Posted on 11/29/2011 12:32:30 PM PST by SeekAndFind
For the last several months there has been a flurry of discussion—mostly online, of course—about the impossibility of a literal Adam & Eve (see, e.g., here and here and here). This ruling-out has been accomplished recently by the Human Genome Project, which indicates that anatomically modern humans emerged from primate ancestors about 100,000 years ago, from a population of something like 10,000. In short, science has confirmed what many of us already knew: there was not a literal first couple. So what else can we learn from this story?
Plenty, it turns out. Peter Enns, a biblical scholar who blogs at Patheos, has been following the discussion with some care. Lately he has done us all a great favor: written a series of posts pointing out recurring mistakes made by many of those doing the discussing. Many of these mistakes are rhetorically effective but collapse upon even modest inspection.
But not all of them.
On Friday, he listed one held mostly by the pro-science crowd: “Evidence for and against evolution is open to all and can be assessed by anyone.”
Enns declares that this is not so. “The years of training and experience required of those who work in fields that touch on evolution rules out of bounds the views of those who lack such training,” he writes.
This is true but it misses the point. The open-access-to-science cliché, usually trundled out by those who wish to contrast the transparency of science with the supposed obfuscation of religion, carries some truth.
Science actually is transparent in a way that religion is not. That’s because, in science land, there is nothing but to follow the evidence. It’s out on the table, after all, able and willing to be poked and prodded and analyzed and figured out and held up and turned around and looked at from new angles. Also, what counts as evidence in science is pretty well-defined. And if you do become an evolution expert, you actually will see that 99% of all scientists back evolution for a reason: the evidence demands it.
This is the great generosity of science, and its great strength: It is actually all right there, ready to be seen and understood. It is relievedly explicit. It takes effort, sure, just as Enns suggests; it’s not easy to become a professional research biologist. But the reason biologists agree on evolution is because it’s a relatively simple matter to be objective about fossils and genes. Unlike the objects of religion—the divine and humanity’s relation to it—the objects of science give themselves up for abstraction and analysis without a fight.
Therefore Richard Dawkins (for example) is right when he says, as he has on many occasions, that the evidence for evolution is there to be inspected by anyone. It is sitting out there on the table, waiting patiently for most of humanity to catch up to it, waiting to tell us it’s time to bid the historical Adam & Eve a final, if fond, farewell.
There are not 100 total differences in genetics between rats and mice - there would be an AVERAGE difference between a typical mouse and a typical rat - different for each particular individuals you cared to compare.
If you invent iron clad criteria - you will often find nothing but disappointment when reality fails to comport well with the artificial criteria you invented.
In the beginning there was nothing ... then it exploded.
Hey Allmendream..... been a long time since you’ve called me names and dismissed me... I see you’re still incapable of making an argument without insulting someone.
You said this:
“Selection cannot create anything, only select among the variations that arise through mutation.”
And you are correct (partially).... selection can’t create anything. However, since mutations are harmful (even sci-fi film makers know that... Ever seen a good lookin’ mutant?) and to reiterate something that I argued with you a long time ago.... there has never been a mutation that’s been observed that ever added any information to the genome. Mutations either remove information or they are information neutral.
Here’s my question.... that being the case, how could Natural Selection select from less information and create a new species that requires more information?
While you’re at it.... take a look at my post #82, which has some legitimate questions for you.... bet you can’t reply with out a bit of nastiness.
“In the beginning there was nothing ... then it exploded.”
Thereby violating the First Law of Thermodynamics, The Law of Cause and Effect and the Law of the Conservation of Matter.... not to mention the complete logical fallacy of the whole thing.
So all you’re really saying is that “we can’t find the definitive first human because we can’t even define what is the definitive human.”
Well, of course.
Ah, more name-calling. When you don't like my opinion, you resort to name-calling.
"Your constant refrain on any scientific subject - gravity or evolution - is that using the model to explain the data is “begging the question”. You are at least consistent that you think using a scientific model to explain data is some sort of logical fallacy."
