Annoying creationists

[dv82matt]

"Yet is unquestioned by experts?" I am tempted to say their own theories - there are a great many DrKittens in science. However, to be more serious, I would say most of the subject matter of evolutionary psychology, (excepting my own work on sexuality and humour) most of social evolution (including all of memetics), most ideas about the origins of sense organs and nervous systems and all theories about the origin of life - apart my own work.

I was thinking in terms of biological evolution. I agree that evolutionary psychology and the rest are less robust. Regarding the origins of sense organs and nervous systems my understanding is that, although they may be quite detailed, these explanations are generally proofs of concept rather than precise descriptions. As to abiogenisis I don't know of any theory that has gained widespead acceptance.

Really, the only evolutionary fields in which I find the reasoning and supportive data compelling are those that concern the relatedness between species. There you have serious evidence from the correlations between sequence data, Linnaean classification, geology and biological functions. One could not deny the quality of those results but so much of the rest is handwaving and it can never be more than handwaving because evolutionary theory gives no guide - predictively, it is a very weak theory.

It seems to me that there's room for some parts of evolutionary theory to be less compelling than other parts without becoming mere handwaving.

The reasons for the weaknesses, as I said, I consider to be the erroneous construction that is placed on evolutionary theory itself. Evolutionary theory should be based on data, not genes, and should recognise all data pools, not just the data in DNA sequence. Construct it properly and I believe evolutionary theory would do better.

I take it that you mean that the gene should not be considered as the fundamental unit of selection, at least not to the exclusion of other factors. What factors do you think are being overlooked?

 

[hammegk]

There doesn't seem to be a lack of evidence for evolution just a lack in putting it all together.

We sure agree on that.

And my problem with the modern theory is not it as such; rather it is the misuse by it's strongest proponents to pretend Science (and evolution) provide evidence for or against the existence of god.

I'd find more charm in physicists who proclaimed "We now have the Standard Model; therefore God is Dead.".

 

[Foster Zygote]

My problem with the modern theory is not it as such; rather it is the misuse by it's strongest proponents to pretend Science (and evolution) provide evidence for or against the existence of god.

Which scientists do that? Science can only tell us about the physical universe. If a religious claim contradicts scientific knowledge then all scientists can say is that the claim contradicts what we know of reality. The claim that the universe is about 6000 years old is contradicted by science. Scientists can say that the claim that God made the universe 6000 years ago is contradicted by observable facts. No good scientist would then add "Therefor, God does not exist".

 

[hammegk]

The 6000 year comment is your strawman, not mine. And as many have pointed out, even that stance cannot be 'absolutely' ruled out; the Tricky God scenario is bulletproof albeit unappetizing to most.

And some Scientists go out of their way to proclaim God is Dead. See Dawkins for the latest example, and read others here who at least proclaim themselves to be scientists/100% atheists.

 

[John Hewitt]

I was thinking in terms of biological evolution. I agree that evolutionary psychology and the rest are less robust. Regarding the origins of sense organs and nervous systems my understanding is that, although they may be quite detailed, these explanations are generally proofs of concept rather than precise descriptions.

I am not sure what you mean by proof of concept.

As to abiogenisis I don't know of any theory that has gained widespead acceptance.

Indeed not but my point is that none of the theories being advanced are evolutionary, or even sensible. Genes are plainly products of evolution and one cannot have an evolutionary theory for the origin of life without dispensing with genes as a foundation for evolution.

It seems to me that there's room for some parts of evolutionary theory to be less compelling than other parts without becoming mere handwaving.

I take it that you mean that the gene should not be considered as the fundamental unit of selection, at least not to the exclusion of other factors. What factors do you think are being overlooked?

As I said before, evolutionary theory should be based on data not genes. Genes should not be considered as the fundamental unit of selection but as formatting some of the data in DNA. If data is recognised as the fundamental basis for evolution then one must also recognise other forms of data as legitimate inputs into evolutionary selection. These would include the prebiotic data, sensory data and social data that encode those levels of knowledge.

