April 25, 2008

Expelled: No Intelligence Offered - part 2 (Ben in the Dock)

Hatched by Dafydd

(For Brad Linaweaver's review, see here now!)

Here lieth the second and final part of the analysis and meditation upon Ben Stein's movie Expelled, wherein is to be found absolutely everything that is wrong with Intelligent Design write large across the silver screen. Cushlamochree!

(The first part contained fits 1-5; this part contains the final four fits.)

Fit the sixth: Hear ye, hear ye!

Critical to the core thesis of Expelled is the claim that the high priests of "normal science" have never really looked at ID; they just fire "dissenters"to silence them and shut out the new paradigm. ("Paradigm" in this case means "a set of assumptions, concepts, values, and practices that constitutes a way of viewing reality for the community that shares them, especially in an intellectual discipline.")

But this simply is not true; many scientists have responded to the claims of ID -- very effectively; Francis Collins is only one among many. The problem is that ID proponents have no persuasive scientific answer to the points raised against it.

The primary argument against ID is that it does not fit the normal definition of science: In order for any hypothesis or system of thought to be considered "scientific," it must pass all of the following five tests:

  1. It must be predictable: It must tell us what we will find if we make certain measurements in the future, measurements we have not yet made.
  2. It must be tentative: It must say, "This is how things appear at the moment, according to current evidence." Since theory flows from evidence, then as evidence changes, the theory must also change. If the system is eternal -- if contradictory evidence "proves" (to proponents) that the evidence must therefore be mistaken -- then it is not science.
  3. It must be falsifiable: Proponents must enunciate some humanly possible experiment that has the potential to totally discredit their hypothesis. In other words, "if measurement X isn't within this range, then my theory is shot down.
  4. It must be based upon previous scientific inquiry, not pulled out of left field; it must arise from the literature and be compatible with all previous observations, allowing for occasional experimental error.
  5. It must invoke only natural causes that still exist in the world today and can be measured by other means, not supernatural causes that either no longer exist or never could have been observed in the first place.

So does ID meet these requirements? Remember, it must pass all five tests... but in fact, Intelligent Design passes none of them.

It predicts nothing; ID proponents never say, "make the following brand-new observation, and this is what you will find."

It is not tentative; for example, no matter how many examples of "irreducible complexity" are shown to be thoroughly reducible, Behe, the Discovery Institute, and all of Intelligent Designdom stubbornly embrace the conclusion that life is irreducibly complex, hence could not have evolved via traditional evolutionary theory. Faith in Intelligent Design is primary; evidence that does not conform is rejected.

ID invokes a cause -- the "Designer" -- that not only cannot be measured today, He, She, It, or They would actually exist outside the physical universe itself, if exist the Designer did. Therefore, it is definitely not falsifiable, either; how could any experiment imaginable disprove the existence of a designer who is, by definition, outside the entire spacetime continuum and operates according to laws far beyond all physical laws that humans can detect?

And ID arises from no previous scientific theory; it arises from the ashes of Creation Science, which itself is not a science (and arose from Biblical Creationism). The idea of a "Designer" bubbled up as a way to restore Genesis literalism in the wake of the publication of the Origin of Species; and it came from religious leaders who were critical of evolutionary theory back when Charles Darwin was still alive. Their main complaint, like Phillip Johnson's, was that natural selection appeared to dethrone God and raise up blind chance in His place.

All right, perhaps Intelligent Design is not itself a scientific theory. But isn't it at least a valid critique of traditional evolutionary theory? Shouldn't it be taken seriously as a worthwhile activity and given some latitude to be developed? After all, science (including evolutionary theory) has a long and honorable tradition of responding to strong, scientific criticism by reworking its theories and models to fix any contradictions or disagreements with the evidence. That's part of the "tentativity" requirement above.

If ID were scientific criticism, this would be a valid point. But the same problems that prevent it being a scientific theory also plague its ability to be proper scientific criticism.

Simply put, when ID "scientists" raise criticisms, and established scientists respond -- either with further research or by demonstrating the points are not actually problematical -- IDers do not respond in kind. In fact, it's ID proponents who ignore the establishment response and grimly stand by their critique. Here is a perfect example...

I noted above that Michael Behe of the Discovery Institute argues that complex biological structures composed of many components are "irreducible," thus cannot evolve by random mutation. Every mutated component of a complex structure, argues Behe, would have to appear via mutation simultaneously for the structure to provide any survival advantage; and such simultaneous mutation is so unlikely, it could not have occurred within the lifetime of the universe.

But this argument has been answered many times, both by argument (Darwin himself in Origins on the evolution of the mammalian eye) and by scientific advances, e.g., in genetics. The claim of "irreducible complexity" is thoroughly exploded in Collins' the Language of God, pp. 189-193. Collins first notes "the well-established phenomenon of gene duplication": A rung-by-rung examination of DNA discloses that many genes appear multiple times on the strand. This is important, because if one of the duplicates of a vital gene mutates away from its original function, the organism would not die... because there are still other copies that can provide that essential functionality.

Thus, the mutated version can mutate further and futher, until by random chance, it hits upon a new function that advantages the organism... and natural selection is off and running. Taking Michael Behe's favorite example, Collins explains how gene comparisons conducted since Behe's original writings on "irreducible complexity" are in fact reducing the complexity of bacterial flagella to more primitive parts that could have evolved separately while still advantaging the organism:

A particularly damaging crack in the foundation of Intelligent Design theory arises from recent revelations about the poster child of ID, the bacterial flagellum. The argument that it is irreducibly complex rests upon the presumption that the individual subunits of the flagellum could have had no prior useful function of some other sort, and therefore the motor could not have been assembled by recruiting such components in a stepwise fashion, driven by the forces of natural selection.

Recent research has fundamentally undercut this position. Specifically, comparison of protein sequences from multiple bacteria has demonstrated that several components of the flagellum are related to an entirely different apparatus used by certain bacteria to inject toxins into other bacteria that they are attacking.

This bacterial offensive weapon, referred to by microbiologists as the "type III secretory apparatus," provides a clear "survival of the fittest" advantage to organisms that possess it. Presumably, the elements of this structure were duplicated hundreds of millions of years ago [gene duplication], and then recruited for a new use; by combining this with other proteins that had previously been carrying out simpler functions, the entire motor was ultimately generated.

To date, Behe has neither acknowledged this counterargument or come up with a counter-counterargument of his own. Even today, right where you are sitting now, you can download a "briefing packet for educators" on "the Theory of Intelligent Design" from the Discovery Institute which states, on p. 8:

What Are Some Scientific Problems with Darwinian Evolution and Chemical Evolution?...

Biochemistry: Unguided and Random Processes Cannot Produce Cellular Complexity. Cells contain incredible complexity, similar to machine technology but dwarfing anything produced by humans. Cells use circuits, miniature motors, feedback loops, encoded language, and even error-checking machinery which decodes and repairs our DNA. Many scientists have claimed that Darwinian evolution does not appear capable of building this type of integrated complexity.

This is nothing but Behe's "irreducible complexity" redux, just as if no one had ever answered him, as if there had been no advance in genetics in the fifteen years since he first raised the issue.

Thus the answer is No, ID is not a scientific theory; and it is not even a good scientific critique of the traditional theory of evolution by random mutation filtered through natural selection. It is barely more scientific than astrology.

Would any reader find it odd or conspiratorial that a refereed astronomy journal would refuse to publish a paper on astrology? Or that a researcher, having received a grant to study some question of astrophysics, who was found to have frittered the money away studying the zodiac and the writings of Nostradamus, would have his grant revoked and his contract not renewed?

Wouldn't any respected university or accountable government body want to protect its good name by not allowing university donations or taxpayer money to be used to investigate how the stars at our birth control our destinies?

