Odd fly uncovers evolution secret [speciation]

BBC News ^ | 20 April 2005 | Staff

[stremba]

Do we really have to go through this again? Guess so. A scientific theory is not some wild speculative guess. It is a coherent explanation of phenomena that is consistent with all known observations. It is true that a theory is not proven, but no theory, law, or hypothesis (which is probably closer to the common usage of theory) is ever proven. A theory could be demonstrated to be wrong by an appropriate observation. In fact, this characteristic is the one that distinguishes a SCIENTIFIC idea from one that is not scientific. Evolution is a scientific theory. It explains the diversity of life in a fashion that is consistent with known observations. There are observations that could potentially falsify it, were they to be observed. Find a precambrian human fossil, find a new species that doesn't use polynucleotides as a genetic material, or find a bird/mammal transitional fossil and you will have falsified the current theory of evolution. Creationism is not scientific for precisely the reason that there is no possible observation that would falsify it. What observation would be beyond the capability of God? ID is also currently not falsifiable, although I could at least theoretically envision it to be someday. ID'ers scrupulously avoid making any statements about the capabilities of the designer. If they would state that A,B, and C are observations that would not be possible for a designer to produce, then you would have a potential falsification of ID and ID would be scientific. If someone could somehow develop a test that would detect the presence or absence of design in a given item, ID would also be falsifiable. I suspect, however, that ID'ers are afraid to make their ideas falsifiable, however, because they might be shown to be actually false, or because they would then be forced to admit that the designer they have in mind is actually the Christian God, in which case all their protestation that it isn't a religious idea would be exposed as false.

[Aquinasfan]

But exactly what drives speciation is still not fully understood by scientists, and it is an area of intense research.

The mechanism is unknown and the process has never been observed, but scientists claim to know that it's true.

And scientists accuse Christians of dogmatism?

[stremba]

We know that two objects attract each other. We don't fully understand the mechanism by which the attraction occurs. (HINT: Gravity is the name given to the attraction. It is NOT the mechanism for the attraction.) Does this mean that gravity is dogma?

[Aquinasfan]

Better leave science to the scientists.

And law-making to legislators. And medicine to the AMA. And...

[AntiGuv]

...fairy stories in kindergarten.

[Cold Heart]

I was taught there is more bio diversity in the tropics because of the warmth. Faster cycles etc.

[Stark_GOP]

Factual information presented in this article:
1) A unique fly from the Canary Islands, the robber fly, is found nowhere else.

2) They found that endemic species, such as the predatory robber fly (Promachus vexator), are more common in places that are bustling with many different species.

Now, if new species are only created by "Intelligent Design", why would there be this association?
---
I totally agree with your first point that scientists have found any unusual species found only in a specific location.
I also agree with your second point that this fly has found an environment that is to its liking.
Your comment about "new species...only created by (ID)" is valid with an assumption.
That new species are actually new species and not variations of an existing creature.
I don't have all the answers concerning Creationism, Intelligent Design, or Evolution. That is why I am here.
To learn. Pleasure to talk with you.

[CharlesWayneCT]

I used "proven" in its colloquial sense. I didn't think there would be much argument over the idea that we have "proven" that gravity exists, although your are correct that it isn't "proven" in the way that, say, a mathematical concept might be "proven".

And I am not saying that anything shouldn't be taught. I am saying that we need to teach the difference between a scientific theory, and an historical reconstruction based on forensic evidence.

There are further distinctions within that class which should be made, between things that are directly observed or have been recorded in a manner deemed to be accurate, vs. things which start with current observations and project possibilities backwards, using occasional discoveries as a guidepost.

An analogy might help: A crime investigation might use scientific methods. A bullet is fired several times from a gun, and the results are compared to bullets found at the crime scene. This is like a science experiment, suggesting that the gun was used. We can use scientific OBSERVATION to determine that the prints on the gun match the subject, but that is not a scientific experiment to test a theory. Then we can use logic to argue that the suspect is the one who committed the crime, but that is not science, because it is not provable. It is something we can reasonably infer, but it is not the same as scientific theory or scientific observation. That person could have touched the gun, then left it on the ground, then the victim may have picked it up with gloves and shot himself (or someone else could have picked it up).

The historical timeline of evolutionary speciation is not a scientific theory, because it is not testable, it is merely a guess based on observations, most of which require guesses themselves as to their meaning.

Therefore, I do not believe that it should be taught as part of the "theory of evolution". When we DO teach it as the "theory of evolution", we cause confusion as to what a real scientific theory is, and open ourselves up to complaints that we should also teach other non-scientific guesses in the science class.

I have no problem at all with teaching in a history class our best guess as to the history of the world. That would put it in its proper perspective. Frankly, I'm not even that concerned if you teach the observed history of speciation in the science class so long as you make it clear that this is based on observation, and USES the theory of evolution rather than being PART of the theory of evolution.

Society has camps which have true differences on this topic. However, some of our "differences" are caused by the blurring of different branches of science, and of science and history.

When we talk about the theory of gravity, we are talking about a predictive mechanism. We can run experiments, and my experiments come out the same as yours. In fact, maybe I will get a different result. If others can replicate my results, maybe I will have found a new factor, and the theory of gravity might be modified.

But we don't find ourselves changing predictions based on the theory of gravity in fundamental ways. We don't expect that tomorrow a dropped pencil will hover. We build things which would kill millions of people if the theory of gravity made wrong predictions.