 

[John Hewitt]

As you said, the origin of species does rely on multiple data pools. What data pools are the evo psych, memetics, sensory systems, nervous system, and origins scientists overlooking? Are the evo devo folks overlooking any data pools?

I think understanding evolution requires a recognition that multiple data pools were involved. The "modern sythesis" is built around Fisher's analysis of population genetics, which only considers evolution based on genes. All other data pools are left unanalysed.

Let's take the origins scientists as an example. Clearly they are looking at fossils, at clues in genomes (DNA, RNA, and proteins), at chemistry, at crystals, at early environments, at existing extreme environments, and at extraterrestrial possibilities. What are they overlooking?

The laws of physics and chemistry and the principles of information technology. In other words, what is needed is a rational analysis, not random guesses.

Wait a minute, now you appear to be saying they have no hope anyway.

~~ Paul

No, you generate rational theories by analysing the problem.

 

[Foster Zygote]

The 6000 year comment is your strawman, not mine.

Yes, I'm familiar with your strawmen. I was simply pointing out an example of what science does and does not do.

And as many have pointed out, even that stance cannot be 'absolutely' ruled out; the Tricky God scenario is bulletproof albeit unappetizing to most.

You seem to be implying that all scenarios are equally likely. The Tricky God scenario is just as "bulletproof" as any other untestable claim about the supernatural. Science doesn't claim to give the only possible answer, only the answer that is most likely based on the available evidence. Just because I can't disprove the existence of an utterly immeasurable being that can only be shown to exist in the minds of humans is not a good reason to assume that the being's existence or non-existence are equally probable. And anyway, Tricky is a great guy but I'd hardly call him a "god".

And some Scientists go out of their way to proclaim God is Dead. See Dawkins for the latest example,...

Well, Dawkins has stated openly that it would be unreasonable to claim absolute certainty that no gods exist. His claim is simply that the existence of gods is extremal unlikely.

...and read others here who at least proclaim themselves to be scientists/100% atheists.

OK, so you can point to a few people who claim to be 100% certain of the unknowable. I don't intend this to sound aggressive, but you seem to be making generalizations about atheists, scientists etc. based on a few characteristics that can only be found in a handful of people.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

If data is recognised as the fundamental basis for evolution then one must also recognise other forms of data as legitimate inputs into evolutionary selection. These would include the prebiotic data, sensory data and social data that encode those levels of knowledge.

I'm not sure what you mean by "prebiotic data," but scientists studying abiogenesis are certainly considering the prebiotic state of the Earth.

What do you mean by "sensory data"?

I'm not sure what you mean by "social data," but scientists are certainly considering the effects of social organization on evolution, and the effects of evolution on social organization. Here's an interesting article:

http://adb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/223

All other data pools are left unanalysed.

So you said. What are the data pools that evo psych, memetics, sensory systems, nervous system, abiogenesis, and evo devo are overlooking?

Are you sure you're not just painting a charicature of evolutionary biology using the scare term "modern synthesis"?

~~ Paul

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

If data is recognised as the fundamental basis for evolution then one must also recognise other forms of data as legitimate inputs into evolutionary selection. These would include the prebiotic data, sensory data and social data that encode those levels of knowledge.

Perhaps I didn't understand what you meant by these pools of data. Regarding social data, do you mean the data that is embodied in the social habits that are passed from parent to child, not encoded in the genome? If so, I certainly agree that this is important data, but so do scientists. Witness interest in the Baldwin effect, for example. And investigation of social learning in monkeys.

~~ Paul

 

[hammegk]

You seem to be implying that all scenarios are equally likely.

Not as such; just a question of degree.

The Tricky God scenario is just as "bulletproof" as any other untestable claim about the supernatural.

Except there would be nothing supernatural about it if it were fact.

Science doesn't claim to give the only possible answer, only the answer that is most likely based on the available evidence.

Now if scientists would just do the same ...

