For anyone interested in a possible basis for the "Biblical Flood", you might want to check this out. Fascinating stuff. www.nationalgeographic.com/blacksea
There was no answer choice in the poll for "I believe in a Creator, and He may or may not have used evolution as the mechanism." So I settled for living in a box and wanting a beer. Wow, for a topic that none of us can answer for sure, and that involves the past instead of the present, everyone is awfully emotional about it. Nice responses Mrs. Valdez, MadMax, and mr_gootan in defending what is not the most popular position today. The controversy goes beyond intelligence and education level; you're bound to find believers in evolution/ creation/ in-between where you might not have expected them. (also, some people have a bunch of free time! )
Excuse me if this has already been answered in this way, but, there are many forces of/on evolution. A change in physical environment is what we think of mostly, but there is also sexual evolution, etc. While I doubt this is the term for what you describe, the answer to your doctor's friend is what I call "intellectual evolution." Evolution doesn't always weed out the "best" gene pool or gene pools with positive contributions. It jsut ends up with those individuals who are most likely to survive. In our advanced intellectual world, who does does not survive isn't simply a matter of whoever can catch food in the best manner. Our own advanced intteligence has become a force on how we evolve - it makes perfect sense really. Why try to save the lives of the "non-positive" sick people? Because it is in our nature to do so - but, even if you fail to follow this and want to remain scientific, humans benefit from much more than just being the strongest, etc. We appreciate and admire art or sports or any number of things that don't, intrinsicly, make us better off. But, in reality they do. They make some people happier or some sadder, they make us think, etc. Perhpas saving the life of the convicted murder and rapist when he has a heart attack may not seem like the best thing to do, but doing so helps us question who we are, what we belief in (our court system, the death penalty, how to best weed out this type of activity in the future) that not only advances the gene pool as a whole but individually, imo. Finally, as to the assertation that there are no "intermediate" fossils that exist - I believe this is untrue. In fact, forget fossils. Evolution has been proven through experiment in the real world on real animals on more than one occasion. The most famous of these involves the moths that gradually changed color in Britain during the Industrial evolution. Other examples involve current species of finches on the Galapagos and any number of experiments done with quickly reproducing animals, usually insects. Nonetheless, I believe (and no, I can't source any book or articles at the moment) that historic, fossil evidence of evolution exists anyways. The fossil record of human evolution, for example, while not complete, has become very detailed in a way that it is becoming easier and easier to go from species to species back 6+ million years to the beginnings of our "split" from our primate ancestors. I'm no punctuated equilibrium expert (or evolution expert at all - undoubtedly there are great holes in what I've argued above), but, from what I recall, punctuated equilibrium exists as a theory to describe the situation where the force of evolution changes drastically - think a meteor crash. In these instances, evolution seems to speed up, making the ability to find good fossil evidence that shows the change nearly impossible.
mr_g, nice post. But this gets to a great point, and then I'll butt out for good, seriously (I promise!). Science (good science) does not assume it can know unasailable truth. Good science wants to get as good a grasp on the reality of the universe as we possibly can. Theories of gravity are constantly updated, for instance. We still have a long way to go if we want to understand gravity on small scales, for instance. However, for describing planets, Newton pretty much had it good enough for government work. Anyway, I don't want to speak for anybody else, but I don't think many of the people you'd call "evolution faithful" would say the Bible is false. I think evolution makes some pretty strong sense, and I'd say this: "The theory of evolution is much more scientifically plausible than an exact, literal interpretation of the creation of the Earth, flora, and fauna as described in The Bible." So, IMHO, there's plenty of room for mutual respect here.
