Nutshelling the Creation Evolution debates

[LadyShea]

Yeah, I can't be fucked to read 500 posts in two threads, but wanted to lay out some things I keep considering posting.

1. "Evolution has problems" is not evidence for deistic creation, and especially not a specific deistic creation telling, like the version in the Bible. Even if one could disprove the ToE completely (good luck with that), it wouldn't prove the Judeo-Christian version of events...there are thousands of creation myths, legends, and beliefs in the world. So, either adequately evidence your version, or disprove every other posited explanation, so yours is the last one standing that can't be falsified (again, good luck with that).

2. "God miracled it" is not a very satisfactory explanation for the myriad impossibilities and improbabilities found in the Judeo-Christian creation and flood legends. If you're trying to convince someone of something, nothing beats solid , testable evidence.

3. If it takes intricate mental gymnastics to make something "fit" the observed world or the laws of physics, or to make religious text non-contradictory, it's really probably false. A child can understand this even.

Anyway, glad to get that off my chest.

[Garnet]

Garnet's Rule:

If you want to convince me that the world and everything is created, then STOP attacking the ToE, big bang or any other theories and show me convincing evidence. Don't even address other theories at all, just stick to the evidence.

Tends to make my discussions with YECs very short.


ETA: The Bible does not meet my criteria of convincing evidence.

[Shelli]

[ceptimus]

Summary:

In the beginning there were people, and they argued with each other about how things began.

And the arguments have continued right up to the present day.

[Smilin]

* Smilin expects [b]Rocky{/b] or one of the other YEC'ers to be rearing his head shortly.......

[beyelzu]

a better summary,

In the beginning there was a naturalistic explanation for life, people who based their beliefs on faith were threatened by the explanation. They have spent the last almost hundred and fifty years attempting to deny this incredibly well-supported theory by any means necessary.

[LadyShea]

Smilin, were you a creationist? I remember you were Christian when we "met", but I don't remember this debate with you. My memory has gone bye-bye since Kiddo came along though.

[Joshua Adams]

Originally Posted by bey

In the beginning there was a naturalistic explanation for life, people who based their beliefs on faith were threatened by the explanation. They have spent the last almost hundred and fifty years attempting to deny this incredibly well-supported theory by any means necessary.

That wasn't "the beginning" -- unless you're one of those people who believes that the universe was created ca. 150 years ago, complete with all of our ancestors memories, to make it all look billions of years old.

[ceptimus]

In my summary, I was 'Nutshelling the Creationist Evoloution debates' (as per thread title). I wasn't trying to nutshell the history of the universe.

[Garnet]

Originally Posted by Smilin

* Smilin expects [b]Rocky{/b] or one of the other YEC'ers to be rearing his head shortly.......

* Garnet stands by with baseball bat at ready

[ManM]

LadyShea,
Ironically enough, your third point is why "evolution has problems" is such a sticking point, especially when grand philosophical claims are being based on evolutionary theory.

[LadyShea]

Ironically enough, your third point is why "evolution has problems" is such a sticking point, especially when grand philosophical claims are being based on evolutionary theory.

Hmm, you may have a point. However I base no philosophy on evolutionary theory, and it seems to me that the hypotheses posited and tested by scientists, were based on observations of the natural world, rather than trying to force those same observations to fit an ancient text.

Maybe I don't quite understand. Can you elaborate?

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by Joshua Adams

That wasn't "the beginning" -- unless you're one of those people who believes that the universe was created ca. 150 years ago, complete with all of our ancestors memories, to make it all look billions of years old.

It was the beginning of the modern evolution debate.


I suppose we could go back to the ancient greeks some of whom also argued for naturalistic origins.

[beyelzu]

Originally Posted by ManM

LadyShea,
Ironically enough, your third point is why "evolution has problems" is such a sticking point, especially when grand philosophical claims are being based on evolutionary theory.

We are along way removed from the eugenics movement of the day. Regardless of anyone who uses evolution to make philosophical beliefs, the science is the science.

[Joshua Adams]

[beyelzu]

Damn I get all obtuse when discussing evolution apparently.

Good foghorn use.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by ManM

LadyShea,
Ironically enough, your third point is why "evolution has problems" is such a sticking point

Really? What "intricate mental gymnastics" -- as opposed to scientific competence -- are required to make evolutionary theory fit with "the observed world or the laws of physics, or to make religious text non-contradictory"?

Please be specific.

especially when grand philosophical claims are being based on evolutionary theory.

What grand philosophical claims would be these be, and how exactly are they "based on" evolutionary theory?

Why would this contribute either to making evolutionary theory a sticking point or LS's post ironic?

[Dingfod]

Originally Posted by ceptimus

Summary:

In the beginning there were people, and they argued with each other about how things began.

And the arguments have continued right up to the present day.

Argument begat argument begat argument and so on, ad infinitum.

[ZEZOZE]

putting something in a nutshell seems to go against evolution.

here's another tip: when sensible people claim that evolution might have been started by an unseen force, it's better to just say "could be" because saying it isn't true with just as few facts as what you fight, makes you just as big a moron.

[ManM]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

Hmm, you may have a point. However I base no philosophy on evolutionary theory, and it seems to me that the hypotheses posited and tested by scientists, were based on observations of the natural world, rather than trying to force those same observations to fit an ancient text.

Maybe I don't quite understand. Can you elaborate?

Sure, rather than forcing the observations to fit an ancient text, scientists are forcing them to fit within a certain theory. That's fine. Until a paradigm shift takes place, it will continue to happen, and rightfully so. Yet, as observations continue to impose more intricate mental gymnastics on the theory, some people tend to become dissatisfied. This is what you indicated in your third point.