Contrary to Expelled -- that's what we're reviewing here, in case you forgot in all the excitement -- "Big Science" has indeed deigned to notice and respond to the claims of ID; but there has been no counter-response, no new research, no answer to the points that scientists raise against ID. The lights on, but nobody appears to be home.

Fit the seventh: God of the gaps

All of the arguments ID offers against mainstream evolutionary theory fall into the same argumenative category, what Wall Street Journal science writer Sharon Begley calls the "argument by personal incredulity" (she attributes the term to "one wag"):

For years, intelligent-design theory had been bogged down in what one wag calls "the argument from personal incredulity" ("I can't see how natural forces could produce this, so it must be the work of God"). Darwin's new foes, however, are smart enough to realize that just because most of us can't imagine how the sun can burn so hot for so long, it doesn't follow that God, not nuclear fusion, keeps the fires stoked.

In 1996, biochemist Michael Behe of Lehigh University, Bethlehem, Pa., therefore offered a stronger argument against evolution. Complex living structures, he argued in his book "Darwin's Black Box," possess "irreducible complexity." That is, they can't function until all their components are assembled, much as a mousetrap isn't much good until the base, spring, bar and all the rest are connected.

I have already dealt with this argument on its own terms; but now let's understand the terrible danger such an argument poses to religious faith. It is not evolutionary theory that leads to atheism. It is the premise that God is to be found wherever there is a temporary lack of understanding on some scientific point, no matter how small. As Collins notes:

ID proponents have made the mistake of confusing the unknown with the unknowable, or the unsolved with the unsolvable.

Such reasoning reduces the role of the "Designer," God, to hiding in any tiny evolutionary mousehole that is unexplained today. Collins calls this the "God of the gaps" fallacy.

The danger is that science never stands still; it perpetually moves forward. Given time, it will inevitably explain all of the unexplained gaps in our understanding of evolution. And what of God then, when His gaps disappear? Collins -- a very religious Christian for whom the existence of God is not a proposition but simple truth -- makes his fears explicit on pp. 194-5:

The perceived gaps in evolution that ID intended to fill with God are instead being filled by advances in science. By forcing this limited, narrow view of God's role, Intelligent Design is ironically on a path toward doing considerable damage to faith.

The sincerity of the proponents of Intelligent Design can hardly be questioned. The warm embrace of ID by believers, particularly by evangelical Christians, is completely understandable, given the way in which Darwin's theory has been portrayed by some outspoken evolutionists as demanding atheism. But this ship is not headed to the promised land; it is headed instead to the bottom of the ocean. If believers have attached their last vestiges of hope that God could find a place in human existence through ID theory, and that theory collapses, what then happens to faith?

A long time ago, people believed the thunder and lightning were God's wrath; then we discovered it was a completely natural electrical discharge -- and God lost the thunder.

Ages ago, people believed the stars were the lights of heaven; then we deduced that stars were natural fusion engines burning unfathomable distances away -- and the lights of heaven dimmed.

Once we thought that God pushed the sun, the planets, and the stars around the Earth; we now understand the motive force is simple gravity, the same gravity that pulls us all towards the center of this planet -- and that the focus of the solar system orbits is the sun, not the Earth. God abruptly lost his digs in the gated community of the Celestial Spheres. (Technically, each planet's orbit has two foci, since it's an elipse; but the other foci are all points in empty space near the sun.)

Each of these discoveries caused a crisis of faith -- but only because men had foolishly assumed that yesterday's unknown was unknowable. These were early examples of the fragile "God of the gaps," trying to substitute the supernatural for every hole in our knowledge of what was then called natural philosophy. Each was resisted by the religious ancestors of today's Intelligent Design movement.

And if ID believers continue that sad legacy by declaring that their inability in 1996 to explain the "irreducibly complex" bacterial flagella proves the existence of an intelligent Designer, then what happens to our Designer when even Michael Behe is forced to admit that flagella are quite reducible after all?

Will he find some new system, not yet perfectly explained, and argue that that's the real-deal irreducible complexity that proves intelligent design? Or will Behe lose his faith entirely, taking the opposite route that Francis Collins took some decades ago?

I don't know the man, but I presume he's not an utter fool. At some point, even Behe will come to realize that hunting for the "irreducible complexity" in nature is a mug's game, like trying to find a left-handed monkey wrench (or a right-winged monkey trial). Millions who now clutch at ID as their lifeline to living faith will be left empty handed. And the blame will fall on those like Michael Behe and Ben Stein, who lured conservatives into believing that God can be hidden in every lacuna in human knowledge -- even while they knew, somewhere deep down, that every mousehole would eventually be plugged.

So what is the way out of this labyrinth? Must science on the left and faith on the right be forever divided by the intellectual Berlin Wall posited by Stein? Must you abandon your belief in God in order to accept the findings of evolution?

That vile implication is what makes this movie so dangerous... and lowers Ben Stein far below those he attacks.

Why pinch the human intellect into an unbridgeable dichotomy? Both the left and right hemispheres of our brains are connected by the corpus callosum, which mediates between logic and dream, math and myth. Our right brain craves the connectedness of our mythos... but our left brain helps us select between myths that are true and healthy and those which are false and poisonous.

Fortunately, then, the answer to our question above is No; science and faith, properly considered, are not in any conflict... but you would never know it from watching Expelled.

Fit the eighth: The Great Divide

So what about Stein's secondary thesis, that the study of traditional evolutionary theory must by itself lead to atheism, with all the attendant evils and ills it portends? That a "Berlin Wall" rises between faith and science, and one must choose the former, lest one be dragged, willy nilly, into the latter?

In Expelled, Stein shows us an intact wall. We see some folks hammering on it; but by the end of the movie, the fanciful divide remains unbridgeable, as if we perpetually lived in the days of the 1961 tank confrontation.

But there is no more Berlin Wall in Germany; it was torn down shortly after Reagan's famous speech. Officials of the reunited Germany left a marker and a museum where "Checkpoint Charlie" once stood, just to remind themselves what used to divide the two cultures. I think this a more fitting image of the future than Stein's glowering gun towers and scientific no-man's land.

Stein has fallen for the same exclusionary fiction that animates Dawkins, thereby proving himself Dawkins' ideological twin brother. Why would a movie by an evolution dissenter feature an evolution absolutist in such a starring role? Because Dawkins is a militant atheist who hopes, as Stein fears, that studying science will lead to atheism.

This plays into Stein's idea of the recruiting power of evolutionary theory. He sees "Darwinism" as a charismatic, evangelical version of atheism -- "Dawkins-ism." It's true that Richard Dawkins shares Stein's belief in the miraculous (diabolical, in Stein's eye) power of evolution to convert; even so, he's nowhere near the monster that Stein paints him.

To be fair to Dawkins -- which Expelled is not -- he does not believe that losing one's faith in God means losing the idea of right and wrong; nor does he believe that his radical materialism negates the idea of free will. Dawkins finds himself falling back on his childhood belief in moral law -- even while he makes unconvincing protests that such morality can arise naturally. Even more astonishing, he believes that religion may arise naturally in human societies as a result of evolutionary processes... that it "may very well have a conventional Darwinian survival value." (Does that include celebate monks and nuns?)

In responding to an interviewer who asked Dawkins about his idea that human beings are "gene machines" and how that might relate to free will, Dawkins said:

I am very comfortable with the idea that we can override biology with free will. Indeed, I encourage people all the time to do it. Much of the message of my first book, "The Selfish Gene," was that we must understand what it means to be a gene machine, what it means to be programmed by genes, so that we are better equipped to escape, so that we are better equipped to use our big brains, use our conscious intelligence, to depart from the dictates of the selfish genes and to build for ourselves a new kind of life which as far as I am concerned the more un-Darwinian it is the better, because the Darwinian world in which our ancestors were selected is a very unpleasant world. Nature really is red in tooth and claw. And when we sit down together to argue out and discuss and decide upon how we want to run our societies, I think we should hold up Darwinism as an awful warning for how we should not organize our societies.

