there are lots of theories under consideration, and they have confidence (another word for “faith”) that the materialistic, wholly natural and atheistic answer will be discovered REAL SOON NOW, the same thing they have been saying since DNA was discovered 50 years ago.
The Miller-Urey experiment does not in fact relate to the real ancient earth, but even if it did, or if you get amino acids from comets, the REAL PROBLEM is how you assemble the amino acids and other simple organic molecules into the first living, and reproducing, cell. It has to have a membrane that separates it from dilution and random chemical reactions, but it has to be selectively permeable to let in needed nutrients and raw materials and energy sources and emit waste products. It has to have some source of energy to run the mechanism. It has to have a mechanism of proteins to construct and run its factories, and it has to have a computer made of DNA (or RNA) that is programmed to precisely match the structure in which it is embedded!
But DNA cannot create a new cell to match its programming without an existing cell that matches its programming, and a cell without DNA cannot self-assemble DNA instructions that will create a duplicate cell. You need the chicken AND the egg, or the chemicals will simply die!
Darwin ignored this problem because he didn’t know that cells are incredibly complex machines. He thought basic cells were just like lime Jell-o, with no complex structure. In fact, they are the most complex mechanisms on Earth, more than a 747 or a nuclear submarine or a computer.
DNA is precisely like a computer memory. Instead of 1s and 0s, it has four different interchangeable components, abbreviated A, G, T and C, which can be stacked together like alphabet blocks in any order. However, to run a cell, they have to be stacked in precisely the correct order to direct the construction of proteins that actually work to build and operate a cell. For example, if there were a really simple cell with only 100 steps in its DNA, there would be 4 to the 100th power possible combinations that could occur. However, only a few of them could operate a viable cell. That means that there would be (let us say) 4 to the 95th power ways it could go wrong, a number which exceeds the number of atoms in the Earth. The notion that some random concatenation of DNA or RNA in some primordial bouillabaisse could come together to form a viable cell is beyond reasonable belief.
quote:Taken as an evaluation of "Micro-Evolution," I find nothing to argue with in Mr. Card's treatise. It is indeed an observable and testable scientific fact that evolution within a particular species can and does take place. And certainly natural selection is a part of that process. But that is not what the argument has been about, lo this past 150+ years.
"Macro-Evolution," the idea that all living things on this planet, (and presumably elsewhere in the Universe) began as the accidental combination of some unknown chemicals, in some unknown matrix, producing some undefinable form of life that somehow "evolved" into everything, is today as patently absurd as it was when Darwin first suggested it, with one important difference; today scientists have the capability of proving it is absurd.
Mr. Card is simply mistaken when he suggests that there are biological forms that demonstrate that a simple species evolved into a more complex species. Micro- evolution demonstrates that some simple organisms did evolve into a more complex organism, but never into another species. Beetles did not become birds, birds did not become dinosaurs, (or vice versa) and there is absolutely no empirical data to suggest anything with fins ever grew feathers or fur.
Lets be clear about one thing: There are no "transitional forms" in the fossil record, a fact attested to by the Director of the British Museum of Natural History, the repository of the largest fossil collection in the world. In a book written shortly before his death (please forgive me, I can't remember his name, but I will happily look it up if you like), he made no mention of transitional forms, i.e., fossil forms that demonstrate a transition or transformation of one species into another. When asked why he omitted such an important part of the record he candidly replied that he would have been happy to devote an entire chapter to transitional forms, "but there are none."
Stephen Jay Gould, the great Harvard guru of evolution, and Niles Eldredge, (sic) the Director of the American Museum of Natural History, admitted as much when they authored the most spectacular academic absurdity yet entered into the evolution debate. In their book, Punctuated Equilibria, these two August academicians posited the notion that at various times in the distant past an alligator (or some unknown species) laid an egg and a duck (or some other unknown
species) came out. In other words, the reason there are no transitional forms is because it happened too quickly but the reason this phenomenon has never been observed is because it happens too slowly. A whole book of scientific psycho-babble based on absolutely nothing but hot air. They didn't even invent the idea, it was brainchild of some California professor some years earlier who at least had the integrity to give it an appropriate name. He called it "The Happy Monster" theory.
