Niles Eldredge and Punctuated Equilibria (Page 13) AchillesSinatra: @ Blackshoes Sorry, I mistook you for a religious wacko and a complete dunce. (Edited by AchillesSinatra) AchillesSinatra: Perhaps through a desire to present the appearance of a united front (where none exists) to marauding atheist hordes, or perhaps through sheer ignorance, the more ecumenical religious types are often heard to say things like the following: "All religions, at bottom, really say the same thing. It's all about peace and love, man. Any differences between us are merely superficial -- and if you knew more about religion you'd see this. Duh!" Well, folks, all it takes to disabuse one of this fairy-tale is, for example, a quick scan through the Wireclub religion forum. What we ACTUALLY see is a clusterfuck of fanatics at each other's throats over whose god is the biggest, frantically condemning each other to eternal torment. A not dissimilar phenomenon exists when it comes to the topic of evolution. Perhaps through a desire to present the appearance of a united front (where none exists) to marauding Creationist hordes, or perhaps through sheer ignorance, the more ecumenical evolutionary types are often heard to say things like the following: "There is one, and only one, theory of evolution. Minor differences exist between us, of course, but these differences are merely superficial. Consensus obtains on the fundamentals; all we're really doing now is mopping up the minutiae -- and if you knew more about evolution you'd see this. Duh!". And similarly, all it takes to disabuse one of this fairy-tale is to actually do a little reading between the various schools (of which "cladistics" is but one among many) of evolutionary thought. What, for instance, could be more fundamental to evolutionary theory than natural selection? "For example, some supporters of the modern synthesis wrote off studies of evolutionary relatedness as mere stamp-collecting. For example, the British biologist couple, the Medawars, said that it is often the case that 'nothing of any importance turns on the allocation of one ancestry rather than another.' They took this view because they saw natural selection as something that could explain ALL evolutionary changes, regardless of particular patterns of relationship. In contrast, some cladists regarded natural selection as impotent in terms of its predictive power. They took the view that because it could potentially explain everything, it explained nothing. The American cladist Donn Rosen declared that there was 'no need to placate the ghost of neo-Darwiniasm; it will not haunt evolutionary theory for much longer'. " (quoted from "Evolution: A Developmental Approach", Wallace Arthur, p162) MJ59: Couple of "debunking" statements creationists use Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest. “Survival of the fittest” is a conversational way to describe natural selection, but a more technical description speaks of differential rates of survival and reproduction. That is, rather than labeling species as more or less fit, one can describe how many offspring they are likely to leave under given circumstances. Drop a fast-breeding pair of small-beaked finches and a slower-breeding pair of large-beaked finches onto an island full of food seeds. Within a few generations the fast breeders may control more of the food resources. Yet if large beaks more easily crush seeds, the advantage may tip to the slow breeders. In pioneering studies of finches on the Galpagos Islands, Peter Grant and Rosemary Grant of Princeton University observed these kinds of population shifts in the wild. The key is that adaptive fitness can be defined without reference to survival: large beaks are better adapted for crushing seeds, irrespective of whether that trait has survival value under the circumstances. Evolution is unscientific because it is not testable or falsifiable. It makes claims about events that were not observed and can never be re-created. This blanket dismissal of evolution ignores important distinctions that divide the field into at least two broad areas: microevolution and macroevolution. Microevolution looks at changes within species over time—changes that may be preludes to speciation, the origin of new species. Macroevolution studies how taxonomic groups above the level of species change. Its evidence draws frequently from the fossil record and DNA comparisons to reconstruct how various organisms may be related. These days even most creationists acknowledge that microevolution has been upheld by tests in the laboratory (as in studies of cells, plants and fruit flies) and in the field (as in the Grants' studies of evolving beak shapes among Galpagos finches). Natural selection and other mechanisms—such as chromosomal changes, symbiosis and hybridization—can The historical nature of macroevolutionary study involves inference from fossils and DNA rather than direct observation. Yet in the historical sciences (which include astronomy, geology and archaeology, as well as evolutionary biology), hypotheses can still be tested by checking whether they accord with physical evidence and whether they lead to verifiable predictions about future discoveries. For instance, evolution implies that between the earliest known ancestors of humans (roughly five million years old) and the appearance of anatomically modern humans (about 200,000 years ago), one should find a succession of hominin creatures with features progressively less apelike and more modern, which is indeed what the fossil record shows. But one should not—and does not—find modern human fossils embedded in strata from the Jurassic period (65 million years ago). Evolutionary biology routinely makes predictions far more refined and precise than this, and researchers test them constantly. Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. If we could document the spontaneous generation of just one complex life-form from inanimate matter, then at least a few creatures seen in the fossil record might have originated this way. If superintelligent aliens appeared and claimed credit for creating life on Earth (or even particular species), the purely evolutionary explanation would be cast in doubt. But no one has yet produced such evidence. New species evolve by diverging away from established ones and acquire sufficient differences to remain forever distinct. Credit: Science Picture Company Getty Images It should be noted that the idea of falsifiability as the defining characteristic of science originated with philosopher Karl Popper in the 1930s. More recent elaborations on his thinking have expanded the narrowest interpretation of his principle precisely because it would eliminate too many branches of clearly scientific endeavor. