Scientist: Evolution debate will soon be history

San Francisco Chronicle ^ | May 26, 2012 | FRANK ELTMAN

[eekitsagreek]

Richard Leakey predicts skepticism over evolution will soon be history.

Not that the avowed atheist has any doubts himself.

Sometime in the next 15 to 30 years, the Kenyan-born paleoanthropologist expects scientific discoveries will have accelerated to the point that "even the skeptics can accept it."

"If you get to the stage where you can persuade people on the evidence, that it's solid, that we are all African, that color is superficial, that stages of development of culture are all interactive," Leakey says, "then I think we have a chance of a world that will respond better to global challenges."

[varmintman]

Evolution takes place one small change at a time

That's called MICROEVOLUTION, and nobody denies it. What people DO deny (because it's a bunch of BS) is MACROEVOLUTION, which is what the "theory of evolution" is about.

Real experts are on record that the two are separate, and that microevolution cannot generate macroevolution:

"The paleontologists have convinced me small changes do not accumulate."

    Francisco Ayala, Ph.d
    Assoc Professor of Genetics, U of California
    "Evolutionary theory under fire"
    Science, Nov 21, 1980.  p 883-887

"People are misled into believing that since microevolution is a reality, that therefore macroevolution is such a reality also. Evolutionists maintain that over long periods of time small-scale changes accumulate in such a way as to generate new and more complex organisms ... This is sheer illusion, for there is no scientific evidence whatever to support the occurrence of biological change on such a grand scale. In spite of all the artificial breeding which has been done, and all the controlled efforts to modify fruit flies, the bacillus escherichia (E-coli), and other organisms, fruit flies remain fruit flies, E-coli bacteria remain E-coli bacteria, roses remain roses, corn remains corn, and human beings remain human beings."

    Darrel Kautz, Creationist Researcher
    The Origin of Living Things, 1988, p. 6

"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction. Now, to be sure, given the multitude of extravagant claims about evolution promulgated by evolutionists with an air of scientific infallibility, this may indeed sound strange. And yet the fact remains that there exists to this day not a shred of bona fide scientific evidence in support of the thesis that macroevolutionary transformations have ever occurred."

    Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics
    Teilardism and the New Religion
    Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1988, p. 5

[exDemMom]

Evolution is not something to be “accepted”, it must be proved or it is not science. Nor was the “heliocentric view” a matter of acceptance, but of scientific proof. The “poor state of science” in our schools is a result of exactly the type of thinking you are displaying that acceptance or consensus is science. Neither is science.

There is plenty of "proof" of evolution. There are very few branches of biology in which it is possible to work without taking evolution into account.

The reason I put "proof" into quotes is that, in science, nothing is ever really "proven". The best we can do is to gather more evidence; either the evidence supports the theory or it doesn't.

In the case of evolution, the evidence supporting the theory is overwhelming. That isn't to say that the theory cannot undergo revision as more evidence is accumulated; such revision is an integral part of science. When evidence just plain does not support a theory, the theory is rejected in favor of a better one--that is why we look to Charles Darwin as an early pioneer in biology, and not Jean-Baptiste Lamarck. Darwin's theory best fit the data; Lamarck's did not.

[exDemMom]

That’s micro evolution not Darwinian evolution....

Scientifically, there is no distinction. "Microevolution" is a concept invented by the charlatans who sell anti-science as a means to explain away the scientific evidence in a way that would support their version of anti-science. In reality, the evolutionary process occurs by a number of small "micro" changes occurring over a long period of time. For microorganisms like bacteria or viruses, that period of time isn't all that long...

[misanthrope]

That was pretty good. You are describing a concept popularly known as “irreducible complexity”. Here is a pretty good, easy to read piece on the concept that just ALMOST avoids mentioning the words “Intelligent Design”. http://www.ideacenter.org

I’m constantly on the lookout for a succinct description of irreducible complexity that stands a chance of penetrating the current intellectually fashionable belief armor my brother has assumed. What I need is a well written and inarguable summary that doesn’t mention anything to do with a creator or I.D., and in no way even remotely attacks the evolutionists’ dogma in any way. Something a die-hard evolutionist would read to the end without ever being given the opportunity to argue the logic.