Many scientists, delving into the reality of the Macro-evolution proposition are beginning to realize and state emphatically that it just doesn't work. The fact is, there is no "Science," in Macro- evolution, unless perhaps it is the science of supposition. In spite of the National Geographic's frantic attempts to convince the world that every new knuckle joint discovered "proves" we evolved from some single-celled conglomeration of chemicals bubbling up in the
primordial ooze, the fact remains it cannot be observed, it cannot be tested, it cannot be replicated, all requirements of any rational scientific exploration. Instead we are treated to fantastic artwork and computer recreations that celebrate the coming forth of the human
species in elaborate, full color paintings.
One of the best examples of this artistic emulation comes from the famous Scopes Trial. You will remember how Clarence Darrow stunned the court by entering into the trial record the then, new discovery of "Nebraska Man." What was actually discovered was a tooth, a single tooth. But no matter, the artists immediately went to work and created a jaw for the tooth, then they created a skull for the jaw, then a body for the skull and before long we had a female counterpart and a child. The entire family of "Nebraska Man" went on display in anthropology departments all over the world. The only problem was, it turned out to be the tooth of a pig. Still, I'll bet that Nebraska Man can even today be found, in all its brilliant artistic glory, in some book on evolution.
posted
Probably should have done more looking to find a cool presentation of some of the issues.
I also don't care what motivates ID--religion or science or some blend. What I care about are the issues raised. Are these real issues? If so, how does the theory explain or is it an area that's not explained well now?
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The big thing about ID/evolution is that the people that get in the news are the extremists (as are usually the people that get in the news). There's a notable - not huge, but notable - portion of people who fall into both, in some way or another. Here's how I reason it:
An intelligent designer (God) created the universe at some stage of life and existence, in perfect working order. Whether he created it 10,000 years ago with everything already 3 billion years old, or whether he created it 3 billion years ago and 6,000 years ago gave the creation story to Moses for other reasons (such as setting the example of the 7-day week... 6 days of work and a day of rest); either way it doesn't matter. God created it, and it all works perfectly.
There are a few things in evolution that I can't quite get over, but I attribute that to two things: 1) I think a part of me just doesn't want to believe in evolution... more out of pride than religious indoctrination; and 2) I'm not a PhD in any sort of science, and if I were going to really tackle my questions to the extent that I would be satisfied, it would all be way over my head. It's kind of frustrating, but there are more important things to life Posts: 162 | Registered: Dec 2004
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quote:--We have not observed "macro-evolution." New forms simply suddenly appear and then persist.
--Cellular life would have to evolve all aspects immediately to be viable.
--The issue Card raised of complex biological systems.
--Monkey business with the fossils of other homo genuses, or assumptions.
None of these are arguments for ID. They are arguments against the current understanding of evolution. This is a common misconception, and it's why most people think ID proponents are idiots.
Posts: 37449 | Registered: May 1999
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1) We have observed macro-evolution. In the fossil record. We see similar forms developing from other forms (think of the land-mammal that evolved into the cetaceous mammals). This takes 100's of thousands to millions of years. We won't be observing this directly "today," unless we get very lucky. Also, we won't be seeing cats evolving into roses, or wheels of cheese.
2) There are many different types of cells. If you would--cells "arrested" at various stages of development. You have viruses, and caryotic and eucaryotic cells. So cells can survive at various "stages" of evolution, and still remain viable.
That's all I have time for right now. I basically disproved your first two points in about 5 minutes of basic thought and internet research. Do your homework, dude; the info is out there.
Oh, and like TD says--none of your issues are attempts to "prove" ID/Creationism. Please, feel free to do five minutes of internet research yourself, and make a few points FOR ID/Creationism.
Posts: 1862 | Registered: Mar 2000
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quote:Originally posted by johnbrown: Not knowing what the basics of ID was I've been doing some reading. Here are the arguments proponents raise. Does anyone have a reasoned (as opposed to ranting) answer to them?
--We have not observed "macro-evolution." New forms simply suddenly appear and then persist.
--Cellular life would have to evolve all aspects immediately to be viable.
--The issue Card raised of complex biological systems.
--Monkey business with the fossils of other homo genuses, or assumptions.
1. New forms generally do NOT just 'suddenly appear' but usually have clear relationships with previous or co-existing forms. Yes, this is not ALWAYS the case, but for most forms this is the case. Also, those fossil relationships have been greatly validated (in the case of existing species and those few instances where fossil DNA can be recovered) by genetic comparisons. Also, the term 'observed' is far too specific as you are using it here. By this measure, we should not convict any criminal of any action unless each and every member of the court -- including the jury and all alternates -- was there to see the crime as it was taking place. We have very solid evidence that 'macroevolution' took place in the fossil record and in genetic studies. These are independently generated, and yet show an exceptionally high degree of correlation.