Just because I can't disprove the existence of an utterly immeasurable being that can only be shown to exist in the minds of humans is not a good reason to assume that the being's existence or non-existence are equally probable.

Who does?

And anyway, Tricky is a great guy but I'd hardly call him a "god".

Aww, isn't that special, but no I don't think the Tricky who posts here fits the bill.

Well, Dawkins has stated openly that it would be unreasonable to claim absolute certainty that no gods exist. His claim is simply that the existence of gods is extremal unlikely.

The problem for Dawkins, and anyone else who buys that pap, is that it's a worldview that cannot be defended logically by wannabe materialists.

OK, so you can point to a few people who claim to be 100% certain of the unknowable.

Exactly one I'm sure of. He does the rest of you mealy-mouths proud by taking a stand.

I don't intend this to sound aggressive, but you seem to be making generalizations about atheists, scientists etc. based on a few characteristics that can only be found in a handful of people.

Yeah, I generalize that most self-described atheists/scientists/materialists accept an illogical worldview that is none of those positions and whine when they get called on it.

 

[joobz]

Not as such; just a question of degree.


The problem for Dawkins, and anyone else who buys that pap, is that it's a worldview that cannot be defended logically by wannabe materialists.

Exactly one I'm sure of. He does the rest of you mealy-mouths proud by taking a stand.

Yeah, I generalize that most self-described atheists/scientists/materialists accept an illogical worldview that is none of those positions and whine when they get called on it.

Why would an uncertainty in a god be viewed as illogical world view when uncertainty in the evolutionary theory isn't?

 

[joobz]

As I said before, evolutionary theory should be based on data not genes. Genes should not be considered as the fundamental unit of selection but as formatting some of the data in DNA. If data is recognised as the fundamental basis for evolution then one must also recognise other forms of data as legitimate inputs into evolutionary selection. These would include the prebiotic data, sensory data and social data that encode those levels of knowledge.

I curious to know what "data" you are talking about here. It seems odd to use a more nebulous/indisctinct term without providing reasons to do so. How does this changing of word usage better fit the observations we have?

 

[dv82matt]

I am not sure what you mean by proof of concept.

Proof that a concept, eye evolution for example, is feasible rather than a precise description of how the eye actually evolved.

Indeed not but my point is that none of the theories being advanced are evolutionary, or even sensible.

Oh, well that's a seperate issue from what we were discussing. At least I don't see the relevance.

Genes are plainly products of evolution and one cannot have an evolutionary theory for the origin of life without dispensing with genes as a foundation for evolution.

I don't see that the second part must follow from the first part.

As I said before, evolutionary theory should be based on data not genes. Genes should not be considered as the fundamental unit of selection but as formatting some of the data in DNA. If data is recognised as the fundamental basis for evolution then one must also recognise other forms of data as legitimate inputs into evolutionary selection.

Hmmm... I don't know. It seems like a distinction without a difference. Why not simply propose that genes are not the sole unit of selection?

These would include the prebiotic data, sensory data and social data that encode those levels of knowledge.

Leaving open the question of whether prebiotic data would be relevant, it seems to me that we would need to have a pretty good understanding of abiogenesis before we could identify it.

I'm not sure what is to be gained by including sensory data. The senses are determined by the genes so a selection mechanism that has genes as its fundamental unit automatically considers sensory data.

Social data could very well be relevant in species that are able to pass on learned behaviours. The brain would be encoding data independent of the genes. It doesn't strike me as a very robust data set however. I think that theories that utilize this data set, such as social evolution, will tend to be more conjectural. And there is also the problem of collecting social data. In most cases it's only feasible with living species.

 

[John Hewitt]

I'm not sure what you mean by "prebiotic data," but scientists studying abiogenesis are certainly considering the prebiotic state of the Earth.

What do you mean by "sensory data"?

