For scientists who accept evolution

[hammegk]

From the link.

1. It is indeed wrong to offer a just-so story as evidence that something happened a certain way. However, such stories still serve a purpose as hypotheses. They present a model that can be tested by further research and either rejected or qualified as more probable. For example, the just-so story that horns on horned lizards evolved as defense has now been supported with experiments (Young et al. 2004). Science makes little progress without hypotheses to test.

Hmm. Even I wasn't quite ready to suggest The Hypothesis of Evolution is the correct name.

2. Such stories also function to rebut claims that something could not have happened. If a plausible story is presented, the claim of impossibility is shown to be false. This is true whether or not the story is speculative.

I would like to see specific instances, but suggest running your life on that basis would be idiocy (or would it be insanity).


Maybe y'all can get together & rewrite those Responses for a little tighter fit to reality.

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

And I agree, if the "species concept" was not definable at will to suit, The Theory would have even greater problems.

Funny, you stated above that family=species. That´s surely a species concept definable at will. Unfortunately, in this case it´s simply wrong.

It is unfortunate that all the morphology based butterfly collections were basically done prior to dna analysis,

Why is this unfortunate? Please be specific.

at the highest level interbreeding was used as a classifiable point.

Justifiably so, for sexually reproducing organisms (see below).

Changes in dna should offer more rigor, and be actually defensible by science.

Agreed, in fact this is the basis for modern classification of not only non-sexually reproducing organisms such as bacteria, but all organisms. Indeed, you made that very point yourself (see quote above).

It's also unfortunate that most of us can tell a dog (call it what you will, it isn't a cat) from a cat without help from science.

Why is this unfortunate? Please be specific. Also, consider what would be necessary for most of us, to tell a beetle from another, closely related beetle? Or subspecies within the genus Taraxacum? I bet even Linnaeus (a scientist) had problems there. I also bet he would have been happy to use DNA sequence comparisons in classification.

Oh, and your link (I can´t post html here yet, sorry) points to the following abstract:

Fuzzy species among recombinogenic bacteria.

Hanage WP, Fraser C, Spratt BG.

Department of Infectious Disease Epidemiology, Imperial College London, London, UK. w.hanage@imperial.ac.uk

BACKGROUND: It is a matter of ongoing debate whether a universal species concept is possible for bacteria. Indeed, it is not clear whether closely related isolates of bacteria typically form discrete genotypic clusters that can be assigned as species. The most challenging test of whether species can be clearly delineated is provided by analysis of large populations of closely-related, highly recombinogenic, bacteria that colonise the same body site. We have used concatenated sequences of seven house-keeping loci from 770 strains of 11 named Neisseria species, and phylogenetic trees, to investigate whether genotypic clusters can be resolved among these recombinogenic bacteria and, if so, the extent to which they correspond to named species. RESULTS: Alleles at individual loci were widely distributed among the named species but this distorting effect of recombination was largely buffered by using concatenated sequences, which resolved clusters corresponding to the three species most numerous in the sample, N. meningitidis, N. lactamica and N. gonorrhoeae. A few isolates arose from the branch that separated N. meningitidis from N. lactamica leading us to describe these species as 'fuzzy'. CONCLUSION: A multilocus approach using large samples of closely related isolates delineates species even in the highly recombinogenic human Neisseria where individual loci are inadequate for the task. This approach should be applied by taxonomists to large samples of other groups of closely-related bacteria, and especially to those where species delineation has historically been difficult, to determine whether genotypic clusters can be delineated, and to guide the definition of species.

The bacterial species definition is fuzzy almost by...definition, since it relies on sufficiently high levels of dissimilarity between groups of bacterial isolates. Bacteria, alas, do not reproduce sexually. The cited paper discusses the importance of multiple gene comparisons in order to resove species, and is using a problematic genus (Neisseria, which is genetically unstable) to illustrate both the problem and a feasible solution. Again, I agree (and so would any microbiologist) that in this case the species concept is not easily defined.

Hope that helps, or at least is food for thought.

 

[hammegk]

Sorry, I have no interest in addressing your smoke screens. Find someone else's nether end.