On the question of moral law:

QUESTION: If, as you have said, there is a tendency from our genes for us to be selfish, would that perhaps suggest that we need institutions like religion to encourage us to override this innate selfishness?

MR. DAWKINS: The phrase "the selfish gene" only means that genes are selfish. It doesn't mean that individual organisms are. On the contrary, one of the main messages of the selfish gene is that selfish genes can program altruistic behavior in organisms. Organisms can behave altruistically towards other organisms -- the better to forward the propagation of their own selfish genes. What you cannot have is a gene that sacrifices itself for the benefit of other genes. What you can have is a gene that makes organisms sacrifice themselves for other organisms under the influence of selfish genes.

I think we certainly benefit from social institutions which encourage us towards moral behavior. It's very important to have law. It's very important to have a moral education. It's very important to try to inculcate into children moral rules, such as "do as you would be done by." It's very important to do moral philosophy, to try work out the principles we want to live. But when you say religious principles, there I think I would part company. I see no reason why they should be religious. But I certainly think that they should be developed by society and not necessarily following biological dictates.

Despite these Dawkinsian positions -- easily found by a bit of Googling -- Stein devotes an entire section in Expelled to some professor of biology who goes on and on about how free will is just a delusion and how personally liberating he finds that queer state of affairs. I wish I could remember his name. In any event, when Stein attributes by implication this position to Darwin-induced atheism in general and Richard Dawkins in particular, he engages in "deception by omission."

[The professor -- of history, not biology -- has been tentatively identified as Will Provine of Cornell. Hat tip to commenter JoshuaZ.]

Stein could have allowed Dawkins to state his real views; the science writer is hardly shy about expressing himself. But instead, he segues directly from mainstream evolutionary theory, to Richard Dawkins' atheist dreams, to [Professor Provine] fulminating against free will. Stein thus leaves moviegoers with a dreadfully false impression.

Expelled clearly implies that those who reject Intelligent Design form an undifferentiated mass of anti-morality radicals... when instead, they form a continuum of divergent beliefs, running the gamut from the lunatic who believes humans are entirely gene-driven -- to a sincere, mainstream Christian like Francis Collins.

Stein's is the tactic of demagoguery, not debate. It is another example of which side is actually seeking to stifle dissent and mislead the public. Millions of people who see Expelled will now imagine that evolutionists believe we have no free will and that the only morality is nature "red in tooth and claw," when in fact they (and Dawkins) believe precisely the opposite.

Fit the ninth: The labyrinth and the Minotaur

Phillip Johnson and the others at the forefront of the ID movement today object to evolutionary theory primarily on grounds that it "defaiths" America (my term) by making the miraculous mundane. Under the relentless erosion of faith by science, God loses his thunder, his heavenly lights, and his celestial heavens.

But this makes no sense theologically: If it's miraculous that a "Designer" would pre-load bacterial DNA with instructions to create a flagellum, as Behe has suggested, then how much more miraculous is it that some intelligent "Designer" might have created the entire universe and its physical laws -- including those that allowed bacteria and their blessed flagella to evolve in the first place? Why accept only microscopic miracles as the acts of God, but not the creation of, well, all Creation?

ID simultaneously gives God too much jurisdiction and not enough credit. There is no need to invoke divine intervention to explain how bacteria move themselves; if we can move ourselves, there is no reason crabs, flatworms, seastars, and even microbes cannot do the same.

So if God's role is not to personally push all the buttons and pull all the levers of material processes, to perform micromiracles, like Maxwell's Demon, inside the gaps of our scientific understanding, then what is it? Why not return to Him the realm He has always historically occupied, and to which science lays no serious claim?

You may believe -- I certainly do, Dawkins or no Dawkins -- that civilized morality cannot be supported among mass numbers of people without a societal belief in what Dennis Prager calls "ethical monotheism"... a single, unitary God, omniscient and omnipotent, whose overriding concern anent human beings is that they treat each other with decency and justice. Prager believes it's more important for individuals to be decent and for institutions to be just. (I make no claim whether this societal belief is true, only that it's necessary.)

Unlike Francis Collins since his conversion, I am not certain of the existence of God. Unlike self-professed "Darwinist" and science writer Richard Dawkins since his disillusionment, I'm equally unconvinced of the contrary proposition. But let's consider the thesis that Prager's "ethically monotheist" God exists, the God of the Jewish and Christian Bibles, and that He created the universe... and that ever since that moment of "fiat lux," the physical universe has ticked along fully according to the physical laws that are inherent in Cosmos.

How then could faith in God be diminshed by scientific advancement, no matter how many amazing discoveries we make in the next hundred years? Rather, wouldn't every such discovery simply make the faithful even more awed by the glory of their God? That is certainly Collins' reaction.

Does this leave us with a Deistic God, rather than a Theistic one? Do we live in a clockwork universe with a God who is so remote that He cares nothing about human beings? Once He set the cogs in motion, has He turned His back and walked away?

There is no theological necessity for such an assumption: A Theistic God is perfectly consistent with all the creation occuring the moment before the Big Bang -- because the aspect we're interested in is not whether God personally spurts lava out of the volcano, but whether He personally responds to prayer, judges souls, and in the case of Christians, grants forgiveness to those who accept the sacrifice of Jesus.

A Pragerian God is not concerned with specifics of human biology but with our souls, which are forged by the decisions we make (driving actions or beliefs) from our own free will.

The most important article of Judeo-Christian faith, then -- as an agnostic, I may be treading on sensitive ground here -- is not that God personally created the bacterial flagella, but that He has a personal relationship with each human being and will lead humans away from sin and towards righteousness. (I am deliberately vague as to how, since different religions offer quite different mechanisms, from the Law to conscience to Christ.)

It's more important to believe that God wants us to be decent and just than to believe that God specifically designed the blood-clotting cascade... rather than "merely" designing the whole universe and its physical laws, which He (being omniscient) knew would ultimately evolve it.

Science flows from our reason, which is an essentially human (hence, to a believer, soul-bound) endeavor; faith flows from our mythic unconscious. To any believer, both ultimately derive from God. How can they conflict?

Science seeks only to explain the natural world; nothing discoverable by science could jeopardize faith, so long as the believer does not inappropriately hitch his faith to today's lack of knowledge. Faith civilizes society, and a civil society is necessary for free and open scientific inquiry. They compliment each other like the right and left hemispheres of the brain.

And I think culture is the analog of the corpus callosum: Culture is what mediates between science/rationality and faith/mythos. A sick culture allows one or the other to seize control and run everything, as in "jihadist" religious movements, or allows both to run rampant and enslave the masses, as with Communism, Naziism, fascism, and every other totalitarian socialism.

But a healthy culture trims the flight of each to keep them in formation: Faith does not try to squelch legitimate scientific inquiry -- into, say, embryonic stem-cell research -- while science is willing to accept ethical boundaries over its behavior, such as restricting such research to using only techniques that do not kill the embryo.

That is how to bridge the divide, by assigning each endeavor, science and faith, its own sphere. Science tells us what, faith (religious or otherwise) tells us why. And while the twain should frequently meet, there is no reason they should collide.

Science, even evolution, does not force us into atheism, because the Western God is no "Wizard of Oz," pulling levers behind a curtain. He is not the God of the gaps... He would be the God of the mythos; the deity of reason; the guardian of good and evil; the maker of morality; and the source of science. He did not specifically design the universe to trick us into materialism; but He left sufficient evidentiary clues to lead us through the labyrinth to a scientific understanding of the physical world. Reason and faith, connected by a thick bundle of cultural nerves.