I'm not sure what you mean by "social data," but scientists are certainly considering the effects of social organization on evolution, and the effects of evolution on social organization. Here's an interesting article:

http://adb.sagepub.com/cgi/content/abstract/14/3/223


So you said. What are the data pools that evo psych, memetics, sensory systems, nervous system, abiogenesis, and evo devo are overlooking?

Are you sure you're not just painting a charicature of evolutionary biology using the scare term "modern synthesis"?

~~ Paul

I am not into developmental biology, so I shall not comment upon it.

There was, I presume, an evolutionary process that led to the apparatus of an evolved molecular genetics that uses nucleotide bases etc. I take the data used in that prebiotic evolution to be prebiotic data and I take that evolutionary process to have been rank0 evolution. Rank1 evolution is DNA based evolution. Sensory data is data acquired through the sense organs and I take the evolution associated with it, which occurs in the brain, to be rank2 evolution.

I take social data to be the data that codes for communally inherited knowledge, such as language and shared skills. That leads to rank3 evolution.

Edelman does give an analysis of neural Darwinism for rank2 but it does not generalize to other ranks. I am not aware of any evolutionary analysis of these other levels of evolution. Workers don't overlook those topics, they just don't analyse them. My work aims for general anaysis of evolution applicable to all those levels and also to rank4. Prebiotic theories are mostly random hypotheses and discussions of social evolution tend to be empty verbiage - memetics being a case in point.

Until very recently, most biologists entirely dismissed multilevel selection theories and insisted on reducing every analysis to the "fundamental genes." Since genes cannot possibly be fundamental to any evolution but rank1, that is not sensible. So far as I know, I am the only person who has yet identified data as the foundation of all evolution and as the basis from which you can generalise evolutionary theory.

 

[John Hewitt]

I curious to know what "data" you are talking about here. It seems odd to use a more nebulous/indisctinct term without providing reasons to do so. How does this changing of word usage better fit the observations we have?

The word "data" is well defined. It arises from statistical mechanics - for example Shannon. (As an aside, Shannon used the word "information" but this is now incorrect in modern usage; his definition would now be of the word "data," whicle information is "interpreted data."

Genes, on the other hand, are not well defined at all. The fundamental theory of evolution comes from Fisher, whose work was inspired by statistical mechanics. Fisher tried to apply the statistics of genes and selection to organisms in much the same statistical way that Boltzmann applied atomic physics to the macroscopic properties of materials. However, the atom was well defined but the gene wasn't - Fisher's genes were independent atoms of evolution. Molecular biology shows that genes are not independent and are not atoms. It also shows that population genetics is just an approximation. I do argue that the more non-genetic data is being inherited, the less accurate population genetic analyses will become.

Sagan estimated that humans inherit about 1000 times more social data than biological data. He did not say where that estimate came from, but I think you get the point. To me, population genetics looks like a very dubious tool to apply to our understanding of human evolution.

 

[John Hewitt]

Oh, well that's a seperate issue from what we were discussing. At least I don't see the relevance.
I don't see that the second part must follow from the first part.
Hmmm... I don't know. It seems like a distinction without a difference. Why not simply propose that genes are not the sole unit of selection?

Well, there are two theories for the origin of life, ID and evolution. So, find an evolutionary theory that comes from chemistry and physics or consider ID. My work proposes an evolutionary mechanism that comes from chemistry and physics. In addition, either
1. genes arose by an evolutionary process from non-genes, or
2. genes arose by chance or
3. genes were created by design.

My work suggests that genes arose by an evolutionary process from non-genes. On that basis, an evolutionary process must exist that does not take genes as an input.

Because I prefer not to use the word "unit" without defining it. A unit of evolution is a self-bounding data set.

Leaving open the question of whether prebiotic data would be relevant, it seems to me that we would need to have a pretty good understanding of abiogenesis before we could identify it.

The first step is to identify the prebiotic data source and then apply what we already know about chemistry.

I'm not sure what is to be gained by including sensory data. The senses are determined by the genes so a selection mechanism that has genes as its fundamental unit automatically considers sensory data.