Yours came very close to being ideal.

[OldNavyVet]

That’s micro evolution not Darwinian evolution ...

Darwin's theory of evolution covers previously existing -- and now existing -- plants, animals, mountains, land masses, oceans, etc; and Darwin's theory can be extended to include bacteria, planets, stars, galaxies ... to all that exists, even religions.

[varmintman]

Another thing which evolosers don't like to talk about and which you can research yourself is what some call the "Evolutionite Time Sandwich", i.e. the amount of time they need versus the amount they actually have. Google searches on 'dinosaur' and 'soft tissue' or 'tyrannosaur' and 'soft tissue' turn up the fact that researchers have been finding soft tissue in dinosaur remains for the past ten years or so:

which indicates that dinosaurs died out much more recently than 60M years ago. Other evidence supports a much more recent die-out of dinosaurs; Google searches on "ica stones" as well as on 'dinosaurs' and 'petroglyphs' turn much of that up.

A Google search on "Haldane dilemma", on the other hand, turns up the fact that the amount of time evolutionites actually NEED is going to be measured in quadrillions of years and not millions or hundreds of millions or billions or even trillions.

The Haldane dilemma is higher arithmetic, and not higher math. Walter Remine describes a simplified version of the idea thus:

Imagine a population of 100,000 apes or “proto-humans” ten million years ago which are all genetically alike other than for two with a “beneficial mutation”. Imagine also that this population has the human or proto-human generation cycle time of roughly 20 years.

Imagine that the beneficial mutation in question is so good, that all 99,998 other die out immediately (from jealousy), and that the pair with the beneficial mutation has 100,000 kids and thus replenishes the herd.

Imagine that this process goes on like that for ten million years, which is more than anybody claims is involved in “human evolution”.

The max number of such “beneficial mutations” which could thus be substituted into the herd would be ten million divided by twenty, or 500,000 point mutations which, Remine notes, is about 1/100 of one percent of the human genome, and a miniscule fraction of the 2 to 3 percent that separates us from chimpanzees, or the half of that which separates us from neanderthals.

In other words, even given a rate of substitution fabulously beyond anything which is possible in the real world, starting from apes 10M years ago, the furthest along evolution could get in that much time would be an ape with a slightly shorter tail.

People who have done the math claim that even if evolution could account for our present biosphere (it can't), it would take quadrillions of years to do so.

[varmintman]

This might be pretty close to ideal for your purposes

DNA/RNA is an information code, and information codes do not just sort of happen:

"At that moment, when the DNA/RNA system became understood, the debate between Evolutionists and Creationists should have come to a screeching halt

    I.L. Cohen, Researcher and Mathematician
    Member NY Academy of Sciences
    Officer of the Archaeological Inst. of America
    Darwin Was  Wrong - A Study in Probabilities
    New Research Publications, 1984, p. 4

[trubolotta]

There are very few branches of biology in which it is possible to work without taking evolution into account.

Nonsense. The study of biological processes, structures, chemistry and mechanisms does not require any accounting for evolution. It is what it is by virtue of discovery. Conjecture may be useful, but proves nothing in itself. Quite the contrary, it is the evolutionist that depends on the discoveries of biology to support, refute or question their theories.

The best we can do is to gather more evidence; either the evidence supports the theory or it doesn't. In the case of evolution, the evidence supporting the theory is overwhelming.

The evidence is quite underwhelming and rife with fraud, artistic license (pictures of morphing species) and subjective interpretation. The excuse will always be the same; we know the evidence is out there, we just need more funds and more time to find it.

Most of your arguments in many of your postings were abandoned long ago and replaced by newer theories. You need to get up to date. You need to evolve.

[exDemMom]

That's called MICROEVOLUTION, and nobody denies it. What people DO deny (because it's a bunch of BS) is MACROEVOLUTION, which is what the "theory of evolution" is about.

Real experts are on record that the two are separate, and that microevolution cannot generate macroevolution:

"The paleontologists have convinced me small changes do not accumulate."