But there is a monster lurking in that maze: A bullheaded man who will not think it possible he could be wrong, who will not accept that scientific reason is just as godly as religious faith, who imagines that the two can never be reconciled -- but that one must conquer the other. He has created a brutish movie that may ensnare many sincere people who should not be told they cannot pursue both hemispheres of knowledge.

At the end of this analysis, I find an unexpected burst of pity for Ben Stein. The dismal science he studied at Columbia appears to have led him into the Slough of Despond, and I don't know that he can find his way out.

I hope so; even a Minotaur should be allowed to evolve.

Hatched by Dafydd on this day, April 25, 2008, at the time of 4:24 AM

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» Semi-Intelligent Design from Big Lizards
(Review of Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed from Premise Media Corporation 2008; for Dafydd's review, see here now -- and then see here now!) Ben Stein's witty agit-prop documentary is not primarily about science. It is about the politics of science.... [Read More]

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» Medved Runs False-Flag Operation... from Big Lizards
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Comments

The following hissed in response by: MikeR

Dunno, Dafydd. People tend to see only their side of a story. You've come to a conclusion, so no other conclusion is possible. Evolution is right, ID is wrong, therefore anything they say is wrong, therefore it's right to scorn and ignore them. No one is oppressing anyone, whatever they say. They are being disingenuous to pretend that the issues haven't been settled.
Global warming is right, skeptics are wrong, therefore...
Do you think it's possible that you're wrong? Not about the issue, but about its complexity. Maybe there really are scientists who have questions about the viability of the foundations of evolution but are afraid to say them because people like Dawkins are running around? If they voice their questions, they have just proven their incompetence and automatically deserve to be fired? Because it's so clear to you, it surely must be equally clear to every scientist?
What would be so terrible if scientists would get together and tell Dawkins and his ilk, "Shut up already! We're doing the science and we'll try to work out the truth. We don't need publicists and we don't need defenders. " What disaster would that cause? A few school boards might, heaven forfend, teach something different than what everyone else teaches, thereby ruining those kids for life?
If ID people are wrong, like Flat Earth Society members, eventually it will become clear to the rest of us. If they are making good points, that will become clear too.

On your other basic point, I'm afraid I disagree too. One of the most powerful arguments for religion has always been the Argument from Design. Religious people are naturally unwilling to give it up, however they claim otherwise. Maybe one can build one's beliefs without any visible sign of one's Creator, but it's harder.

The above hissed in response by: MikeR [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 8:40 AM

The following hissed in response by: Steelhand

Dafydd,

For the information of your readers, there are actual scientists proposing a creation model, and they attempt to do so distinct from the ID viewpoint. And they do not agree with the movie Expelled, nor have they experienced the reactions from the orthodox evolution-based scientific community.

http://www.reasons.org/resources/apologetics/expelled.shtml

I find this group to be a reasonable and respectful organization, and I think that their approach is both more scientific and Christian than much of the ID community.

The above hissed in response by: Steelhand [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 10:35 AM

The following hissed in response by: Geoman

Dafydd, So in essence you are saying "Nuh-uh" is not a valid scieitfic argument? Bravo. Funny how many people think that is just not the case.

The above hissed in response by: Geoman [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 11:22 AM

The following hissed in response by: boffo

Regarding your last point, I'm reminded of Richard Feynman's discussion of the beauty of a flower:

"I have a friend who’s an artist and he’s some times taken a view which I don’t agree with very well. He’ll hold up a flower and say, "look how beautiful it is," and I’ll agree, I think. And he says, "you see, I as an artist can see how beautiful this is, but you as a scientist, oh, take this all apart and it becomes a dull thing." And I think he’s kind of nutty.

First of all, the beauty that he sees is available to other people and to me, too, I believe, although I might not be quite as refined aesthetically as he is. But I can appreciate the beauty of a flower.

At the same time, I see much more about the flower that he sees. I could imagine the cells in there, the complicated actions inside which also have a beauty. I mean, it’s not just beauty at this dimension of one centimeter: there is also beauty at a smaller dimension, the inner structure…also the processes.

The fact that the colors in the flower are evolved in order to attract insects to pollinate it is interesting – it means that insects can see the color.

It adds a question – does this aesthetic sense also exist in the lower forms that are…why is it aesthetic, all kinds of interesting questions which a science knowledge only adds to the excitement and mystery and the awe of a flower.

It only adds. I don’t understand how it subtracts."

The above hissed in response by: boffo [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 11:33 AM

The following hissed in response by: John Anderson

ID claims to be different from the older Creationst bunch because it does not invoke [the Judeo-Christian] God, only some undefined Intelligence.

Like the Babylonian god "Mene", the god of chance, perhaps?

I am fairly disgusted with those, like the Creationists, who say on the one hand that God (or ID's "Intelligence") can do anything but on the other hand such cannot "design" a system such as evolution. This seems to me more than a tad hypocritical.

The above hissed in response by: John Anderson [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 2:39 PM

The following hissed in response by: leftnomore

Dafydd, I am no Pentecostal on this subject, and embrace many views of such matters. But your vibrancy on this subject disappoints me, leaving me to assume your Harvard-approved intellect is the basis of other viewpoints as well. What's so difficult to understand that a DESIGN requires a DESIGNER? That's all we're really stating. Life is not random, it is a specific design that could not function if not created as a multitude of mutually-dependent systems. I guess it really is too basic of an understanding to be embraced by braniac elites. If that is a "matter of faith" to you, and disregarded as such, then what do you call Darwinism? Give me a break-- the inconsistency is breathtaking.

The above hissed in response by: leftnomore [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 2:40 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Leftnomore:

First, my intellect has never been approved by Harvard; it was approved by UC Santa Cruz.

Second, if you read carefully (I suspect you did not), you would have noticed that I do not "disregard" the idea that the universe could have a Designer. I'm agnostic, not an atheist.

What I do say is just what Hunter said in a comment to the first post: I don't believe humans can "trap" God or "catch Him" at work... I don't believe there is any scientific evidence of Deity -- and by definition, there can never be.

(Huh? By definition? What does that mean?)

The only way to "prove" the existence of God is to find some circumstance in nature and prove that it could not have arisen by any natural physical law. This is, of course, the approach taken by Michael Behe and the Discovery Institute under the label "irreducible complexity."

But by definition, we don't know what we don't know. Thus, if we don't know how X works, then we also do not know that X cannot be a natural phenomenon. All we can ever know at any moment in time is that we cannot explain X... at that moment in time. We cannot presume to say that our descendents won't understand it perfectly well as a natural phenomenon.

There is never a time when we can scientifically say "There is no possible natural explanation for this behavior," because by definition, we only know what we already know. Thus, there is no time in which the generic argument by design is scientifically logical.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 5:01 PM

The following hissed in response by: ScottM

Speaking for myself, my journey to atheism began when I found that I could not to my own satisfaction reconcile evolution with the doctrine of Original Sin, so I see what the creationists and neo-creationists are afraid of. No matter how many Francis Collinses there are who can jump through the necessary intellectual hoops, there will always be people like me who are unwilling or unable to. Better that people not be encouraged to think about such things.

"You may believe -- I certainly do, Dawkins or no Dawkins -- that civilized morality cannot be supported among mass numbers of people without a societal belief in what Dennis Prager calls 'ethical monotheism'... a single, unitary God, omniscient and omnipotent, whose overriding concern anent human beings is that they treat each other with decency and justice."

Which is why Japan (mostly irreligious and most of the rest Buddhist) is a cesspool of violence, criminality, and evil.

Er...