2. Actually, no. Cellular life would NOT need to have everything in place. Primitive cell walls can be generated in ceratin environments spontaneously, for example. There are several examples even in the modern world where protiens are able to replicate themselves outside of a cellular environment. There are many forms of live even to this day that do not have a clear nucleus, or all of the components of say an average human cell. The correct way to phrase and understand this issue is that the means by which cells could first arise are not fully understood, not to say that it is impossible or to even try to say that it could ONLY be the product of a random collision of particles (which is how Demski tries to phrase it).
3. Complex systems, as ID tries to define them, are frequently not as complex as described. Several of the complex systems that are thought to be dependent on all portions of the system being there simultaneously as currently found have been found to have several different paths by which older existing systems were gradually co-opted to new functions. The clotting mechanism in blood is one example, so too is the structure of a flagellum. Very infrequently is there a brand new structure that appears out of no-where. Far more often, a structure starts to take on two different roles, and then 'diverges' from itself into two different structures in subsequent generations.
4. I don't know what this is about. Are you referring to the Piltdown man?
Posts: 218 | Registered: Mar 2005
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WntrMute, thank you for providing an answer to some of the questions posed. The article mentions Nebraska Man, but I've read other accounts of a lot of the homo finds that were later found to be something else. I can't remember the source, but there were quite a few of these. Of course, this isn't saying all finds have this issue. Just that I remember the argument being that quite a few did.
TomDavidson & Ssywk, I don't believe I was trying to prove ID or anything like that. If you'll put aside knee-jerk reactions and actually look at my original message (taking substantially less than the five minutes ssywk suggests), you'll see that I was trying to identify the areas the theory of evolution has a hard time explaining and identify questions with the theory. I really don't care about ID. However, I do find the questions raised interesting.
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The following seem to suggest that there are unanswered questions within the theory of evolution. Again, lest anyone here forget to read what I've actually said, I'm not arguing for ID or against evolution. Only trying to identify the questions and gray areas of evolution. I simply don't accept the idea that the theory of evolution as it present exists will not change and has no gray areas or might be radically altered. And looking below, it seems those working in the field, don't claim that either.
quote:Most evolutionary biologists, among them Charles Darwin, see the only difference between microevolution and macroevolution as being one of scale. Other evolutionary biologists, including Stephen Jay Gould, I. I. Schmalhausen, and C. H. Waddington, hold that microevolution and macroevolution are fundamentally different processes...One major problem in proving the occurence of such mutations lies in the scales of resolution offered by biological techniques. The fossil record cannot record events that happened in less than a million years, which allows it to clearly show slow speciation events that are the result of accumulated mutations over a long time, but does not record sudden 'jumps' that are most likely the result of mutations in the critical regulatory genes in only a few generations.
quote:The theory is often referred to as an explanation for purported "gaps in the fossil record," so-called "missing links." However, this confuses two levels of evolution. It merely explains the small jumps that are observed in fossil lineages within or between closely related fossil species, not the transitions between major categories of organisms. Due to the rarity of preservation and the likelihood that speciation occurs in small populations during geologically short periods of time, transitions between species are uncommon in the fossil record...Gould himself later said that the theory did not in fact refute Darwin's gradualism, it just added the ideas of catastrophism and stasis...Thus, punctuated equilibrium contradicts some of Darwin's ideas regarding evolution.
quote:Evolutionary capacitance is a cutting-edge biological theory stating that living systems have the ability to accumulate genetic variation that has no phenotypic effect until the system is disturbed (perhaps by stress), at which point the variation has a phenotypic effect and is subject to natural selection. This mechanism would allow for rapid phenotypic change in a population, and rapid adaptation to new environmental conditions.
There is currently no consensus about whether capacitance has a meaningful effect on natural systems, let alone whether there might be selection for evolutionary capacitance. There is also debate over whether capacitance is a trait of particular genes, or whether it is a general aspect of genetic networks.