The problem comes when neo-darwinism is cited as evidence during a philosophical debate. When asked whether there is any purpose or guidance behind evolution, a neo-darwinist might cite their theory in support of the negative position. The counterargument is to attack that theory, and so you wind up with the "evolution has problems" angle. It is the same dynamic which occurs when a YEC bases his position on a theory of biblical inerrancy. The counterargument is to attack biblical inerrancy as a flawed basis for judgement.

As an aside, here is an interesting read on the whole creationist versus neo-darwinist thing.

[Clutch Munny]

When you ask whether there's any purpose or guidance behind electromagnetism, a neo-physicist will point out that his theory of electromagnetism not appeal to or require such a thing. Naturally this is where the problem comes in! Basing such a "grand philosophical theory" on the current theory of physics!

[LadyShea]

I see healthy debate amongst scientists, which may change the theory as new evidence comes into play...that's how science works isn't it. You seem to see some kind of dogmatic adherence to something.

Perhaps differences in perception?

The problem comes when neo-darwinism is cited as evidence during a philosophical debate.

Maybe that's where my disconnect is. I don't really know what kind of debates you are talking about where neo-darwinism would be cited as evidence. How is a theory cited as evidence? How does that work? "I cite the theory of gravity as evidence of X"?

a neo-darwinist might cite their theory in support of the negative position

Do most people cite the theory itself, or the evidence that supports the theory?

[Watser?]

Originally Posted by InTheServiceOfZeke

when sensible people claim that evolution might have been started by an unseen force

So, not you then.

[Clutch Munny]

Originally Posted by LadyShea

I see healthy debate amongst scientists, which may change the theory as new evidence comes into play...that's how science works isn't it. You seem to see some kind of dogmatic adherence to something.

Perhaps differences in perception?

Maybe that's where my disconnect is. I don't really know what kind of debates you are talking about where neo-darwinism would be cited as evidence.

That's not your disconnect. It just doesn't make much sense. The "grand philosophical theory based on evolutionary theory" thing turned out basically to mean "Does evolutionary theory posit a purpose or guidance behind evolution?" Someone who knows the theory of course replies "No" to this question (since it doesn't). That's just reporting on the contents of the theory, though -- not citing the theory as evidence for some philosophical position.

Do most people cite the theory itself, or the evidence that supports the theory?

Again, someone who cites a theory in support of their answer to a question about what that theory says is not making some grand philosophical claim. I think you're right to be a bit confused; honestly, no very clear claims have been made by ManM here, and it's gotten less clear as he's elaborated.

[The Lone Ranger]

For what it's worth, could that New York Times article be either more silly or more mistaken? Where's Olivia Judson when you need her? She'd have done justice to the subject matter, at least.

"Paradigm shifts are the stuff of scientific revolutions. They change how we view the world, the sorts of questions that scientists consider worth asking, and even how we do science. The discovery of DNA marked one such shift, the theory of plate tectonics another."

The discovery that DNA is the main hereditary material was not a paradigm shift. (Note for the author: the existence of DNA was known long before its function was known.)

There was lively debate amongst biologists about which molecule(s) were chiefly responsible for heredity. The two leading candidates were DNA and proteins. Evidence that DNA was responsible dates back to the 1920s. That DNA is at least in part responsible for transmission of hereditary traits was confirmed by Alfred Hershey and Martha Chase in 1952. In 1953, Rosalind Franklin, James Watson and Francis Crick worked out the basic structure of DNA and how it works.


None of this resulted in any "paradigm shift" -- it was simply a case of answering a long-standing question: "How is hereditary information passed (more or less) intact from one generation to the next?". Biologists knew there had to be some mechanism, and DNA turned out to be the answer.

"Concerns about the sources of evolutionary innovation and discoveries about how DNA evolves have led some to propose that mutations, not selection, drive much of evolution, or at least the main episodes of innovation, like the origin of major animal groups, including vertebrates."

Again, this is somewhat misleading. It has been known for a very long time that mutations provide the "raw material," so to speak, and that selection determines which mutations persist in populations. As such, it's a wholly uncontroversial thing to say that mutations drive much of evolution. Indeed, there would be no evolution without mutations. That the occasional "macromutation" (such as mutations of HOX genes, for example) is responsible for some of the more noteworthy evolutionary "innovations" is another wholly uncontroversial statement. Heck, Darwin himself noted that what he called "sports" (major mutations) are an important driving force in evolution.

"Transitions between species documented by the fossil record seemed to be abrupt, perhaps too abrupt to be explained by the modern synthesis."

Oh, please. Again, Darwin himself very presciently noted that the fossil record provides unambiguous evidence that rates of evolution vary quite a lot, and that many species seem to evolve very rapidly, then settle into a relatively long period of stasis. He even provided some very good reasons why this would be expected.

Ernst Mayr showed back in the 1940s that this is just what you'd expect, given how selection and genetic drift work. Russell Lande has done extensive mathematical modelling showing that this is all but inevitable, since very large and freely-interbreeding populations have a sort of "genetic inertia" and that smaller, isolated populations will evolve far faster due to the effects both of selection and of genetic drift.

None of this is news, and none of it represents either a paradigm shift or a threat to the modern synthesis.


I could go on, but the whole article strikes me frequently mistaken and often just plain silly. Of course we refine our theories as we gather new evidence -- that's what science is all about. There's no forcing of facts to fit into an inflexible theory; if the facts conflict with some aspect of the theory, the theory is modified accordingly. But, so far, facts haven't been found which contradict the modern synthesis, and isn't about to be replaced.

Cheers,

Michael