Skeptic Ginger
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Is that why you never answered this from my first post in the thread?
Fossil and Evolution
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Is that why you never answered this from my first post in the thread?
Mojo
Mostly harmless
I just thought I'd ask this again, because it is an important question if the discussion is to be continued, and you've been back without answering it:
What materials have you already consulted?
mijopaalmc
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No, actually, the discussion progressed so quickly that, by the time I read your post, an answer seemed no longer topical.
But to answer your question: yes, that is my ad on the tutoring site.
You know anyone needing help?
[friendly sarcasm]I know that I've demonstrated that I am the kind of person anyone here would want tutoring science[/friendly sarcasm]
mijopaalmc
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I've skimmed some of the material on TalkOrigins on transitional vertebrate fossils, and read most of a piece on the problematics of defining macroevolution and microevolution (which I know doesn't refute evolution) and some of the "Index to Creationist Claims", including the ones on the fossil record.
delphi_ote
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They're always coming up with new variations on their tired themes in search of some way to shoehorn their lies into the classroom. For a very brief time, it seemed that they were trying to shift the movement to "teach the controversy," but I think that idea got exposed too fast.
I usually keep up to date on the nonsense of the day by reading Panda's Thumb.
articulett
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Oh...it's one of the old worn out ones. I'd heard about the "gaps" in the fossil record claims--and the worn out eye argument (ad nauseum) and the argument that science is a faith too...I've heard that we have "faith" that the sun comes up too many times to count...and on the materialism side, I've heard the turing machine argument, chinese room argument, is my color perception the same as yours argument, etc. But I think this is the first time I've heard the candle one.
And it's always presented as though the person just came up with the argument themselves, isn't it? Another one I've heard a lot attributes the Nazi crimes to "darwinism"--and to conclude the Nazis were atheists (they weren't...they killed atheists).
They must all get their misinformation from the same sources. Oh, and here is one I'm sure we've all heard--"all gods are the same god"-- I point out that he must have been going by the name Allah on September 11, 2001--since recordings show that he was being besieged with prayers from multiple sources.
Oh...and what about this one..."science doesn't know everything"--
Of course it doesn't, but when has a guru or prophet or divine source actually known anything useful? At least science has pretty good means of finding things out while taking into account the known ways humans tend to fool themselves.
But now I'm alerted to the candle argument. I shall know in advance the mindset of the person using it. My field is genetics, and I've heard the "how can you add to the gene argument" so many times that I feel disgust every time I hear it. I know it won't be a fruitful conversation. Kids don't ask that one, though--
As someone already mentioned--the panda's thumb stays abreast of the ID movement--as does Berkeley University and NCSE (talk origins). Pharyngula is great too.
JoeTheJuggler
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This is straying from the OP (which I agree isn't a particularly fertile field for interesting discussion), but my earlier mention of polyploidy got me to thinking about different ways variation can happen. One of the requirements for evolution by natural selection is variation, but that variation need not be only from point mutations.
I've always been fascinated by genes swapping around via viruses and so on. Is there much known on that subject these days?
Also, at any moment my body is host to a bajillion (one bajillion is equal to 5000 scads, BTW) organisms, is there gene flow among all of us? (Actually, I'd have to assume there is, since even mitochondria became part of cells from some sort of symbiotic relationship with a bacterium, right? Of course, this is waaay back in our family tree.)
What other means of variation are there? (Oh yeah--sex, for one.)
mijopaalmc
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Some of the posts that have been made in the last two days have been of great help to me. I would like to take the time to thank those of you who have posted in that time.
After considering JoeTheJuggler's post on polyploidy (sorry of the overly quick correction) and Dr. Adequate's post on the forams (loved the pun, by the way), it is clear to me that I do not understand rapidity with which some evolutionary changes can take place (yeah, yeah, I know....punctuated equilibrium). I think the previously mentioned lack of understanding can be subsumed under the general lack on "temporal evolutionary intuition" that I discussed with my analogy to boiling water, which I'm surprised no-one has addressed, given the propensity seem to have for bad analogies. Nonetheless, if speciation can occur in one generation (as with polyploidy) and higher order taxa with an astounding amount of radiation of constituent lower order taxa can arise in 500,000 years, I clearly need to rethink my notion of "discontinuity".