On the 'broken' part... I meant the physiological stresses in the womb. There is apparently some correlation with women that were stressed at some point during the pregnancy... and then making a homosexual male. Sneaker males are cool in that they hang around sexy guys like me, and they grab the girls that I don't have time to inseminate. There are some great examples in the bony fishes (and all other lineages, but there are so many species of teleosts). A billion of these guys have a polymorphism of males, one gigantic and one small (and female colored). In the groups where the male broods and stakes out his redd, these little bugger males will come flying through and inseminate the eggs right as the female sprays them on the big guy's turf. Peter pan orangutans are an interesting variant on that topic b/c they have the morph of an adolescent (but they're adults) that rove around inseminating (and oftentimes raping) females. It's a phenotypic norm of reaction (a continuum) where the only variable is the environment. When typical males (which are gigantic and have all of these 'male' features at sexual maturity) die, the Peter Pan Orangutans morph into big... sexually mature males. Was this that Dr. Tatiana book? My wife read that on the plane trip to and from home this past holiday. I need to read that one. It sounds great. I think I know what you're hinting at... if memory serves, there's a paleoanthropological debate about whether or not Lucy has been misnamed and why she seems like a worse biped than her contemporaries (and even supposed conspecifics)... I'll have to look up the argument between the paleoanthropologists. Paleoanthropology was the first class that I took when I returned to school... and it was taught by a PhD student whose specialty is not paleoanthropology. Although I hope to pursue something more ecology oriented, if I go to one of the big schools, hopefully I'll be able to at least sit in on a paleoanthropology class taught by someone in the field.
Achebe, You said, "the line between macroevolution and microevolution is arbitrary." I really would like you to give some reasons for why you consider this to be so. I'd be interested in hearing them, because I've never heard anyone say that they considered the distinction arbitrary. It makes sense that evolutionists believe that, because they frequently point to examples that I think are microevolution at work to prove macroevolution. Don't take this the wrong way, but someone stating that the distinction is arbitrary doesn't do anything to prove to me that it is. (I realize you didn't intend for your statement to be taken as "proof.") I have no doubt about microevolution. In that sense, I guess I am an evolutionist. I'm no expert on the subject (or any other that I can think of, for that matter), but I really do have a problem with seeing the little changes adding up to the bigger changes. Let me give you an example that I'm confident you and others have heard before. I'm getting it from Phillip Johnson's book Darwin on Trial (2nd ed., 34-35), although I'm sure it's been used elsewhere. Stephen Jay Gould brought up the question, "What good is 5 per cent of an eye?" He called it the "excellent question." Richard Dawkins responded with the following: "An ancient animal with 5 per cent of an eye might indeed have used it for something other than sight, but it seems to me as likely that it used it for 5 percent vision. And actually I don't think it is an excellent question. Vision that is five per cent as good as yours or mine is very much worth having in comparison with no vision at all. So is 1 per cent vision better than total blindness. And 6 per cent better than 5, 7 per cent better than 6, and so on up the gradual continuous series." I realize Gould wasn't at all giving support to creationism, but I really do think he raised a good question, and Dawkins glossed right over it as though it were inconsequential. After saying that an ancient animal might have used 5 per cent of an eye for something other than sight, he gives no suggestions (evidently because he has no clue what that something might have been). He then moved the question from 5 per cent of an eye to 5 per cent vision, which isn't exactly the same thing. Five per cent vision (compared to our own) would indicate to me 100 per cent of an eye. Gould's question, in my opinion, was better than Dawkins' answer. I can understand the change in the colors of a moth or the size of finch beaks. But even if I were an atheist, I think I would personally still have trouble with the small changes adding up to bigger ones. The problem seems even bigger when I consider the moves that go beyond even the species level. I didn't mean to ramble this long. If you understand what I'm getting at, and are of the mind to say something, I wouldn't mind hearing your thoughts. I'm confident you can do better than Dawkins. He's always seems arrogant to me, and generally unhelpful. It's almost like he thinks, "You're far too stupid to understand, so why bother. I'll give a meaningless answer and save us both time." (Rant about Dawkins completed.) By the way, good topic. And I appreciate the way most people have responded in this thread. It makes threads like this fun rather than infuriating.