See below for quotes demonstrating the equivalence of geocentric and geokinetic models. After that, it's merely one's personal opinion. To claim that one model is demonstrably superior to the other in the face of quotes stating their equivalence, one must use logical fallacy as 'support'. If you don't want me to point out your use of logical fallacy as arguemnt the solution is obvious, don't use logical fallacy as argument.
“Can we formulate physical laws so that they are valid for all CS [coordinate systems], not only those moving uniformly, but also those moving quite arbitrarily, relative to each other? […] The struggle, so violent in the early days of science, between the views of Ptolemy and Copernicus would then be quite meaningless. Either CS could be used with equal justification. The two sentences: “the sun is at rest and the earth moves” or “the sun moves and the earth is at rest” would simply mean two different conventions concerning two different CS.”
Einstein, A. and Infeld, L. (1938) The Evolution of Physics, p.212 (p.248 in original 1938 ed.); Note: CS = coordinate system
“The relation of the two pictures [geocentricity and heliocentricity] is reduced to a mere coordinate transformation and it is the main tenet of the Einstein theory that any two ways of looking at the world which are related to each other by a coordinate transformation are entirely equivalent from a physical point of view.... Today we cannot say that the Copernican theory is ‘right’ and the Ptolemaic theory ‘wrong’ in any meaningful physical sense.”
Hoyle, Fred. Nicolaus Copernicus. London: Heinemann Educational Books Ltd., 1973.
"...Thus we may return to Ptolemy's point of view of a 'motionless earth'...One has to show that the transformed metric can be regarded as produced according to Einstein's field equations, by distant rotating masses. This has been done by Thirring. He calculated a field due to a rotating, hollow, thick-walled sphere and proved that inside the cavity it behaved as though there were centrifugal and other inertial forces usually attributed to absolute space. Thus from Einstein's point of view, Ptolemy and Corpenicus are equally right."
Born, Max. "Einstein's Theory of Relativity",Dover Publications,1962, pgs 344 & 345:
"People need to be aware that there is a range of models that could explain the observations,” Ellis argues. “For instance, I can construct you a spherically symmetrical universe with Earth at its center, and you cannot disprove it based on observations.” Ellis has published a paper on this. “You can only exclude it on philosophical grounds. In my view there is absolutely nothing wrong in that. What I want to bring into the open is the fact that we are using philosophical criteria in choosing our models. A lot of cosmology tries to hide that.”
Ellis, George, in Scientific American, "Thinking Globally, Acting Universally", October 1995
"But what you call a logical fallacy the rest of the world calls the scientific method - using a model to explain and predict data."
That would be the fallacy of appeal to popular opinion.
I don’t know of any but I haven’t looked for it.
All mutations are not harmful. Mutations cause variations.
Here we see the utility of the theory.
Bacteria have a gene for error prone DNA polymerase in addition to its high fidelity one. Each ‘error’ introduces mutations into the bacterial genome.
Under stress this gene is expressed in preference to the high fidelity one.
The theory of evolution through natural selection of genetic variation has an explanation at the ready for this.
Your false construction that all mutations are somehow information neutral or negative has no explanation for it, because it is false.
A mutation of the DNA of a codon can cause expression of a different amino acid in a working protein. This doesn't subtract information and often it turns out to NOT be information ‘neutral’.
So why would a bacteria under stress have and express a gene for an error prone DNA polymerase?
No, this is the fallacy of affirming the consequent in action.
The fact that bacteria have multiple genes and choose to express them differently according to stress-levels is not evidence that these mechanisms and strategies 'evolved'. Unless you invoke logical fallacy, that is.
What exists, exists. That is pure science and scientific evidence. Assuming that it 'evolved' because 'evolution' 'predicts' it is pure logical fallacy. The fallacy of affirming the consequent, that is. Logical fallacy should never be confused with science. Not even if all the scientists believe it. That is simply the fallacy of appeal to popular opinion.