Social data could very well be relevant in species that are able to pass on learned behaviours. The brain would be encoding data independent of the genes. It doesn't strike me as a very robust data set however. I think that theories that utilize this data set, such as social evolution, will tend to be more conjectural. And there is also the problem of collecting social data. In most cases it's only feasible with living species.

The data acquired by the senses is not determined by the sense organs. One cannot ignore sensory data while including social data. Social data is spread using sense organs.
However, I am not concerned with analysing social data itself, only with attempting to understand the biological consequences of its existence.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

Sensory data is data acquired through the sense organs and I take the evolution associated with it, which occurs in the brain, to be rank2 evolution.

Huh? I have no idea what you're talking about here. Are you treating how I learn over my lifetime as some sort of single-organism evolutionary process?

Until very recently, most biologists entirely dismissed multilevel selection theories and insisted on reducing every analysis to the "fundamental genes." Since genes cannot possibly be fundamental to any evolution but rank1, that is not sensible. So far as I know, I am the only person who has yet identified data as the foundation of all evolution and as the basis from which you can generalise evolutionary theory.

I think you are making a sweeping statement here that is not entirely accurate. Scientists are considering data from all your levels. However, if you can come up with a general mathematical model that covers all these levels, one that is not simply window dressing on existing theories, that would be pretty cool.

~~ Paul

 

[dv82matt]

Well, there are two theories for the origin of life, ID and evolution. So, find an evolutionary theory that comes from chemistry and physics or consider ID. My work proposes an evolutionary mechanism that comes from chemistry and physics. In addition, either
1. genes arose by an evolutionary process from non-genes, or
2. genes arose by chance or
3. genes were created by design.

My work suggests that genes arose by an evolutionary process from non-genes. On that basis, an evolutionary process must exist that does not take genes as an input.

Indeed. This may be a naive question but how do you know that rank0 evolution has data as its fundamental unit?

Because I prefer not to use the word "unit" without defining it. A unit of evolution is a self-bounding data set.

I'm not sure what you're getting at here but from your post to Paul I got the impression that it was to facilitate the unification of the seperate 'ranks' of evolution into a single overarching theory.

The first step is to identify the prebiotic data source and then apply what we already know about chemistry.

Of course. The problem is in identifying a prebiotic data source.

The data acquired by the senses is not determined by the sense organs.

And the foods available to be eaten are not determined by the digestive system. What is the process for inheriting sensory data?

One cannot ignore sensory data while including social data. Social data is spread using sense organs.

It is also spread using speech organs. Does speech now require its own evolutionary rank?

However, I am not concerned with analysing social data itself, only with attempting to understand the biological consequences of its existence.

Wouldn't the biological consequences of social data depend on the specifics of that data?

One last question, what is rank4 evolution?

 

[hammegk]

Why would an uncertainty in a god be viewed as illogical world view when uncertainty in the evolutionary theory isn't?

God (not science) vs ev theory (science) comparisons start with a category error.

Uncertainty in a god is not apriori illogical; it's only illogical for a materialist who should be 100% certain god cannot exist. Dualism -- the stance materialism reaches iff the existence of god is only uncertain -- is itself apriori illogical.

Or, iff you can answer my question to Darat, you can place dualism on a logical footing.

 

[Paul C. Anagnostopoulos]

God (not science) vs ev theory (science) comparisons start with a category error.

By whose fiat is god not science? Is this the damn category error you keep mentioning?

Uncertainty in a god is not apriori illogical; it's only illogical for a materialist who should be 100% certain god cannot exist.

And if you say to a materialist "assume god is not material" then I'm sure he would agree that god cannot exist. Unless, of course, he is only taking materialism as a reasonable assumption, pending some evidence that distinguishes materialism from idealism.

Dualism -- the stance materialism reaches iff the existence of god is only uncertain -- is itself apriori illogical.

Again, this statement is based on your dogmatic pseudo-definition of god.

~~ Paul