Posted on 05/03/2005 2:12:35 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
How? If the same phenomena occured in two species that are not believed to have shared a recent common ancestor then it could just as easily be chalked up to homoplasy. Common ancestry accommodates either phenomena but it certainly does not predict them and therefore cannot be falsified by their absence or confirmed by their presence. There is nothing wrong with a theory that can accomodate widely different results, but one can't turn around then and claim that one of those results is evidence for the theory.
Cordially,
Cordially,
If the same phenomena occured in two species that are not believed to have shared a recent common ancestor then it could just as easily be chalked up to homoplasy.Easily? Even if the 14 insertions shown in the diagram were present in a bird (that itself unlikely), it would still be akin to a 1 in 10^117 chance that they were placed correctly. As it's science we're talking about, we don't have too much use for absolutes, but those odds come close :)
There is nothing wrong with a theory that can accomodate widely different results, but one can't turn around then and claim that one of those results is evidence for the theoryFair enough. But the "different" results, in this case, are nowhere to be found, so the evidence holds.
Not sure, but I think empitical thought has become so important that some varient has to be used in this "reasoning" we use.
I guess one method would be along the lines of such (and coincidently, leads to empricism) that natural events have natural causes, and man can know them.
This would reason that if man can identify an occurance that happens frequently, it should be considered "natural" and thus it's origins can be studied. The workings of nature would mean that "magic (the unexplained) could not be an answer, if the answer can be understood (or assumed to be undertood) then "magic" is not the answer.
Dialetical thinking would be my "short answer."
So I think that we have come to some agreement. We cannot really be totally sure that "magic" is not the "true" answer. However, we assume that natural phenomena have natural explanations. That's what I meant when I talked about science seeking useful explanations rather than true ones. Given a sufficiently powerful magician, any observation can be said to arise from "magic". Hence this isn't a very useful explanation. However, substitute God, or some intelligent designer for the magician and the result is identical. Unless we develop some definitive test for design, the ID explanation for the development of the diversity of life is not a particularly useful one scientifically. Of course, it still makes for a terrific philosophical debate, which is where I believe students should be exposed to ID, rather than teaching ID as a scientific idea.
It also is insufficient to establish common ancestry because it is based on the the presumption that the retroviruses are non-functionalOf course this evidence can be falsified, just like DNA tests to establish paternity could, but that has yet to happen.
Also there is some evidence to support the idea that some of these may serve functions, and that their insertion is not entirely random.Such as?
"There were identified ‘hot spots’ containing integration sites used up to 280 times more frequently than predicted mathematically."
"...sometimes the hosts exploit the capacity of TEs to generate variations for their own benefit. The retroelements can come out as traveling donors of sequence motifs for nucleosome positioning, DNA methylation, transcriptional enhancers, poly(A) addition sequences, splice sites, and even amino acid codons for incorporation into open reading frames of encoded proteins [8, 9].The number of described cases in which retroelement sequences confer useful traits to the host is growing [11, 12, 13]. Retropositions can therefore be considered as a major pacemaker of the evolution that continues to change our genomes [14, 15, 16]. In particular, HERV elements could interact with human genome through (i) expression of retroviral genes, (ii) human genome loci rearrangement following the retroposition of the HERVs or (iii) the capacity of LTRs to regulate nearby genes [2, 3, 4, 5]. A plethora of solitary LTRs comprises a variety of transcription regulatory elements, such as promoters, enhancers, hormone-responsive elements, and polyadenylation signals. Therefore the LTRs are potentially able to cause significant changes in expression patterns of neighboring genes."
Cordially,
"Of course, it still makes for a terrific philosophical debate, which is where I believe students should be exposed to ID, rather than teaching ID as a scientific idea."
I still feel that since science is a philosophy, other branchs should be "allowed" as discussion pieces. Given that, I believe the teacher (if sufficiently qualified) should make it known that the focus of a science class is as we have discussed: finding the "useful" applications of our discoveries.
It should be made abundantly clear, however, that science is STILL a philosophy. And the school of thought regarding said philosophy should be addressed early on.
IMO, this would do wonders for clearing up this whole "Evolution *vs* Creationism" nonsense. They don't *have* to disagree. They just *have* to be addressed in different manners.
The answer to your question is that birds are a collection of more genetically different beings than dogs are. Carl Linneaus made birds a class of their own.
It didn't work.
The student's educational foundation should begin with a basic understanding of the Scriptures. From there theories like evolution can be "taught."
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