The historical story of origins on the other hand is fraught with wrong predictions. Scientists argue over most every point, even though there is a "theory of evolution" which is predictive and observable. It just doesn't predict scientifically what you will find when you dig up an archeological site.

That is part of the fun of archeology. You can always find things that you didn't expect. Scientific theory doesn't really fit with surprise (not that we haven't been surprised -- but most surprises are not of the "what is this doing here" variety, but rather a "if we measure down to the next digit the answer is different, so there must be something we were missing".

I am not trying to make some grand statement or argument here. I am talkng about something that seems clear to me, and pretty simple. History is not a scientific theory. We don't have a mechanism to predict "evolutionary change". We do know that if we examine genetic material from one generation to the next, there will be modifications in the material (mutations). We "know" that these will change the character of a species. We don't know how. We are even getting to where we can, through direct act, make changes that we CAN predict.

We still can't predict how those changes will play out in a societal struggle. We observe where we ended up, and guess at what led to the current set of creatures "winning" the evolutionary lottery. But that is not science, it is guesswork. Maybe well-founded, but it is not science. The theory isn't scrapped when we observe things that contradict our predictions. Because we realise that we are guessing, and guesses can be wrong. And we know that basing our hypothesis on our own observation of the result is biased, since we are not a random observation (OK, let me explain: You can't predict how many worlds have life buy dividing one (our world has life) by the number of worlds we have discovered. Because the observation of our own world is not "randomly chosen". We would observe life on our planet whether it was the ONLY planet with life, or if there were millions. In the same way observing what currently exists, and then making a historical timeline based on that, does not prove anything. That's how people lose money in the stock market with programs -- the programs are written to track historical data, and you can do that, but they still have no predictive value and are not "scientific".

Look, I'm writing this quickly, simply off the top of my head. I'm not trying to make a rigorous scientific argument one way or the other. I hopeful that I have been able to explain a flaw in the discussion which sometimes leads people who otherwise would be in agreement to end up arguing with each other.

[DannyTN]

"This new research could help explain..."

"...says the research is very interesting -- if it stands further scrutiny. "

"But it still doesn't explain the initial step..."

Give us money. See how interesting this research is? Give us money. It's interesting because we repeatedly told you it was interesting. Give us money. See how useful this research is? Give us money. It might do this...it might do that.... Give us money

[DannyTN]

"that any third grader should be able to guess took a very long time to lay down. "

Except that Mt. St. Helens laid down many feet of layered rock in days and then carved a deep canyon into it.

What you see at the grand canyon is layer after layer of flat strata with very little erosion except for the canyon itself. These were obviously laid down in water in a relatively short amount of time or there would more signs of erosion other than the canyon itself.

But that's a good guess for a third grader.

[Stark_GOP]

"I guess you think all science then is speculative guesswork?"
---
Nope. I think speculative guesswork is speculative guesswork. Hey, with all due respect, did you read the quotes I took directly out of the article?

"Better leave science to the scientists."
---
Then why are YOU even talking about science? Are you a scientist?

[Junior]

Scientists never use absolutes because they know there might be something that comes along and changes the whole picture. Only religionists use absolutes.

[Junior]

You've been shown the error of your Grand Canyon reasoning by some of FT's finest geologists, and yet you persist in broadcasting this canard.

What is it called when you continually do the same stupid thing even though you know it's stupid?

[DannyTN]

"What is it called when you continually do the same stupid thing even though you know it's stupid?"

Because I truly believe evolutionists are stupid and ignore the evidence before them.

Why don't you actually refute something instead of just calling creationists stupid for a change.

[DannyTN]

"Yes. Most species that have ever lived are now extinct. The Intelligent Designer probably has an Intelligent Eraser."

Indeed He does. I'm hoping you come to that realization before you meet up with it.

[Dark Knight]

I read the original article a couple of times. I read speculations about speciation. There was nothing particularly scientific about this article.

And that judgement is not dependent on ID.

Molecular genetics and comparisons will yield actual answers about natural selection and speciation rather than odd speculative, non rigorous articles like this one.

It is pap.

DK

[Stark_GOP]

Scientists never use absolutes because they know there might be something that comes along and changes the whole picture. Only religionists use absolutes.
---
Sorry, scientists use absolutes all the time. They just call them laws or constants.

[DannyTN]

"Better leave science to the scientists."-Coyoteman

"And law-making to legislators. And medicine to the AMA. And..." - Aquinasfan

"And the reporting of news to the media, and your children to the social workers, and the administration of government to the bureacrats and your civil liberties to the ACLU and..."

[Junior]

Not when they're talking about research. Buy a clue.

[VadeRetro]

But sometimes we dig farther and find human remains, and the "hypothesis" (guess) of the HISTORICAL EVOLUTION STORY is modified to take into account the scientific (observable historical) evidence which contradicts our previous guess.

I don't get a feeling you know the actual ranges involved. Here's a nice visual representation.

True humans don't go back very far at all compared to the history of life on Earth. Neither do apes. Neither do primates. Most of the diversity of life on Earth we have now comes in rather late.

For most of the Earth's history, the most complicated life around was something or other made of one cell. Shortly before the Cambrian, we see sponges, worm tracks, and some fossil forms we have trouble guessing what they were but they were clearly multicellular. In the Cambrian, most of the modern phyla emerge including our own, Chordata. By the end of the Cambrian, there are even some primitive fish around.

But the whole emergence and flowering of mammals is like the day before yesterday. Where I live, in some pretty old mountains, none of the sediments are young enough to show any of that. They don't even have dinosaurs.

That's the evidence any real theory has to make sense of.