The above hissed in response by: ScottM [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 5:08 PM

The following hissed in response by: nk

My moment of atheism anticlericalism began when I saw WWII films of Jewish children dead of starvation on German sidewalks and "good Germans" stepping over their dead bodies. "Nicht Juden" -- Jews could not work or run businesses and "good Germans" did not sell them food. And German soldiers had "Gott Mit Uns" engraved on their beltbuckles. I sure as hell would not want preachers, ordained or unordained (like Stein, Medved and Prager), have any temporal power including power over science.

The above hissed in response by: nk [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 25, 2008 5:36 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

ScottM:

"You may believe -- I certainly do, Dawkins or no Dawkins -- that civilized morality cannot be supported among mass numbers of people without a societal belief in what Dennis Prager calls 'ethical monotheism'... a single, unitary God, omniscient and omnipotent, whose overriding concern anent human beings is that they treat each other with decency and justice."

Which is why Japan (mostly irreligious and most of the rest Buddhist) is a cesspool of violence, criminality, and evil.

Er...

Actually, Japan is not "Buddhist" -- nor "irreligious" -- in the sense you imagine. Whether Buddhist, Shinto, Christian, or any religion, an enormous number of Japanese kids learn about "Emma," the Japanese god of what we would call Judgment Day. Emma, king of the underworld, converts the so-called Buddhism of Japan into a functional ethical monotheism... in that good people go to heaven, while evildoers go to hell.

It's easy to underestimate the degree to which Western ideas of religion have infiltrated and altered concepts of Buddhism in Japan (and to a lesser extent India, though traditional Indians still do not have what we would call a Western moral outlook). The trappings of Buddhism persist, but the essence is radically different.

Although Emma is ostensibly Buddhist, the concept flies in the face of what Siddhartha Gautama taught... which was that everything in this world is illusion, and all that matters is achieving nothingness and oneness. Emma is not at all Buddhist in any real sense... and the cultural belief is Emma, not sitting on a lotus leaf and contemplating nonexistence.

To see how different is more or less original Buddhism from Japan's version, the best example is Tibet -- which most certainly does not have what I would call "civilized morality." Among other differences, there is Tibetan fatalism.

As Sam Gamgee says in the movie of the Two Towers, "there are good things in this world and they're worth fighting for." But not to a proper Tibetan monk, who believes in detachment, not active defense of what is good from what is evil.

(Buddhist monks will frequently riot and commit acts of violence to themselves or others; but they do so according to a very different set of values.)

The Japanese example brings up a point: Many cultures are functionally (or de facto) ethical monotheist, even while they're technically (or de jure) something else. The key factor is the belief that there is some "recording angel" who totes up the good and bad in your life, and a "judge" who decides whether you go to the good place or the bad place.

The recording angel cannot be fooled; he watches over you constantly. The judge cannot be bought or bullied; he decides absolutely, and there is no appeal.

That is the distilled essence of ethical monotheism: An absolute right and wrong -- where "right" is defined as being decent and just to your fellow men -- coupled to a divine enforcement mechanism.

  • Because it's ethically based, what matters is how you treat others, not whether you follow the rituals faithfully; thus you cannot worship a "god of jihad" and still be an ethical monotheist.
  • Because it's monotheistic, you cannot create a "god of thieves" (Mercury) or "god of assassination" (Kali) and justify your horrors by saying, "I'm just worshipping as my personal god demands!"

Islam doesn't qualify because decency and justice take a back seat to the rituals of worship; thus they can justify, e.g., breaking into a hospital ward and slaughtering premature babies in their incubators, all in the name of Allah.

In socialist countries, morality is turned on its head: The highest ideal is not the individual but the collective; and if you must kill a few thousand people to stop dissent or protest, you can feel righteous while doing so.

The polytheistic, pantheistic tribes of Africa also have a completely different concept of morality... as witness the grotesque and nearly unimaginable slaughter of Tutsis and Hutus by each other, with people often butchering their neighbor's children with machetes.

There is theory behind the primacy of ethical monotheism: It answers the question, "If you can get away with a crime, and nobody will ever know you commited it, then why not?"

There are always some inherently moral people who do not need to believe in a deity in order to refrain from being criminals or leeches. An inherently moral atheist would be a just, law-abiding, and even decent citizen. But the mass of people are not inherently moral... and they need a supernatural answer to the question above.

Human babies, like other animals, are born selfish sociopaths; we must be taught to be just and decent citizens. Religion that is "ethical monotheist" is the best way to inculcate the beliefs and habits that we call modern Western civilized morality.

By the way, Sachi tells me that belief in Emma is waning in Japan... and the number of vicious, even murderous crimes committed by younger and younger felons is on the rise -- dramatically. So it goes.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 26, 2008 2:28 AM

The following hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare

Dafydd:

I am generally with you on the evidence of a vast period of time during which life evolved to its present state. But I'm not sold on your critique of ID. While I agree that ID isn't "science," I do think it serves a valid purpose by constantly poking holes in evolutionary theory--holes that they have to fill.

Look at it this way, Dafydd: How many branches of science can you name that are absolutely useless as far as gaining new science or technology? Within a few decades of the Special Theory of Relativity, we had nuclear power. When Galileo worked out the value of the acceleration of gravity, he immediately put it to work calculating ballistics for artillery. And what great new discoveries have we had coming directly from the theory of natural selection? I can't think of any. To the extent that there is a "fundamental theory of biology," in the sense that plate tectonics is the "fundamental theory of geology," or Newton's Laws and his law of gravity are fundamental to astronomy, it isn't evolution, but rather Mendel's laws of genetics. I admit I don't have an extensive background in biology, but I have taken college classes in it, and I was struck by one simple fact: the classes made sure we knew (very politely stating this, I might add) that while we were free not to believe in evolution, it was absolutely essential to an understanding of biology (although we were free to think of it as a theory). And yet, they never gave a convincing reason for me to believe it was essential.

So why is evolution theory so useless for the advance of knowledge? It seems the only use it has is for Kossacks to say, "Hah, hah, you believe in creationism, so that means you're stupid and unsexy, and that's why we need gun control." No, my answer isn't that it's obviously false. Rather, I'm inclined to believe that evolutionary science has been inadequately developed, and mainly because as soon as it was postulated, T.H. Huxley seized upon it as a club for political reasons, and thus froze it in place.

I would submit that you have unintentionally made an error in your reasoning. Somehow, you've gone from the (true) statement that ID isn't science, to the (totally unproven) statement that there is no "God of the gaps." In fact, we have no proof that He didn't effect every change of species by sending in angels to personally perform genetic surgery on cell nuclei and mitochondria. It doesn't fit Occam's razor, but we don't have proof.

You seem to suggest that there are only four possible answers:

1. There is no God. The universe is nothing but chance and physical laws. Call this one the Dawkins hypothesis.

2. There is a God, and He micromanages everything that we can't right now explain. Call this the "Hillary God" hypothesis.

3. There is a God, but He no longer is involved because He is infinitely competent and worked everything out to the last detail, so now He just watches everything go exactly as planned. Call this the "Tiger Woods God."

4. There is a God, but He no longer involved because He is infinitely incompetent, and now He watches helplessly as the Universe destroys itself. Call this the "Jimmy Carter God."

I would submit that there is a fifth possibility:

5. There is a God, and he did his homework and set up the Universe much as planned. Nevertheless, there are many glitches, and he intervenes--sparingly--to fix them, trying to use physical laws whenever possible. Call this the "Reagan God."

Hope that wasn't too blasphemous...

Anyway, another point of disagreement I have is with your belief that ID can't be verified. In fact, I believe this is the major point of disagreement on this issue. At least the most knowledgeable ID'ers don't claim that there has been, so far, proof of design. They merely claim it's possible, and worth looking for. And I find it hard to disagree. Look at it this way: if a woman is found dead, forensics can determine if there was "intelligent design" (murder), or just chance. Why, given more sophisticated tools, can't we determine the same for natural phenomena?