Again, I agree (and so would any microbiologist) that in this case the species concept is not easily defined.

Would you care to agree that applies to the concept "species", period? That's actually my point. How can one have the hubris to defend as Fact The Origin of X when X can't even be defined?

Hope that helps, or at least is food for thought.

You think I need help, or food for thought? That's what I'm attempting to provide others who have not yet been completely brainwashed into 100% belief in The Theory.

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

Would you care to agree that applies to the concept "species", period? That's actually my point. How can one have the hubris to defend as Fact The Origin of X when X can't even be defined?

No, it´s not that simple. In sexually reproducing organisms, the species barrier lies between reproductively isolated populations. Simply put, members of different species cannot mate and produce fertile offspring. I would say that in this case, species are rather better defined.

Sorry, I have no interest in addressing your smoke screens. Find someone else's nether end.

Please, be specific...

 

[Schneibster]

Hmm. Even I wasn't quite ready to suggest The Hypothesis of Evolution is the correct name.

It's not appropriate; the Theory of Evolution is distinct from the hypothesis, in that it has survived determined attempts at falsification, and has made predictions and postdictions that were substantiated.

Meanwhile, your response to the statement that a theory is composed of many hypotheses, which are then subject to test and verification or rejection, is to state that that means that the theory itself is a hypothesis. This shows a complete lack of understanding of the meanings of the technical terms, "conjecture," "hypothesis," and "theory." You think "theory" is like something out of a detective novel or police procedural television show, and have no understanding of the actual meaning of the word as used by a qualified scientist. This leads directly to the fairly obvious conclusion that you are completely unqualified to comment on the meaning of the term "theory" if you don't know what it means.

I would like to see specific instances, but suggest running your life on that basis would be idiocy (or would it be insanity).

Please be extremely specific: specific instances of what, precisely? And how precisely would running your life on "that basis" be "idiocy," and on what "basis" do you suggest this says you should "run your life?"

Specifically, what that item says is that a claim that something is "impossible" can be refuted by recounting a plausible series of events in which the "impossible" thing actually happens, whether that series of events can be shown to have happened or not. It is a statement about claims of impossibility and a means of refuting such claims. Not about "running your life." Again, your lack of qualifications (in this case, specifically critical thinking skills) shows itself. Your inability to figure out what they're talking about does not render it meaningless; it merely illustrates your inability to figure out what they're talking about.

Maybe y'all can get together & rewrite those Responses for a little tighter fit to reality.

You mean, in case someone as unqualified as you comes along again? Please explain to me why I should care.

 

[chipmunk stew]

Would you care to agree that applies to the concept "species", period? That's actually my point. How can one have the hubris to defend as Fact The Origin of X when X can't even be defined?

I must be missing something here. I thought you were just arguing that mutation and natural selection can't account for speciation. But it sounds like you're actually arguing either against anything but the broadest "kinds" of organisms (dogs is dogs and cats is cats, period) or against the concept of species altogether (dogs is cats is humans is fish).

 

[stamenflicker]

I must be missing something here. I thought you were just arguing that mutation and natural selection can't account for speciation. But it sounds like you're actually arguing either against anything but the broadest "kinds" of organisms (dogs is dogs and cats is cats, period) or against the concept of species altogether (dogs is cats is humans is fish).

My question is merely does TOE define its evidence, or does the evidence define TOE? The answer is clearly both. When evidence exists that contradicts popular TOE opinion, then TOE can merely move the goalposts to make the evidence fit. As I've said all along, this doesn't disprove TOE. It simply makes it less scientific than say the theory of gravity. In spite of recent evidences of quantum gravity, not much has changed with regard to dropping 1 kilogram balls from the seventh story of your office building. In subject of intermediate forms, this kind of consistency is on its most shiny and fresh out of the box day, open to debate.

I would suggest that if the theory of gravity was to operate the same way as the theory of evolution, there would be no such thing as bungi jumping (much less rocketry or flight) and worse still than that, we'd probably be afraid to step outside of our homes.