Another important question is why does Steve Francis jump in the air to pass the ball. breath breath we had a foul to give.... jkaljsdfklasfjd fjjjjjjjjjj *pop* (sound of a my body falling to the ground b/c of an embolism) Traj, Dawkins can be annoying... particularly if you inadvertently start reading him with a British voice in your head. That particular quote seems somewhat short and aloof, but did you find the rest of his argument persuasive? When he starts discussing the various protists with the light receptor at the back of their head (imagine you're a little photosynthetic guy in the water column and its important for you to stay up in the penetrance layer) and then discusses the various grades of various mollusc eyes (from the pigment spot, to the cup to the larger optic (liquid containing, like a bay) cup, on to the lensed eye and then up to the octopus eye (truly beautiful)) and argues through analogy that the vertebrate eye isn't terribly too difficult to construct... he's more or less arguing the standard line in evolutionary theory. Much of that book (therefore the title) pertains to the topic that we actually aren't too perfect... on the subject of the eye he tries to be persuasive that since half of us tend to wear glasses... that these little gadgets aren't as amazing as some of us would like to think. Incidentally, one of the things that you'll keep reading from these evolutionary biologists is a general disdain for Gould (I had to remind myself that Gould was alive when Dawkins wrote so dismissively, then again Gould may have thought it was tactless anyway ). I grew up in geology... and even though it was made abundantly clear that punctuated equilibrium wasn't accepted in biology, the rock record tends to bias you in that manner anyway (just because of the rarity of preservation). Through the experiments of the 'here and now' biologists far and wide, just write Gould and his neutralist-esque sorts of intuitions off (that neutralist-selectionist debate is a big one in evolutionary biology... pretty interesting stuff and if you like Gould you might want to look at the neutralist stuff). That friggin' overtime kept me from studying (and then the loss breath breath). Hopefully this weekend I can make a more coherent argument as to why biologists think macroevolution and microevolution differ only by time (basically b/c a lot of the things that you and I are hitting on... all of these elemental gene changes... where each gene codes for a protein; btw, this is why that guy Lovtrup argues for a multimutational/punctuated equilibrium manner of evolution).
I REALLY need to give this a rest and get some work done. But for all those who say “science says macroevolution is true so it must be so,” read the following. Now don’t get me wrong. I have a science degree and I believe in science, but science is not as infallible as many think it is, and it can be VERY fallible in systematic ways. The Structure of Scientific Revolutions by Thomas S. Kuhn A Synopsis from the original by Professor Frank Pajares From the Philosopher's Web Magazine I Introduction A scientific community cannot practice its trade without some set of received beliefs. These beliefs form the foundation of the "educational initiation that prepares and licenses the student for professional practice". The nature of the "rigorous and rigid" preparation helps ensure that the received beliefs are firmly fixed in the student's mind. Scientists take great pains to defend the assumption that scientists know what the world is like...To this end, "normal science" will often suppress novelties which undermine its foundations. Research is therefore not about discovering the unknown, but rather "a strenuous and devoted attempt to force nature into the conceptual boxes supplied by professional education". A shift in professional commitments to shared assumptions takes place when an anomaly undermines the basic tenets of the current scientific practice These shifts are what Kuhn describes as scientific revolutions - "the tradition-shattering complements to the tradition-bound activity of normal science" New assumptions –"paradigms" - require the reconstruction of prior assumptions and the re-evaluation of prior facts. This is difficult and time consuming. It is also strongly resisted by the established community. II The Route to Normal Science So how are paradigms created and what do they contribute to scientific inquiry? Normal science "means research firmly based upon one or more past scientific achievements, achievements that some particular scientific community acknowledges for a time as supplying the foundation for its further practice". These achievements must be sufficiently unprecedented to attract an enduring group of adherents away from competing modes of scientific activity and sufficiently open-ended to leave all sorts of problems for the redefined group of practitioners (and their students) to resolve. These achievements can be called paradigms. Students study these paradigms in order to become members of the particular scientific community in which they will later practice. Because the student largely learns from and is mentored by researchers "who learned the bases of their field from the same concrete models" there is seldom disagreement over fundamentals. Men whose research is based on shared paradigms are committed to the same rules and standards for scientific practice. A shared commitment to a paradigm ensures that its practitioners engage in the paradigmatic