And yes, Stein's movie does seem to be massively unfair--which no more proves ID wrong than the fact that Fahrenheit 911 was evil garbage settled the rightness of the Iraq War. (I actually believe, for the record, that the invasion of Iraq was the best choice--but not because the MooreOn opposed it, and there are legitimate arguments for the other side.)

The above hissed in response by: Reid's Worst Nightmare [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 26, 2008 8:08 AM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

Dafydd Wrote;

There is never a time when we can scientifically say "There is no possible natural explanation for this behavior," because by definition, we only know what we already know. Thus, there is no time in which the generic argument by design is scientifically logical.

Congratulations Dafydd, once again you've managed to erect the same old tired straw man and beat him back down again. You'd think eventually you'd realize you're arguing with yourself and that no one is disagreeing with you on this point.

This is why only the critics of ID say that ID somehow is looking for God. As a matter of fact, the arguments are somewhat silly as the critic proclaims, "You can't prove God with science!" and the ID Proponent responds, "You're right, therefore we're not trying to do that." and then the critic responds, "Then who is the designer?" and the ID Proponent responds, "We don't know, nor are we looking." and the critic responds, "AHA!!"

Very strange, I know, but this conversation takes place over and over again.

Like I said before and i'll repeat here, ID is not looking to prove the existence of anything supernatural (IE: Not natural) as Dafydd's strawman insists. Instead, ID is out to demonstrate that in nature we can find evidence for Intelligent Design.

Someone like Dafydd will answer that with a big fat, "Duh!" nature = natural, intelligent design = supernatural, therefore, can't be done.

I'd say he's forcing his philosophy down our throats without backing it up with argument.

There is no scientifically valid reason why one could not find design in nature accept that one refuses to look for it.

If you can find intelligent design outside of nature then it should be possible to find it in nature, unless your philosophical outlook will not allow you, from the very outset, to go looking for it.

And i'm here to tell you that we can use science to detect intelligently designed things. This is the purpose of forensic science. This is what SETI is attempting to do all the time in their search for martians.

So yes, it is not possible to use science to test the supernatural as Dafydd claims and no one is disagreeing with him. Keep setting up that strawman dafydd, you'll win that argument with yourself all day long.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 26, 2008 5:27 PM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

There are four significant holes in evolutionary theory (three of which, no explanations for the origin of life, chirality, and the simultaneity of all animal phylae, I will not address here)

There is a fairly simple experiment which needs to be done which would on one hand cause all opposition to Evolutionary theory to collapse and on the other cause a deep rethinking of Evolutionary theory.

The experiment: Find a critter. The criteria are that it should be short-lived, easy to sex, reproduces quickly (preferably within a day of hatching), easy and cheap to feed, small. Perhaps the fruitfly would do.

Take a population. Divide it in thirds. Keep a third as a reservoir in an ideal habitat. For the other two-thirds, provide a low-level radiation source. Split that two-thirds in half. For one half make their habitat hotter, wetter, lighter, more acidic, etc. For the other half, make their habitat, colder, dryer, darker, more basic, etc. Push the characteristics pretty hard, such that the populations fall drastically and then recover.

After some number of generations mix the boys from one of the harsh habitats with the girls from the other and vice-versa. See if they can reproduce. If they cannot, then evolutionary speciation has been proved possible. Then also see if they can successfully mate with the reservoir population. If they cannot, then evolutionary speciation has not only been proved possible, but been shown. This would spell the end to all objection to Evolutionary theory.

The math exists to predict how long this should take. It has been done by the biologists who have disproved the insufficient time argument of the creationists. Assume that the math says that there should be speciation by 70 days at a 50% level of likelihood and by 250 days with a 99% level of likelihood.

At about day 300, if speciation has not occurred, two things must happen. The design of the experiment must be very carefully looked at. Thought would have to be given to the idea that speciation is very poorly understood.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 27, 2008 8:10 AM

The following hissed in response by: JGUNS

There is information underlying everything in creation. There is no explanation for that. Darwinism has never shown evolution BETWEEN species in the fossil record for ANY species. It also can't account for the beginning of the species. ID doesn't purport to be "science" in an of itself, merely a hypothesis, no different than any darwinian hypothesis which can't be "proven" according to your definition above. Physics has far "crazier" assumptions than anything being discussed here, and in fact whenyou get into it further, it sounds more metaphysical than physical. I ask you to read the "hidden face of God" by shroeder and you might get what i am talking about. Have you ever heard of the famous double slit experiment? Look it up, that cannot be explained by science either... the fact that light beams can act as either particle or waves depending on the VIEWERS PERCEPTION. I am sorry Dafydd, but you are wrong. YOu don't understand what ID is, and in 10-20 years when mainstream science HAS TO ACCEPT that Darwin's theory has major flaws and holes, then maybe you will come along. BTW, nobody is saying that evolution didn't exist... merely that there are a lot of holes in the theory when one tries to apply it to all the diversification of life. Couple that with some pretty hard physics rules and it is completely outdated. My uncle is one of the most prominent physicists today, My father has a PHD in Chemistry AND physics. Both of them tend to believe in some sort of higher power. Physics opens the doorway to the metaphysical, and after all what is the metaphysical but that which cannot be explained by observable science. Just cause you can't see it doesn't mean it isnt there...can anyone say GRAVITY?

The above hissed in response by: JGUNS [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 27, 2008 8:51 AM

The following hissed in response by: Karl

As I mention at my blog, I've watched "fit the Seventh" in action. (Aside: If eight fits add up to an agony, what do nine make -- a torment? Just a quick snark.)

On the Debunk Creation mailing list, we had a creationist come in loaded for bear, ready to slay the evil-oootionists. Unlike virtually every other creationist who came to the list, he actually listened when people explained why his "facts" were wrong.

Alas, after he had realized that his creationist teachers had lied to him about science, he concluded they had lied to him about everything else -- including theology.

He has since become a fairly militant atheist.
If God cares about losing members of the flock, those "teachers" will have some 'splainin' to do.

The above hissed in response by: Karl [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 27, 2008 11:46 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Levi from Queens:

There are four significant holes in evolutionary theory (three of which, no explanations for the origin of life, chirality, and the simultaneity of all animal phylae, I will not address here)

Again, by "holes" you mean questions that you, personally, are unable to explain; not questions that are inexplicable. In other words, Argument by Personal Incredulity.

You have not presented any evidence that such so-called holes are unfillable by traditional evolutionary theory; yet unfillability is vital to ID's argument. It's obvious even to ID proponents like Phillip Johnson and Michael Behe that merely saying "we don't know yet how X happened" does not allow you to conclude "therefore X could not have happened naturally, and there must have been an intelligent Designer."

This is precisely the danger Collins warns against: Mistaking the unknown for the unknowable.

But let's get to your holes, then your proposed experiment...

Origins of life and handedness: Much exciting work is being done on this, though the field is still in its infancy.

A note on hypotheses: A hypotheses is scientific when it meets the criteria listed above under Fit the Sixth... the famous five-pronged test. The effort to craft a fully scientific hypothesis is precisely what "engaging in science" means.

Initially, speculation may not be falsifiable, in that those creating it may not yet have identified ways in which it could be tested. But if that's what the originators ultimately are trying to do -- to find ways to fully test a speculation and turn it into a full-blown hypothesis, and eventually into a theory, if the tests are performed and the results are as the originators hoped -- then that constitutes science.

This is something ID has never even attempted.

The crystal hypothesis suggested by Dawkins is extremely promising, for example. It will be some years before all its various components can be tested... but moving in that direction is certainly engaging in science (as opposed to whatever it is that ID does).