Thank you for setting me on a productive and informative track.
After considering JoeTheJuggler's post on polyploidy (sorry of the overly quick correction) and Dr. Adequate's post on the forams (loved the pun, by the way), it is clear to me that I do not understand rapidity with which some evolutionary changes can take place (yeah, yeah, I know....punctuated equilibrium). I think the previously mentioned lack of understanding can be subsumed under the general lack on "temporal evolutionary intuition" that I discussed with my analogy to boiling water, which I'm surprised no-one has addressed, given the propensity seem to have for bad analogies. Nonetheless, if speciation can occur in one generation (as with polyploidy) and higher order taxa with an astounding amount of radiation of constituent lower order taxa can arise in 500,000 years, I clearly need to rethink my notion of "discontinuity".
Thank you for setting me on a productive and informative track.
money
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About Articulett:
Fair enough.
Also, evidence?
Yeah, but let's be honest. We listen because she's right and because she's sexy.
Fair enough.
Also, evidence?
Ichneumonwasp
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About Articulett:
Also, evidence?
While I posted at Sceptic Community under a different name she told me.
I believe her.
Case Closed.
Skeptic Ginger
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There are at least 3 ways microorganisms incorporate new genetic material. (I believe there is a 4th way but I don't want to look for additional citations.).
Viruses can insert genetic material permanently into human cells. If it happens in sperm, ova or embryonic cells, it can become part of the genome. It has been hypothesized some of our genetic material has been gained this way. Specific genes have been found which are suggested by researchers to have such origins.
The other thing t consider is single point mutations can turn genes on or off completely.
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The Discovery Institute has a new darling, a professor of neurosurgery who cannot tell his butt from his elbow:
Dr. Egnor's deviously clever plan to destroy Darwinism once and for all
http://scienceblogs.com/insolence/2007/04/dr_egnors_deviously_clever_plan_to_destr.php
Egnor Does Math
http://scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/2007/04/egnor_does_math.phphttp://www.scienceblogs.com/evolutionblog/
However, he isn't doing anything novel.
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Skeptic Ginger
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Try the track of genetic science. Again, the key isn't the description offered by punctuated equilibrium, it is the evidence of the mechanisms revealed by genetic science....
Thank you for setting me on a productive and informative track.
Genes have separate and robust functions. Meaning one change gets you 6 fingers but the genes that make all the finger structures are unaffected by the gene that directs the embryo to grow 5 or 6. Also there is a gene which tells the embryo where to put those fingers. Mess with it in a fruit fly and you can get an antennae where a leg goes.
It also turns out an antennae is simply a mutated leg. That's where the robustness comes in. Minimal changes in DNA don't necessarily give you those defective results the word mutation implies. Six fingers is certainly functional. And an antennae was obviously a good mutation for an insect that already had enough legs.
Also, we have 2 copies of each gene except males have only one copy of each gene on the x and y chromosomes. By having 2 copies, we can tolerate a lot more genetic variation. And variation means genetic changes can accumulate and be there waiting when called on.
Anyway, the point is, the answers to your questions are there. The amount of stuff we know about genetic mechanisms now as opposed to a decade ago is just phenomenal.
Skeptic Ginger
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Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
It was an aside, please don't take it personaly, i apologise, you are more rational than the other 'aa' poster I was reffering to. Sorry.
Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
No problemo! I quite understand, I am not credentialed as you are but have participated in many of these threads and I do note that there does not seem to be a discussion at times in this thread.
I have been down that road as well.
you are one of my favorite posters.Dancing David
Penultimate Amazing
The issues with people trying to 'debunk' evolution currently seems to be:
I think that the next round will involve finding people who have degrees in evolutionary biology and having them say they don't believe in evolution.
to label its a evolution rather than natural selection
to label it as darwinism as though that is different from natural selection and argue that Darwin has been criticized
to then ignore the discussion for the last fifty years and fight the theory based upon flaws in darwin's argument
I think that the next round will involve finding people who have degrees in evolutionary biology and having them say they don't believe in evolution.