So while the questions of irreducible complexity and specified complexity seem to have some answers documented in the links from this article http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligent_design , the explanations don't say that there aren't irreducible systems, just that there's a lot of evidence that the ones posed are reducible. Nor are the issues with macro-evolution engraved in granite. As for the fossil record misrepresentations, it appears there are enough legit finds to posit extinct homos of other genuses.
Again, this isn't to substantiate ID. Only to see the questions raised and answers given, just as Gould working *in* evolution had questions about the sudden changes and posed an answer.
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quote:The following seem to suggest that there are unanswered questions within the theory of evolution.
Ah. Sorry about my knee-jerk response. Because pretty much any biologist out there will freely and gladly admit that there are huge gaps in our knowledge when it comes to evolution, and indeed those are some of 'em -- although they're not quite as broad as some people would have you believe.
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Thanks, TomDavidson. Those gaps are all I wanted to see. Are there some others you're aware of that I haven't run across yet?
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To clarify, Vid, the seven day week was not set as a standard by the Bible. The Romans, and consequently the Greeks, produced a seven day week because that was the number of "moving stars". These "movings stars" include all of the naked eye objects that move against the background backdrop of stars. These are the Sun (i.e., Sunday), the Moon (i.e., Lunes in Spanish), Mars (i.e., Martes in Spanish), Mercury (i.e., Miercoles in Spanish), Jupiter (i.e., Jueves in Spanish), Venus (i.e., Viernes in Spanish), and Saturn (i.e., Saturday). In English, Thursday can be traced to the Scandanavian god for Jupiter, Thor, while Tuesday can be traced to Tiw, the god of Mars.
But days of the week were not the only things that were influenced by the night sky. The ecliptic, the path of the sun from Earth's perspective, lies in exactly 12 constellations, also known as the zodiac constellations, making the number of months in a year the result of these zodiacal constellations.
Posts: 48 | Registered: Jan 2006
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Only one day in the English weekday names is from a non-germanic source, Saturday. Sun day and Mo(o)n day are obvious. Tuesday and Thursday are Tiw's day and Thor's day, as you noted. Wednesday is Odin's day (Anglo-Saxon Wodnesdæg, Woden was the AS name for Odin). Friday is Freya's day (in some myths she was the fertility goddess wife of Odin, in others she was the unmarried patron of fertility and beauty).
The seven day week was a pretty natural division since the moon most closely approximates a seven day period between phases. The Egyptians, Babylonians and Hindus all had the 7 day week before the Romans did. The Romans were late to adopt the week officially, that wasn't done until Constantine's day. The Roman calendar during the Republic was based on an 8 day week, and the days were named A through H. Which is dull.
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I see a lot of this word 'macro-evolution' being thrown about. Could the people using it please give a good, measurable definition?
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Actually, I find it kind of amusing. Come to think of it, the way my little analysis snippets evolve could be described as that kind of macro-evolution. Except that they usually become kind of top-heavy and kludgy, so it's more devolution.
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quote:Some scientists, such as Stephen Jay Gould, use the term macroevolution to instead describe evolutionary processes that occur at the level of species or above.
posted
Not to detract from wikipedia, as I do consider it a very helpful source of background information, I would not use it as a direct source for an argument. Anyone can edit postings there. If they don't agree with what is written on a specific article, they can change it to suit their needs. When you read it, you can not be sure of any bias the author may have had, or whether he or she wrote it based on accurate information.
Secondly, the page that I read when I click on your link may be totally different, or at least different enough in specific aspects of the argument that I may receive an entirely different perspective that you received when you read the article and decided to post it on here. From now on, I simply recommend you try to find other sources of information (and not from either www.creationismsucks.com or www.downwithdarwin.com )
Posts: 48 | Registered: Jan 2006
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I can certainly understand your concerns, but it appears that wiki isn't as unstable as you suggest. In fact, Nature carried out an expert-led investigation and...
quote:However, an expert-led investigation carried out by Nature — the first to use peer review to compare Wikipedia and Britannica's coverage of science — suggests that such high-profile examples are the exception rather than the rule.
The exercise revealed numerous errors in both encyclopaedias, but among 42 entries tested, the difference in accuracy was not particularly great: the average science entry in Wikipedia contained around four inaccuracies; Britannica, about three.
It would seem, HectoVictor, your fears are overstated.
Besides, I don't think anyone here was using wiki as substantiating evidence in any arguments. Only as a source of info and explanation. And it appears to serve that role admirably.
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