Here is a blogsite by some young Brit that does the best job of explaining what is currently believed about clay/crystal genetics than any other I've seen; note that the hypothesis not only would explain the origin of life (reproducing organic molecules) out of non-life -- non-reproducing organic molecules (meaning carbon-hydrogen-oxygen monomers and polymers)... it also explains the origin of handedness, or to use the technical term (as you did), chirality.

As you can plainly see, there are many, many elements of this hypothesis that are testable, in the "Fit the Sixth" manner. (Note also the treasure trove of references you can find in a library and read, if you're really interested in the possible origin of life from non-life.)

Simultaneity of phyla: The only putative "hole" here is that you can't understand how the major phyla could have naturally evolved in the time frame in which they are thought to evolve... therefore you conclude they could not have done, and there must have been a guiding intelligence.

This is hardly a very convincing hole; in fact, it is yet another instance of Argument by Personal Incredulity.

There is nothing magical about the organization into phyla that taxonomy produces; they're just evolutionary adaptations, like every other difference. Current evolutionary theory posits that it occurred in fits and starts, not smoothly, as Darwin and many others imagined.

Why is that any more or less credible a model as any other? It's credibility is determined by its relationship to the data... not by its relationship to what you or anyone else expected.

Finally, we come to your proposed experiment:

There is a fairly simple experiment which needs to be done which would on one hand cause all opposition to Evolutionary theory to collapse and on the other cause a deep rethinking of Evolutionary theory.

Nonsense; it wouldn't cause any collapse of ID whatsoever.

Look, your whole experiment is simply to show non-directed speciation occuring today at rates we can directly observe. But that happens all the time anyway:

  • There is a species of bacteria that lives on jet fuel/rocket fuel; it clearly did not exist in the 19th century.
  • Every year, there are new species of viruses, which is why you can catch a cold every year, rather than catching a cold once and being forever immune. (The surface proteins are different, thus the leukocytes cannot recognize them as invaders; different surface proteins means a different species.)

None of this has even impressed supporters of ID, let alone caused them to abandon their faith in it... likely because they are totally unaware of it, or indeed the vast panoply of work in genetics and biology in general.

That said, doesn't this experiment satisfy your criteria exactly?

Abstract: Ecological speciation hypotheses claim that assortative mating evolves as a consequence of divergent natural selection for ecologically important traits. Reproductive isolation is expected to be particularly likely to evolve by this mechanism in species such as phytophagous insects that mate in the habitats in which they eat. We tested this expectation by monitoring the evolution of reproductive isolation in laboratory populations of an RNA virus that undergoes genetic exchange only when multiple virus genotypes coinfect the same host. We subjected four populations of the RNA bacteriophage phi6 to 150 generations of natural selection on a novel host. Although there was no direct selection acting on host range in our experiment, three of the four populations lost the ability to infect one or more alternative hosts. In the most extreme case, one of the populations evolved a host range that does not contain any of the hosts infectible by the wild-type phi6. Whole genome sequencing confirmed that the resulting reproductive isolation was due to a single nucleotide change, highlighting the ease with which an emerging RNA virus can decouple its evolutionary fate from that of its ancestor. Our results uniquely demonstrate the evolution of reproductive isolation in allopatric experimental populations. Furthermore, our data confirm the biological credibility of simple "no-gene" mechanisms of assortative mating, in which this trait arises as a pleiotropic effect of genes responsible for ecological adaptation.

I predict ID will remain unmoved even by this direct example of the exact sort of experiment you call for... because Intelligent Design is neither tentative nor falsifiable. Contrary evidence has no effect when a conjecture is not based upon evidence.

Or as Ronald Reagan put it (though I don't have the exact quote), you cannot reason a person out of a position he was never reasoned into in the first place.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 27, 2008 2:57 PM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

Daffyd, you mistook my meaning. All theories have difficulties which is why it is still worthwhile to train scientists to work at those holes. I did not mean to imply disbelief in evolution, just that there are areas of evolution needing hard scientific work..

You completely mistook my meaning of the remark on the essentially simultaneous existence of all animal phylae. "therefore you conclude they could not have done, and there must have been a guiding intelligence." I concluded no such thing.

The problem is not so much that the phylae appeared in such a short geological twinkling, but that no more have evolved. It feels to me that a theory of species formation should have some explanation as to why no new phylae. It is an inelegance and needs to be worked at.

Speciation requires an inability to mate fertilely with the prior species. The experiments you cited did not do that. Any creationist will admit that characteristics change. The suggested experiment would I believe end virtually all creationism, as it would have falsified one of its tenets. It also has the value that it could conceivably falsify a tenet of evolution.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 27, 2008 5:47 PM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

Looking back at my original post, I can see how Mr. Lizard could have mistook my meaning. I shall try to be clearer in the future.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 6:02 AM

The following hissed in response by: Fritz

Dafydd, you are flogging a dead horse. Now I have no problems with you doing so--and have enjoyed both of your posts on the subject and the resulting comments--if you enjoy taking the time to continue the flogging, but those who believe in ID will likely never change their beliefs because they believe it as a matter of faith and faith will not bow to reason or logic. After all, faith causes supposedly intelligent people to twist logic in pretzel like ways in an attempt to explain their beliefs and ID is only one of many topics where that is observable. Yes, you can win debates with them on such topics if you are willing to spend sufficient time and effort, but that will not convince them and they will continue to believe and will be bitter at you for exposing what even they know are illogical beliefs.

The above hissed in response by: Fritz [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 10:38 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Kari,
The problem of your friend and his reaction to learning the evolution is real at the cost of his faith is that he listened to people who mistake the map for the territory.
Augustine warned against this over 1000 years ago.
He recognized even then that faith must be informed by reason. That theological interpretation must follow reason, if it is to remain relevant.
The catholic church ahs been praciticing that better in recent generations than some of the protestant denominations, accepting evolution, an ancient universe, etc.
the Church has been able to thrive in this environment.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 11:01 AM

The following hissed in response by: Michael Babbitt

The question I have been wrestling with lately is this: Why would any entity want to survive? It defines life but if a universe was random and run by chance and even pseudo-mechanistic, why would you have entities wanting to survive, to go on? Is this a form of inertia -- the tendency of bodies to stay in motion? Wanting to survive, to live, is the oddest fact of all to me. How or why would this develop? I have not a clue as to its answer. It is the most convincing fact to me for the existence of a God.

The above hissed in response by: Michael Babbitt [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 12:16 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Levi from Queens:

Dafydd, you mistook my meaning. All theories have difficulties which is why it is still worthwhile to train scientists to work at those holes. I did not mean to imply disbelief in evolution, just that there are areas of evolution needing hard scientific work..

Levi, if that is all that you are saying -- that there are holes in evolutionary theory where scientists do not know exactly how this or that element happened -- and that they should continue working on it, then of course I would agree with that. And so would every biologist on the planet.

As to whether the appearance of the phyla is one of those holes, not being a biologist, I cannot say. But the key is that scientists need to work on any such holes, and that such work should proceed scientifically, using the methodology and definitions of science, not faith.

Of course, this lets out the Discovery Institute and all of the ID proponents that I have read so far.

Speciation requires an inability to mate fertilely with the prior species. The experiments you cited did not do that.

Because viruses do not reproduce sexually does not mean they're not divided into different species; of course they are. And in this experiment, different species evolved -- distinguished by DNA and by morphology, such as external proteins -- during the experiment by purely natural causes.

At one time, creationists said there had been no evolution at all. Then they said,
"Okay, maybe there was some evolution within species, but certainly no new species ever evolved." Is the argument now going to be, "Sure, maybe very simple species can evolve -- but certainly not complex species!"