Granted, TOE is much more complex. The problem here to me is that 9 out 10 posters want them to "stand" (pun intended) on equal footing. They don't. At least not yet. I'm certainly not suggesting that we stop trying, only looking for a tad bit of intellectual honesty in the narrative, empirically limited void.

Thus far, the only reasonable and intellectually honest answer to anything I've posted has been delphi_ote with regards to allowing the theory to define the evidence:

This happens from time to time.

It does happen. Big deal, I don't really care and brighter minds than me will figure a way to fix it. However, what I've been screaming since pages 1-2 and a half a dozen other threads:

ID theorist have their ideas attacked in ways that are not even remotely similar to other fields of inquiry which are generated outside the dominant purview.

The healthy skeptic is free to doubt anything that lacks observability and testability with regards to complexity. The convinced scientist is free to allow the weight of evidence and faith in future scientific discovery to reach a conclusion regarding complexity.

Given the above statement, personal agenda aside, how is it not "good science" to point out weaknesses of any theory?

Flick

 

[stamenflicker]

My dead link from earlier:

http://www.ulb.ac.be/sciences/ueg/pdf_files/Milinkovitch&Weiler_98.pdf

Flick

 

[delphi_ote]

In any case, just revise the just-so-story to fit the facts.

NOT so. The fossil record remains in the same order. The morphological and habitat similiarities remain. There are still intermediate fossils leading from the common ancestor, but the dinosaur line became extinct rather than generating the bird line. Evidence still remains that these species evolved from a common ancestor.

If these two random scientists published in an unpopular journal are correct (and face it, if this were a brilliant study, a discovery of this magnitude would be in Nature or Science,) they've only shown that these species evolved in parallel instead of in series. They still evolved. From a common ancestor. By natural selection. And the intermediate fossils are mostly still the same ones posited today.

 

[delphi_ote]

Would you care to agree that applies to the concept "species", period? That's actually my point. How can one have the hubris to defend as Fact The Origin of X when X can't even be defined?

You are the one that argues that the "Origin of X exists," not us. "Dogs is dogs" anyone?

Arguing that each species was created in such a way that they are and have always been independent entities relies heavily on the assumption that species are actually independent entities. They're not.

Evolutionary theory admits that species are really just artificial concepts man has created to describe certain vague points on a continuum. We've said this over and over, yet you still try to put your own banal words in our collective mouths. You're quite the clown aren't you?

 

[delphi_ote]

No, it´s not that simple. In sexually reproducing organisms, the species barrier lies between reproductively isolated populations. Simply put, members of different species cannot mate and produce fertile offspring. I would say that in this case, species are rather better defined.

Even that definition has trouble. What about bacteria?

 

[Dragon]

You are the one that argues that the "Origin of X exists," not us. "Dogs is dogs" anyone?

Arguing that each species was created in such a way that they are and have always been independent entities relies heavily on the assumption that species are actually independent entities. They're not.

Evolutionary theory admits that species are really just artificial concepts man has created to describe certain vague points on a continuum. We've said this over and over, yet you still try to put your own banal words in our collective mouths. You're quite the clown aren't you?

Yes, Hammy - this point is absolutely central to what people are trying to tell you. You might profitably Google "ring species" or better still read this piece by Richard Dawkins - Gaps in the Mind

...it is we that choose to divide animals up into discontinuous species. On the evolutionary view of life there must have been intermediates, even though, conveniently for our naming rituals, they are usually extinct: usually, but not always.

 

[Mojo]

In any case, just revise the just-so-story to fit the facts.

Why is the idea of revising a theory if and when new evidence or new ideas come to light anathema to you? Do you really think it would be better if scientists were to ignore anything that doesn't fit their current theory? This is a strength of the scientific approach, not a weakness. But that, I suppose, is something a fundamentalist wouldn't understand.

 

[Taffer]

Even that definition has trouble. What about bacteria?

I think he was speaking of eukaryotes. A further complication, of course, is bacterial conjugation.

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

Even that definition has trouble. What about bacteria?