observations that its own paradigm can do most to explain. Paradigms help scientific communities to bound their discipline in that they help the scientist to create avenues of inquiry, formulate questions, select methods with which to examine questions, define areas of relevance. and establish or create meaning. A paradigm is essential to scientific inquiry - "no natural history can be interpreted in the absence of at least some implicit body of intertwined theoretical and methodological belief that permits selection, evaluation, and criticism". How are paradigms created, and how do scientific revolutions take place? Inquiry begins with a random collection of "mere facts" (although, often, a body of beliefs is already implicit in the collection). During these early stages of inquiry, different researchers confronting the same phenomena describe and interpret them in different ways. In time, these descriptions and interpretations entirely disappear. A pre-paradigmatic school appears. Such a school often emphasises a special part of the collection of facts. Often, these schools vie for pre-eminence. From the competition of these pre-paradigmatic schools, one paradigm emerges - "To be accepted as a paradigm, a theory must seem better than its competitors, but it need not, and in fact never does, explain all the facts with which it can be confronted", thus making research possible. As a paradigm grows in strength and in the number of advocates, the other pre-paradigmatic schools or the previous paradigm fade. A paradigm transforms a group into a profession or, at least, a discipline. And from this follow the formation of specialised journals, foundation of professional bodies and a claim to a special place in academe. There is a promulgation of scholarly articles intended for and "addressed only to professional colleagues, [those] whose knowledge of a shared paradigm can be assumed and who prove to be the only ones able to read the papers addressed to them". ]III - The Nature of Normal Science. If a paradigm consists of basic and incontrovertible assumptions about the nature of the discipline, what questions are left to ask? When they first appear, paradigms are limited in scope and in precision. But more successful does not mean completely successful with a single problem or notably successful with any large number. Initially, a paradigm offers the promise of success. Normal science consists in the actualisation of that promise. This is achieved by extending the knowledge of those facts that the paradigm displays as particularly revealing, increasing the extent of the match between those facts and the paradigm's predictions, and further articulation of the paradigm itself. In other words, there is a good deal of mopping-up to be done. Mop-up operations are what engage most scientists throughout their careers. Mopping-up is what normal science is all about! This paradigm-based research is "an attempt to force nature into the pre-formed and relatively inflexible box that the paradigm supplies". No effort is made to call forth new sorts of phenomena, no effort to discover anomalies. When anomalies pop up, they are usually discarded or ignored. Anomalies are usually not even noticed and no effort is made to invent a new theory (and there’s no tolerance for those who try) … More here. http://www.emory.edu/EDUCATION/mfp/kuhnsyn.html
Well, at least we know who Grizzled's favorite scientists are.... they're the ones that tell him what he already knows! ROTFLMAO
You’re not getting it Achebe. Read a little closer. You are the “normal scientist,” trying to prop up the existing paradigm, denying the anomalies and “showing no tolerance” for those who do address them. Patterson is an example of a guy who is stepping outside the box and beginning the paradigm ****.
Grizzled, hopefully we don't take away from the good will in this thread (perhaps I should have responded in the other thread... hey, I'll just make my words smaller!), but, you seem to like Patterson a lot. You seem to enjoy Kuhn's arguments a lot. You seem to enjoy reading people whose words can be put into your world view. This was the cry of 'begging the question' that I've made over and over again. I'm not aware that Patterson is leading any paradigm shift. His own brand of phylogenetics is nearly obsolete (I'm not a phylogeneticist... but neither are you ). What is it that you know of all of the other scientists, that when you compare those traits to Patterson, you feel compelled to argue that he's leading a paradigm shift... you know that he doesn't agree with you. You know those quotes out of his even most recent paper are more than likely taken out of context (I'll get the paper this weekend). I've written things that highlight doubt in this very thread, why don't you run with those? Anyway, all my best Grizzled. I have to say that I'm impressed with your faith. I'm not sure that it's entirely healthy... as a child my faith was bludgeoned to death by the fact that the science kept calling into question the representations of creation that my family had put forward. Who knows what would have happened had we just been normal episcopalians.
d'oh! I was supposed to butt out for good, but I just wanted to say that I love Kuhn, and I think everybody would enjoy the book that Grizzled has recommended. I don't know if I love that synopsis, but whatever. Kuhn holds a joint position as physicist and historian, and he completely knows his stuff from both angles, AND he's a great writer. Fun fascinating read.