    Francisco Ayala, Ph.d
    Assoc Professor of Genetics, U of California
    "Evolutionary theory under fire"
    Science, Nov 21, 1980.  p 883-887

It took me a while to find that quote in context. For one thing, the author of the article is Roger Lewin, and it was published in volume 210. Knowing those facts would have helped find the article. Whenever anti-science charlatans quote some evolutionary biologist as saying something that "shows" they do not "genuinely accept" evolution, the quote is almost certainly taken out of context. In many cases, the quote isn't only out of context, it has been edited in such a fashion that it seems to be saying exactly opposite of what the quotee actually said. In this case, the article was about a conference in which a concept about evolution that had been proposed in the 1940s was being challenged. In other words, the conference was about refining the theory to better fit the evidence. And the theory has been refined more since 1980.

Dr. Ayala's full quote as presented in the article is this: "We would not have predicted stasis from population genetics, but I am now convinced from what the paleontologists say that small changes do not accumulate." (He was actually mistaken on that point; small and large changes do occur; we now recognize that evolution both progresses by genetic drift and by punctuated equilibrium.) Anyway, the full article is here, although accessing it may require membership in AAAS.

Dr. Ayala has published many articles on evolutionary biology since the 1960s; he does not doubt the validity of the theory.

"People are misled into believing that since microevolution is a reality..." (Remainder of quote omitted to save space.)

    Darrel Kautz, Creationist Researcher
    The Origin of Living Things, 1988, p. 6

I really don't need to spend much time on this. From what I could tell through Google, Darrel Kautz is not a life scientist and has no scientific training.

"The salient fact is this: if by evolution we mean macroevolution (as we henceforth shall), then it can be said with the utmost rigor that the doctrine is totally bereft of scientific sanction..." (Remainder of quote omitted to save space.)

    Wolfgang Smith, Ph.D Mathematics , MS Physics
    Teilardism and the New Religion
    Tan Books and Publishers, Inc., 1988, p. 5

Google reveals that Wolfgang Smith is also not a life scientist, and, even though he has worked closely with scientists, it was within the field of aerospacial engineering, about as removed from life sciences as a scientist can be. Doctor of Mathematics Smith's attempt to refute the keystone theory of biology is as credible as Doctor of Life Sciences exDemMom's attempt to refute the theory of relativity which is central to physics. (Except that Dr. exDemMom realizes her understanding of physics is mostly at the undergraduate level, and would never challenge relativity.)

In the cases of both Kautz and Smith, it isn't really necessary to refute, point by point, their misrepresentations of life science. Neither of them demonstrated any comprehension of the subject from the get-go. Anyone who wants to credibly challenge a theory must start by thoroughly comprehending it.

[trubolotta]

There are very few branches of biology in which it is possible to work without taking evolution into account.

Nonsense. The study of biological processes, structures, chemistry and mechanisms does not require any accounting for evolution. It is what it is by virtue of discovery. Conjecture may be useful, but proves nothing in itself. Quite the contrary, it is the evolutionist that depends on the discoveries of biology to support, refute or question their theories.

The best we can do is to gather more evidence; either the evidence supports the theory or it doesn't. In the case of evolution, the evidence supporting the theory is overwhelming.

The evidence is quite underwhelming and rife with fraud, artistic license (pictures of morphing species) and subjective interpretation. The excuse will always be the same; we know the evidence is out there, we just need more funds and more time to find it.

Most of your arguments in many of your postings were abandoned long ago and replaced by newer theories. You need to get up to date. You need to evolve.

[going hot]

Anyone who wants to credibly challenge a theory must start by thoroughly comprehending it.

The key word is "credibly".

Although, comprehension is a close second.

[varmintman]

The conflict is not with religion; the conflict is between mathematics, often called the queen of the sciences, and evolution which ought to be called the knave or joker of the sciences. Evolution is basically an ideological doctrine masquerading as a science theory. It requires an endless series of probabilistic miracles and posits that you should view your neighbor as a meat byproduct of random processes, rather than as a fellow child of God.