Agree delphi, that was quite my point! Incidentally, hammegk gave a link to a paper exactly addressing this problem. And as you mention, the point of species definition is somewhat moot, as all hitherto known organisms indeed seem related. And in all cases where genetic comparisons have been possible, all involved organisms seem uhh...related. This rather supports the current theory that living organisms reproduce (whereas machines do not). Come to think of it, and I am going to go out on a limb here just for the fun of it; why do some people just not grasp the significance of reproduction? I would like to add this to the above list of "falsifiability criteria" regarding the TOE:

TOE would be in deep trouble if living organisms did not arise from other living organisms, but rather directly out of inanimate materia.

This hypothesis (spontaneous generation) was addressed by e.g. Pasteur, in the 19th century. Don´t take my word for Pasteur´s answer, fellow skeptics Go check it out! Now, it may not be obvious to the layman (the Average Joe, if you will, and I think some of you do) why all hitherto known living organisms are related to each other (hint to hammegk, the TalkOrigins FAQ explains this extensively in the "comdesc" section). But they are. Morover, they are interrelated in a nested hierarchy (see above FAQ). Furthermore, evidence from comparative molecular genetics corroborate much of the earlier classification based on measurable traits (phenotype, "appearance"). And on and on...but to conclude, this is what we observe:

Living, more or less interrelated organisms, of common descent by a readily observable mechanism of reproduction, which in its "core" (DNA replication - in some virii, RNA replication) is not copy-proof but allows for errors (mutations, recombination crossover) and in addition, non-reproductive genetic transfers (e.g. transformation, transduction, conjugation, retrovirus infections, transposition, site-specific recombination).

The TOE is intended to explain what we observe and predict future findings. About 99.9999999% of the scientists most concerned with, and most familiar with, the TOE - i think they are called biologists - accept it in principle. Any useful scientific discussion should be focused on the explanative/predictive powers of the TOE.

Oh, and you troll(s): I have indeed baited you earlier in this post. Big time. Be forewarned. Ahh, the power of prediction!

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

ID theorist have their ideas attacked in ways that are not even remotely similar to other fields of inquiry which are generated outside the dominant purview.

The healthy skeptic is free to doubt anything that lacks observability and testability with regards to complexity. The convinced scientist is free to allow the weight of evidence and faith in future scientific discovery to reach a conclusion regarding complexity.

Given the above statement, personal agenda aside, how is it not "good science" to point out weaknesses of any theory?

Current ID "theory" consists of the following:

Warmed-over YEC debunked-a-million-times-by-scientific-observation claptrap (see, for the umpteenth time, the TalkOrigins FAQ. There is a reason it is there. Life is, alas, too sho.). Yes Virginia, creationism is bunk.

Paley´s "watchmaker" argument, thinly veiled ("I know design when I see it"). For some reason engineers like to bring this one up. Don´t go there. Watches do. Not. Reproduce. Furthermore, we all agree there is a watchmaker. No actual faith recuired.

Behe´s "irreducible complexity" notion, e.g. concerning the famous mousetrap (thoroughly debunked by sane skeptics proposing a feasible way of evolving an independent mousetrap in small steps beginning with a floorboard, as well as by a clever scientist using the spring of a mousetrap as a tie clip), and the bacterial flagellum (debunked by the principle of cooption in biological systems - again, see above tie clip, and the finding of type III secretion systems and their involvement in flagellar morphogenesis).

WA Dembski´s "complex specified information" and "specified complexity" attempts to i) calculate the (im)probability of biological molecules forming randomly - no sane person would infer they do - I cannot post links here yet but do a google on "The AND-Multiplication Error", and ii) postulate that "if not by chance, then by necessity - design!". Gah. Fancy math, but the premise is fatally flawed and has no bearing on biology. Case in point: cellular protein synthesis is clearly not random. WARNING troll(s): here be troll bait. Interestingly, Dembski often uses the watchmaker argument, only it´s "Mount Rushmore" (as opposed to, say, Old man of the mountain - google and ye shall find). Yawn.