VonNeumann
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Thanks for the correction of my use of a priori. I meant prima facie; I meant "obvious". Just a corrupt address bit in my lexicon vector, but I've fixed that.
We agree that human minds write stuff. You diverge when you bring up some minds do not write stuff. Note I did not say ALL minds, just "minds". The word "mind" brings about a concept that is necessary but not sufficient - that's what I'm saying.
Then again, I noted I cannot define "mind". When I said I know mind exists from the inside, I was speaking of my own mind. I presume other human minds are similar. So this is pretty trivial and I don't expect an argument on this point. I spring off of this by saying that "the only creative power I know of, have evidence of, and can identify the general source, emanates from the human mind."
Someone else (maybe most people here), have no trouble with adding that they believe another creative power exists that they have evidence of. That other creative power is a mechanism of random-mutation/natural-selection (RM/NS). Please understand that I think it would be super-cool if RM/NS had this power. I've believed it much of my life but now I dissent. It is too damn simple. (argument from incredulity - there: I beat you to it
). But my incredulity lies in having played with the arithmetic enough know that the required "credulity" that I lack must come from wishful thinking. So call it an argument from lack-of-wishful-thinking. Now. Since I am skeptical that RM/NS is sufficient to explain a mechanism that has creative power (I believe RM/NS has a very limited ability to readjust parametrics that are already present in the genome in order to adapt organisms), I try to come up with some idea of what might be missing.
How does the human mind create. I don't know, but whatever it does and how ever it does it, that is where, I believe, we need to look. I don't expect the answer is going to drop in to SciAm's June issue.
I've long made my "incredulous" comments about creation of new information by RM/NS and have long been dismissed as a bible-thumper for saying it. What's so intolerable with my dissent? Isn't this a "skeptic's" forum? Skeptic? Can't I be a skeptic here? The attacks I receive are from those who consider themselves the true skeptics. I see them as heavily saturated in dogma so thick they can't think for themselves anymore. ...or at least, they will not reveal their own diminuative doubts for fear of condemnation for thinking outside the dogmatic box.
So, to me: minds create. Therefore, RM/NS, a hugely complex network far beyond a single human neural network in complexity, must have properties of "mind". Why can't it? Aren't most organisms more complex than a single human neuron? ...or at least of the same order of complexity? In the competitive landscape, aren't the interconnections more complex than all the synaptic connections of the human brain? Funny that this super complex mechanism of RM/NS, many of orders of magnitude more complex than the human brain, evolved (created) the human brain, yet the complex RM/NS itself lacks the ability to be self-aware.
It is like a widget factory, as complex as it is with all the human design engineers, production engineers, workers, accounting, administration ... and the widget they produce has a property that exceeds that of the whole factory. How can RM/NS produce a self-aware machine after billions of years of "work", a self-aware machine that has only been around for a fraction of the existence of RM/NS, yet RM/NS has not yet, itself, achieved self-awareness. The self-aware machine, the human, possesses "will" and "intent" and yet RM/NS lacks these properties.
Addressing generally, any and all: Is any of this stuff interesting to you, or do you dismiss it easily? Do you never dissent? Isn't science tentative by definition? Shouldn't you be thinking about these things?
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aggle-rithm
Ardent Formulist
For a moment I thought that said "dwarfism". Too bad it didn't. That would have been a truly interesting theory.
Ichneumonwasp
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Someone else (maybe most people here), have no trouble with adding that they believe another creative power exists that they have evidence of. That other creative power is a mechanism of random-mutation/natural-selection (RM/NS). Please understand that I think it would be super-cool if RM/NS had this power. I've believed it much of my life but now I dissent. It is too damn simple. (argument from incredulity - there: I beat you to it
I would be interested to know how you could play with the mathematical probablities when i don't think we know all the mechanisms by which genetic change occur. Any mathematical modelling seems, at least to me, premature and a bit presumptuous, as though we know more than we really do. We are still children playing on the shore with this stuff.
That's fine, but I don't think a human-like mind is necessary for creative potential. The very obvious counter regarding the creation of new information is gene duplication with mutation. That process leaves the native gene product in place, but creates a new gene product with new potentials with no loss of function and a clear gain of function (new information).