The underlying problem is that evolutionists simply believe that evolution has created all biological systems and effects. Arguing what biology can or cannot do is difficult because we really don’t know what the limits really are to this thing called ‘life’. Biology is turning out to be much more wonderful and complex than ever predicted by anyone.
This doesn’t matter to evolutionists because they simply incorporate the newest discoveries into a framework that says “it exists because it evolved”. That is a logical fallacy. It begs the question by assuming that everything that is observed, evolved.
What complex biological system did any evolutionist ever look at and say, “This couldn’t have evolved”? None. And they never will because they operate from a logical fallacy that is assumed ‘a priori’ or as a “first principle”. IOW, credulity is the realm of the evolutionist who will believe that anything they see ‘evolved’, no matter how complex or interrelated such a system is.
It’s their basic belief paradigm and cannot be questioned. Those who do become creationists. :-)
I can possible see where microbes and such have evolved but all the plant life all the diversity in the plant life is enough to make one wonder. It would seem that there would not be much diversity in anything a few plant that made it so to say and how they started is quite a mystery but just a few and only limited life forms not the diversity we see in the water and land is quite the mystery to me. Evolution is quite a powerful mechanism and who put the desire, the will to mutate In the first place in the mechanism?
I am not saying the mechanism evolved - the mechanism itself accelerates evolution.
You think gravity explaining the Earth's orbit around the Sun is affirming the consequence - but the scientific method is not a logical fallacy - posting your ignorant drivel about coordinate systems and thinking it explains the glaring hole in your thinking IS a logical fallacy.
So how can YOU explain why a bacteria under stress would chose to introduce mutations into its genome?
This should be amusing! :)
You're saying the mechanism was created then? You cannot say the mechanism accelerates 'evolution' without begging the question of the existence of evolution in the first place. You again engage in logical fallacy.
"You think gravity explaining the Earth's orbit around the Sun is affirming the consequence - but the scientific method is not a logical fallacy - posting your ignorant drivel about coordinate systems and thinking it explains the glaring hole in your thinking IS a logical fallacy."
You are in no position to say what I think and the 'ignorant drivel' about CS is based on quotes from Einstein, Hoyle, Born and Ellis.
"So how can YOU explain why a bacteria under stress would chose to introduce mutations into its genome?"
As I have previously explained, bacteria ramp up mutations when stressed to search a design-space for possible solutions to the stressor they are subjected to.
"This should be amusing! :)"
LOL!
You still have to be extremely credulous to believe that even ‘microbes and such’ have ‘evolved’ (that really has no meaning as it can mean anything). Even simple microbes have the complexity of small cities and we know those don’t spontaneously generate themselves. And yes, survival of the fittest (were it a real phenomenon) would tend to end up with a single life form that is ‘fitter’ than everything else that went before.
I think you are confusing adaptation with the term ‘evolution’. Adaptation is very powerful and all life forms have incredible abilities of adaptation. That doesn’t mean that these abilities ‘evolved’. ‘Evolution’ can mean anything and therefore means nothing.
So my Ford Focus will not adapt and evolve into a hummer one day?
Sorry... I know that’s difficult to accept. Smashed paradigms and all... ;-)
Einstein was not a loony Geocentrist. Logical fallacy of appeal to authority anyway. An authority that doesn't even agree with you. Rather sloppy, silly and stupid, wouldn't you say? Using logic?
We all argue from assumptions. Sometimes the assumptions are based on facts in evidence, sometimes, not. Mirco-evolution really deals with those events that we can actually put to the test, which means with a few human generations. Macro-evolutiion is a kind of historicism based on what remains from the past and then by spinning speculations. One thing we do know is that most of life is microscopic: the sheer weight of them is greater than that of the more complex forms. But the question remains unanswered how these complex forms emerged from the simpler ones. The greater question is, however, how the simple ones emerged from dead matter. For dead matter is infinitely less complex than the simplest form of living matter. We were fooled when we looked at organic matter and saw that it was made of of pretty much the same stuff. But as we look deeper and deeper, we find ourselves in the position of Ben Franklin holding a cell phone in his hand. We just don’t understand the principles behind it.
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