In real life, our living world is based on information and an information code more complex than C++, Java, or any other information system which man has yet devised:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=00vBqYDBW5s

[Freedom_Is_Not_Free]

You say the Cambrian “explosion” took 70-80 million years, as if that is established fact. There is still massive debate over whether this took 10 million years or 100 million. And frankly, nobody knows. Did it take 80 millions years to develop eyes or develop skeletal systems? Call me skeptical, because the record doesn’t seem to show it.

Thanks for informing me that the experts can identify the entire line of horses back to the fish. Please do me a favor and just list 20 or so predecessor creatures down the chain of evolution for the horse, in the direction of fish. Just the names are fine. I can Google the pictures.

Since I keep getting stymied earlier than Hyracotherium, could you please start with that animal and go back 20 known species of creature before that. That would go a long way toward relieving my doubts about the theory of evolution. 55 million years ago is really recent history in evolutionary time so it would be nice if you could take the horse’s ancestry back 250 million years or so.

Thanks.

[OldNavyVet]

the amount of time evolutionites actually NEED is going to be measured in quadrillions of years and not millions or hundreds of millions or billions or even trillions.

Looking at evolutionary facts, Steve Jones tells us that .."About a thousand genes are shared by every organism, however simple or complicated. Although their commmon ancestor must have lived more than a billion years ago, their shared structure can still be glimpsed. It shows how the grand plan of life has been modified through the course of evolution."

The above is from "Darwin's Ghost ... The Origin of Species Updated" by Steve Jones.

[trubolotta]

I’m not sure what your point is. There are many common components available to an engineer to design any number of machines that are totally different in appearance and function. Those components did not spontaneously appear or assemble themselves. It took a designer with a deliberate plan. The greater complexity of organisms with a thousand shared genes can be as much an argument for deliberate reuse of general purpose components assembled into specialized forms, i.e. species.

Common ancestor or common designer? The math settled the issue for me barring any new revelations.

[misanthrope]

HOLY CRAP!!! That is it! What a truly masterful video! Thanks so much for sharing that!

[OldNavyVet]

Common ancestor or common designer

Common ancestry is a given fact, and common designer is not out of the question.

The real problem is that scientific evolutionary findings conflict with religious beliefs.

[exDemMom]

Nonsense. The study of biological processes, structures, chemistry and mechanisms does not require any accounting for evolution. It is what it is by virtue of discovery. Conjecture may be useful, but proves nothing in itself. Quite the contrary, it is the evolutionist that depends on the discoveries of biology to support, refute or question their theories.

Actually, most investigation within the life sciences *does* require accounting for evolution. I cannot imagine how I could have conducted my PhD research without considering evolutionary mechanisms--from cross-species comparisons of the genetic and protein structures of a central player within the pathway our lab studied, to the controls I would incorporate within my experiments to minimize the real-time effect of evolution on my experimental results, I just don't see how I could have been successful had I tried to pretend evolution isn't a major force in biology. Scientists don't just walk into a lab and "discover" things; they formulate a hypothesis as a guide for what to look for, and part of that hypothesis formulation in my field requires consideration of evolutionary mechanisms.

The evidence is quite underwhelming and rife with fraud, artistic license (pictures of morphing species) and subjective interpretation. The excuse will always be the same; we know the evidence is out there, we just need more funds and more time to find it.

If you have evidence of actual scientific fraud, please document it fully and report it to The Office of Research Integrity. Because scientific fraud undermines public confidence in science, it is a huge concern both to funding agencies and to the scientific community.

The fact that a scientist's results support and fit into evolutionary theory does not mean that the scientist is committing fraud.

[Joe 6-pack]

"Since Africa is the richest continent in terms of resources, why aren’t they the most developed?"

Oppressive colonialism.

Any Harvard historian could have told you that ;-)

[varmintman]

There's also a book, again courtesy of Don Johnson:

Programming life

On Amazon:

http://www.amazon.com/Programming-Life-Donald-E-Johnson/dp/0982355467

Johnson's own site:

http://programmingoflife.com/