What we call higher organisms also have an ingenious system for alternative gene splicing so that a single gene, through other regulatory mechanisms, can produce numerous gene products (proteins).
We have also recently learned that supposedly silent mutations (mutations in which the nucleotide change results in a slightly different codon, but one that codes for the same amino acid) can actually produce slightly different proteins -- not different in terms of the amino acid content, but different in terms of protein folding. The change depends on the speed with which the protein folds -- the way I envision it is that the less common transfer RNA needs more time to be recruited by its local ribosome for incorporation into the nascent peptide strand. That extra time can result in more folding of the peptide such that the protein has a slightly different function -- which could be either a loss or gain of function.
So, the emerging picture includes an incredibly complex system with gene duplications with modification that create new proteins (new information), alternative splicing (which creates new information), and alternative folding of proteins (which can create new information). And the way that proteins interact is incredibly complex and very poorly understood to date, at least for most systems. A single protein in the milieu of one set of information can act in ways very different from what it will do in another slightly different environment -- also new information with the same players, but in different contexts. So bone morphogenic protein very early in fetal development can stymie the development of neural tissue, but later it is critical for ventral (or dorsal, I can't remember which is BMP and which is sonic hedgehog) neurvous system development.
I can understand the "argument from incredulity" but I think it largely rests on a lack of information. None of that means that you are a bible-thumper. Whether you are or not is beside the point. Ultimately, for this issue, what we need is more information. It is very clear to me that we cannot simply say that information cannot be created by natural processes. We have far too many examples of new information creation to deny it.
Of course you can be a skeptic here and you are welcome to ask any question you would like. Part of the tit for tat is that someone may be able to answer and someone may not be able to do so. I have been extraordinarily impressed by the level of knowledge and accumen of the folks in this place. This is a very good place to be skeptical and to ask questions. If someone is able to answer your questions, though, you must then make a decision about how you want to deal with the information. But you are an adult and you get to make that call.
Well, we part company there. Minds can create, but it does not follow that creation, especially of new information, is restricted to minds.
Well, it could, but it isn't necessary for us to postulate a "mind" behind natural selection, so I don't. There are natural processes that can account for it that I have no reason to associate with mind. If you wish to see it as being directed by a mind, then that is fine. I doubt you could convince many others of that fact, though, especially if they wish to be parsimonious in their explanations.
Yes.
Depends on the ecological niche. For some, yes, for others, most definitely no. But I think the analogy fails for this reason......it isn't simply complexity that is important for cognition. We require a certain architecture with neurons linked in very precise ways for us to be able to think. It isn't necessarily the numbers of neurons, the numbers of synapses, the amount f neurotransmitters available, etc, but the ways that all of this is linked together in chains that determines human thinking and creative ability. Kids with hemimegancephaly have far too many neurons in one hemisphere, but all that hemisphere can normally do is produce seizures. Complexity is important, but it can never be the complete story.
I don't particularly think it is strange simply because complexity is only one part of the puzzle. Is it somehow possile that the universe, in its complexity, is self-aware? I cannot rule out that possibility. In a way, it is, without question -- because we are self-aware and we are a part of the universe. But could there be a mechanism by which the universe, independent of us, could be self-aware? Possible. I think, unlikely, though because it would require a particular structure and I don't see a reason why it would have that structure. There is certainly no reason why the universe as a potential cognitive entity would have a limbic system. A cognitive entity without a limbic system would more closely resemble a CPU than a human.
Because the underlying structure of the nervous system of that self-aware machine allows it to survive and pass on its genes. I know that is not a satisfactory answer for you and essentially amounts to "well, because", but that seems to be the way that the world works.
Sure, I think it is very interesting. Sure, I dissent. Yes, science is tentative by definition. Yes, we should all be thinking about these things.
About a self-aware universe, again, I would like for that to be the case, but my desires don't enter the picture as to how the universe actually is. I think the universe is much stranger than any of us realize, so I will never dismiss this possibility out of hand. My guess would be that if there is a greater consciousness that encompasses or is or involves the universe as a whole, then it is very different from human consciousness and we would probably not be able to understand it at all.