Religious apologetics. Politics. Thus not science by any generous stretch of the definition. See the Wedge Document (google and...you get the picture). Recall the shifting positions on "ID should/shouldn´t be taught alongside evolution in schools", by the Dicovery Institute, the main ID think tank, over the last years. Oh, and the ongoing "Monkey revisited" trial in Dover. This is purely a question of separation of church and state, thus a constitutional matter in the USA (I find it ironic beyond words, that ID is politically significant only in the USA, whereas in my admittedly more...secular home country of communist Switzerland...no, scratch that, SWEDEN , where church and state separated only a few years ago and we even still pay church tax, ID is...not...considered even remotely interesting...).

What current ID...uhh, "theory" does not entail however, is any positive, testable statements concerning i) the Designer (God, some other pagan heathen communist god(s), the FSM (sauce be upon Him) or space aliens) or ii) the design process. No theory whatsoever. Why not?

Hope that helps.

 

[chipmunk stew]

My question is merely does TOE define its evidence, or does the evidence define TOE? The answer is clearly both. When evidence exists that contradicts popular TOE opinion, then TOE can merely move the goalposts to make the evidence fit.

drkitten covered this well on page 3

As I've said all along, this doesn't disprove TOE. It simply makes it less scientific than say the theory of gravity.

No. No no no no no no no. "Less scientific"? The details are more debatable, I'll give you that. But in no way is it "less scientific". In what ways, specifically, does it fall outside the purview of science?

Granted, TOE is much more complex. The problem here to me is that 9 out 10 posters want them to "stand" (pun intended) on equal footing. They don't. At least not yet. I'm certainly not suggesting that we stop trying, only looking for a tad bit of intellectual honesty in the narrative, empirically limited void.

9 out of 10? I'm pretty sure the people most keenly aware of the gaps yet unfilled in TOE are those doing the science. In fact, most of the abused evidence put forth by those with dishonest agendas (e.g. the ID crowd) were actually discovered by people doing the science. Go figure.

Thus far, the only reasonable and intellectually honest answer to anything I've posted has been delphi_ote with regards to allowing the theory to define the evidence

See drkitten's post. Link above.

ID theorist have their ideas attacked in ways that are not even remotely similar to other fields of inquiry which are generated outside the dominant purview.

The healthy skeptic is free to doubt anything that lacks observability and testability with regards to complexity. The convinced scientist is free to allow the weight of evidence and faith in future scientific discovery to reach a conclusion regarding complexity.

Given the above statement, personal agenda aside, how is it not "good science" to point out weaknesses of any theory?

Dr Adequate addressed point 1 nicely.
So, in point 2, you, the "healthy skeptic", are more "open-minded" than the "convinced scientist"?
As for point 3, again, the people doing the science are keenly aware of the weaknesses, such as they are, of TOE, and regularly point them out. Many of the "weaknesses" proposed by you and hammegk are simply wrong.

 

[drkitten]

Where do you now preach that Deinychus, Comsognathus, Caudipteryx, Sinosauropteryx, Sinornithosaurus, and Protoarchaeopteryx, & Archaeopteyrx fit?

Wherever the evidence suggests that they do.

You know, evidence? The stuff that makes one theory credible and another stupid idea not? The stuff that you've never been able to produce to support any coherent alternative idea to the theory of evolution?

Do the textbook publishers & school districts a favor and fight like the dickens to keep it x-dino-bird instead of x-dino & x-bird

The publishers and districts -- and scientists, and I am proud to be in their group -- fight like the dickens to keep evidence-based theories in and non-evidence-based fairy tales out. If you have actual evidence that, for example, there is some biological backing for the idea of kinds or baramin, present it, and I'll write the d**ned textbook myself to make sure it gets into the schools. If you don't have any evidence, I'll help write the textbook that keeps it out.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

This is purely a question of separation of church and state, thus a constitutional matter in the USA (I find it ironic beyond words, that ID is politically significant only in the USA, whereas in my admittedly more...secular home country of communist Switzerland...no, scratch that, SWEDEN , where church and state separated only a few years ago and we even still pay church tax, ID is...not...considered even remotely interesting...).

Oh you smug little person, you. Just wait a few years. The USA exports all its culture to other countries.

~~ Paul

 

[Pastor Bentonit]

Oh you smug little person, you. Just wait a few years. The USA exports all its culture to other countries.

~~ Paul

All your culture are belong to us.