Just for clarity, that’s paradigm shift. LeGrouper: Cool! I’ve never been called a suprenerd before. I’m expanding me repertoire. Sadly, though, I suspect that I’ve only earned that title from you because you don’t understand what I’m saying. Normal science is where most scientists live. I am an engineer, but I read Kuhn in an epistemology class when I was a humanities student 10 years+ ago. Or is it the education thing in general you find nerdy?
Achebe: I don’t think I’m doing a good job of making myself understood. I absolutely like Kuhn. I think he’s a must read for every scientist, and everybody who has any interest in science. Patterson I’d never heard of before this week. I have no high degree of confidence that he will be written up as the guy who led the next paradigm shift. He could die tomorrow and be only a footnote in history. That’s not my point. What I’m referring to is the way he is thinking, and what I’m pointing to specifically is the way he is prepared to step away from and challenge the status quo. For the 1000th time, I’m not promoting a world view. Can you show me where you have seen me doing this? I’m challenging the current dominant paradigm, the one that says, “macroevolution is absolute truth.” You seem to be unable to separate the fact that I am a Christian from the argument I’m making. Please note that the people I’m quoting aren’t even Christians, (as far as you or I know anyway.) Patterson isn’t even making a counter argument. He’s labelled an agnostic. He is specifically not promoting another world view. He has just seemingly stopped accepting as “truth” a paradigm that the facts don’t support as “truth.” Is this becoming any clearer? I admit that this is probably a more subtle than normal point I’m trying to make. Patteson, or even more precisely, what we have read from him so far in these threads, is only an example of what I’m talking about. I don’t know that the quotes were taken out of context at all. In fact I strongly suspect they weren’t. The other piece on him, the one you led me to, speaks at some length about his agnosticism, which would be completely consistent with this 1999 quote. In fact that 1996 piece goes much farther than the 1999 quote. There is no reason at all to believe that the 1999 quote, or any of the others I provided, were taken out of context, but please feel free to check. B-Bob: Kuhn radically changed my understanding of the way science advances, and of the nature of science in general. GREAT book. Easily one of the most import books I’ve read.
I am calling you a supernerd because you are pretentiously throwing around rehashed ideas using 10 cent words and obscure references in an attempt to impress the people on this board. And now you accuse me of not liking edumafacation. That is a little high handed of you Mr. UnNormal Scientist. I have a bachelors degree from A&M so I ain't dirt dumb. What I really think though is that if you put down some of your own ideas in a format that is more readable, which would be the format that should be used on a light hearted basketball web forum, it would be a lot more easy for me to make fun of you.
Well, if you ain’t dirt dumb, and have been reading and checking the references, you know that Kuhn’s 1962 classic work (which is still extensively used in numerous, and probably all, universities today), is directly on point. It fits almost perfectly in fact, the discussion that was going on in the other thread and is very relevant to those here who were inclined to put too much faith in “scientific knowledge.” “Normal Scientist” is, of course, Kuhn’s term and not mine. I don’t find it a to be a great term, but I’m clearly not as threatened by it as you seem to be. It was written in 1962 so perhaps it fit better in that context. Pretentious?! That suggests to me that you don’t understand the point and probably haven’t even read the summary. It’s really not that hard to understand. If you don’t understand, you should ask a question or two, because you’re probably misinterpreting something quite simple. At any rate, if you are calling Kuhn an obscure reference, you’ve clearly opened your mouth before doing even the most basic search on the title. Not cool.
Relax man, I was just joking. My point, ibetween the lines, was that you were twarting my attempts to discredit creationists buy ridiculing them with the fact that they were being unscientific. Who knew I was simply a normal scientist? I was paying you a subliminal compliment. Your argument is unassailable with my meager weaponry of sarcasm.... FOILED AGAIN!
The line "survival of the fittest" doesn't mean survival of the strongest. Fitness is a term for the ability to reproduce. The more children you have, the higher the level of fitness you would earn. Darwin was the ultimate promoter of foam parties and alcohol.