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/#:~:text=Macroevolution%20studies%20how%20taxonomic%20groups,various%20organisms%20may%20be%20related. (Edited by MJ59) AchillesSinatra: A few comments on your post above, Beaver . . . Firstly, as we all know, a great many Creationists (though not all), here and elsewhere, routinely make claims about evolution that are ridiculous, unsubstantiated, or just plain false. On these particular forums, at least at times when I can muster the strength, you've probably seen myself and other members try to correct these nonsensical claims. Unfortunately, the Creationists are not the only culprits. Due to unfamiliarity with the philosophy and history of science, overzealous scientists, as well as their equally overzealous followers, routinely do the same thing: advance claims that are every bit as ridiculous. Again, I often try to correct such claims. Doing so, however, carries the risk of being labelled "anti-science" or a "closet-Creationist" or something worse  .Now to your commentary above . . . (And for the record, Beaver, I'm not saying you endorse these claims yourself. They do make for interesting discussion, though.) [Creationists complain that] "Natural selection is based on circular reasoning: the fittest are those who survive, and those who survive are deemed fittest." I couldn't agree more! And it's not just Creationists and yours truly who think so -- many philosophers and quite a few scientists say the same thing! This is what's known as the "tautology problem" pertaining to natural selection, a staple of almost any introductory text in the philosophy of biology. See my entire thread on "Natural Selection" for the gory details. [Creationists complain that] "Evolution is unscientific because it is not testable or falsifiable." This raises a whole Pandora's box of complex issues, many of which I've tried to address in my various threads here. First, both sides routinely speak of "THE theory of evolution", or simply "ToE". This very thread is devoted to showing there exists no such beast (see OP and throughout thread). Thus, when either side speaks of "ToE", from my perspective at least, they might as well be talking about a phantom . . . or a god  Second, falsifiability as a demarcation criterion for distinguishing science from non-science, derives from the thought of one man: philosopher of science, Karl Popper (as noted in your post above). Popper's ideas have been largely discredited for over half a century now. Falsifiability as a demarcation criterion JUST DOESN"T WORK. For one thing, scientific theories, as a general rule of thumb at least, are not the kinds of beasts that CAN be falsified, at least in any definitive, logical sense. If the theory of evolution (whatever that is today) is to be condemned as unscientific on the grounds that it is unfalsifiable, then the same fate awaits pretty much every other scientific theory you can name -- Einstein's general relativity, say. (Your commentator coyly alludes to this in the final paragraph -- ". . . precisely because it would eliminate too many branches of clearly scientific endeavor".) Again, I have an entire thread focused on this particular issue: "Falsifiability: Let's Not Be Naive". Alas, a great many scientists, science fans, as well as Creationists, apparently have not received the message, continuing to harp on obliviously about each other's doctrines being unfalsifiable, thus unscientific. Well, who says we all have to kowtow to Karl Popper anyway? If falsifiability is no good for distinguishing the scientific from the non-scientific, is there any other criterion or criteria we can appeal to? After all, we're told here daily (about a thousand times) by the resident Creationist loonies that evolution is "unscientific" or "pseudoscientific". How are such determinations made? Not that Blackshoes or Zeffur would have a clue, but this is what's known in philosophy of science as the "demarcation problem", i.e., the question of how, if at all, are we to discriminate between that which is bona fide science and that which is not (pseudoscience, metaphysics, or whatever). If you want to read more, try to get a hold of Larry Laudan's essay, "Demise of the Demarcation Problem". Laudan presents an overview, historical attempts to solve the demarcation problem, before finally concluding--as I do--that the problem is insoluble: there is no principled way to demarcate science from non-science. On such matters we may simply have to go by our intuitions, which of course are subjective, varying from person to person. Remember that judge who said of pornography "I can't define it but I know it when I see it"? One final thought. Your commentator writes (2nd last paragraph): "Evolution could be disproved in other ways, too. . . " Your commentator, I'm afraid, has his head in cloud-cuckoo land, not unlike certain of our contributors here in Wireclub. Now certain discoveries of the kind he alludes to (that famous pre-Cambrian rabbit, etc.) would be sure to raise a few eyebrows, indeed might even cause a few individual scientists to renounce all adherence to evolution. That said, no matter what comes to light, the suggestion that ALL scientists in ALL places would immediately and en masse declare evolution to be a load of bollocks (i.e. "disproven" ) is just . . . well, the stuff of fairy tales and overzealous propaganda. Science, as history amply attests, just doesn't work that way.  (Edited by AchillesSinatra) MJ59: Mate, I appreciate your efforts here, and although I don't understand a lot of what you say, i can see where you are coming from, keep up thge good work, keep the bastards honest! lol  AchillesSinatra: As for "testing" evolution, consider these wise words from philosopher of biology, Elliott Sober . . . "Creationists often talk of 'testing evolutionary theory', and biologists sometimes talk this way as well. The context of their remarks sometimes reveals which specific proposition the authors have in mind, but often this is not the case. It is important to recognize that the phrase 'evolutionary theory' is too vague when the subject of testing is broached. There are a number of propositions that evolutionary biologists take seriously. The first step should be to specify which of these is to be the focus." AchillesSinatra: Well, as I said before, it's a shame that we only have a couple of barely literate ignoramuses here to attack evolution and defend Intelligent Design. After all, hearing opposing viewpoints--when well informed--can be a very healthy thing indeed. Not all Creationists are that stupid. Just most. Try Stephen Meyer, for example, for an extremely clever and well read defender of Creationism. (Edited by AchillesSinatra) | Science Chat Room 6 People Chatting Similar Conversations |