And if we find experiments (which may very well have been conducted; I'm not going to spend any more time on this) in which new insect species evolved over the course of it, will the new claim be, "All right, maybe invertibrates... but surely nothing with a spine!"

You asked for an example of a new species evolving naturally under controlled circumstances. I gave you one that I found with about two minutes of Googling. You dismissed it with a single sentence because it wasn't the right kind of new species. I think that was rather glib of you.

Fritz:

[T]hose who believe in ID will likely never change their beliefs because they believe it as a matter of faith and faith will not bow to reason or logic.

That was a major point of my review/response; what I have been doing since is allowing those who support ID (that group may or may not include Levi; he hasn't yet said) to prove my contention by their own words.

Michael Babbitt:

The question I have been wrestling with lately is this: Why would any entity want to survive? It defines life but if a universe was random and run by chance and even pseudo-mechanistic, why would you have entities wanting to survive, to go on?

That is actually the easiest thing in the world to answer: simple evolution.

Let's say you have two groups of creatures, for sake of argument: Group A, members of which strongly want to survive -- by which I mean "undertake survival actions," such as "eating" and reproducing; I don't imply any self-consciousness -- and Group B, members of which are indifferent to their own survival.

Which do you think is more likely to survive? And if (as I suspect) you see that would be Group A, then in short order, Group-A creatures would dominate the entirety of life, having squeezed out their indifferent neighbors.

This would begin applying right with the very first reproducing organism, billions of years ago: Those that had enough interest to survive long enough to reproduce themselves several times would quickly outstrip those which did not.

We -- and by "we," I mean people, polar bears, petunias, and prokaryotes -- are all descended from Group-A ancestors.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 1:54 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

I predict ID will remain unmoved even by this direct example of the exact sort of experiment you call for... because Intelligent Design is neither tentative nor falsifiable. Contrary evidence has no effect when a conjecture is not based upon evidence.

Of course, you base this assertion off of your previous statement of why ID is not falsifiable:

ID invokes a cause -- the "Designer" -- that not only cannot be measured today, He, She, It, or They would actually exist outside the physical universe itself, if exist the Designer did. Therefore, it is definitely not falsifiable, either; how could any experiment imaginable disprove the existence of a designer who is, by definition, outside the entire spacetime continuum and operates according to laws far beyond all physical laws that humans can detect?

But ive already answered this charge and you've failed to refute it. Philosophy has developed out of Darwins theories (As pointed out in the movie) but this doesn't have anything to do with the science of Darwinism. You and I would agree on that I think. If Darwinism is true it doesn't mean it is at fault for Eugenics, etc. The same is true of philosophies that develop out of ID, such as that a Designer must be supernatural, as you say (Without any sort of evidence) by definition. Why couldn't the designer have been designed, etc? Let's do a thought expirement Dafydd, who designed Stonehenge?

Just as we can tell that Stonehenge was designed so to we can tell that we were designed. Just because we can't say, "And here is the designer" does not mean a thing wasn't designed.

Another thing about your charge of falsifiability.Supposedly Darwins theories are Falsifiable. Behe asks;

A weak point of Darwinian theory is its resistance to falsification. What experimental evidence could possibly be found that would falsify the contention that complex molecular machines evolved by a Darwinian mechanism?

But he does provide some falsification for Darwinism, it's called Irreducible Complexity. Darwin wrote:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

This is where Behe picked up Irreducible Complexity. And this is where folks like evolutionary biologist Ken Miller disagree with you Dafydd, as they attempt to falsify ID by claiming that Behe's example of the flagellum could have evolved by a Darwinian mechanism.

Although, i'd like to play the same game here that your commentors play so i'll end by quoting them in hopes to throw their obsurdity back into their own faces.

After all, faith causes supposedly intelligent people to twist logic in pretzel like ways in an attempt to explain their beliefs and Darwinsim is only one of many topics where that is observable. Yes, you can win debates with them on such topics if you are willing to spend sufficient time and effort, but that will not convince them and they will continue to believe and will be bitter at you for exposing what even they know are illogical beliefs.

See what I did there? Clever, but not really helpful. You said the same thing above:

I predict ID will remain unmoved even by this direct example of the exact sort of experiment you call for... because Intelligent Design is neither tentative nor falsifiable. Contrary evidence has no effect when a conjecture is not based upon evidence.

Yes, well, perhaps I should make the same prediction about Darwinists, but where, exactly, do such predictions get us?

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 2:22 PM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

It is not clear that viruses meet the definition of life.

To put up an analogy, red hair is a recent occurrence in humanity. I married a russet-haired Irish lass. She is in fact not a different species from me or from you.

No experiment which you have cited has shown a new species in a sexually-reproducing creature. I will draw the line right there from sponge to Paris Hilton.

Find me an insect, a flatworm, a bird, a bat who has clearly evolved in a controlled environment, and you will utterly collapse creationism.

Sometimes Mr. Lizard, I feel you speak more as a lawyer than as a scientist. As somebody who has been taught to think both as a lawyer and a scientist, thinking like a lawyer is not all that much like thinking.

Mr. Lizard did provide the obvious and complete answer to Mr. Babbitt.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 2:33 PM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

Dayfydd,
The clay/crystal paper is interesting, but it is a raw speculation. It literally has nothing to offer by way of evidence. And no offense to the authors, but the bridge from mud(dust)-to-life they offer is no more credible, and much less poetic, than the one in Genesis.
As to the desire to live, I suggest checking into what Rudy Rucker has written on cellular automata.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 2:51 PM

The following hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black

Some of the commenters here demonstrate a profound ignorance of evolution. That in itself isn't a bad thing -- we're all ignorant of most subjects outside our own profession. What's surprising and disturbing is the willingness of the ignorant to judge the theory of evolution and the scientists who study it. The fact that the anti-evolutionists posting here could answer their doubts with a few minutes of googling is even more troubling, as it demonstrates a certain intellectual laziness.

If you want examples of observed instances of speciation, google "observed speciation". Click the first link. Enjoy.

If think evolution can't be falsified, ask google, "what would falsify evolution?". Click the first link. Enjoy.

Etc, etc...


The above hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 6:12 PM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

The individual in the movie who asserted that there was no free will was not a biologist but a historian of science. His name is Will Provine and he is a professor at Cornell

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 6:24 PM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

Hunter, abiogenesis is something that is an active area of research and we really don't know much about it at this point in time. That isn't a problem for evolution since evolution describes what happened after there was more or less life as we know it.

To anyone claiming that speciation hasn't been observed, one thing that is fascinating about this claim is that even the Young Earth Creationists who are reasonably intelligent try not to make this argument. Answers in Genesis, one of the largest YEC ministries on the planet lists this as one of the arguments creationists should not use.

If you want specific examples of observed speciation, frankly we've seen them for over a hundred years. Speciation of Oenothera gigas from O. lamarckiana was observed in 1905 and is as far as I'm aware the oldest observed speciation event.

Deliberately inducing speciation in a lab envrionment has also been done for a long time. In the late 1960s, there was a series of experiments which succeeded in making an essentially new species of corn.

One very cool cause for speciation that has only been discovered in the last few years is speciation due to parasitism. Wolbachia is the classic example of this. In this case we don't yet have any examples where we've observed the actual speciation event but the genetic history and the behavior of Wolbachia makes it very clear what has happened.

There is an important point to note: the precise definition of species is not always clear. The traditional highschool biology definition breaks down when one considers examples like ring species (where group A can interbreed to produce fertile offspring with group B and same with B and C but A cannot do so with C. (These are in fact examples of amount to speciation in progress since if B goes extinct A and C will be genetically isolated from each other)). Furthermore, many closely related species are not in fact fully infertile. For example, horses and donkeys are separate species even though a small fraction of mules are able to breed. Thus, one needs to be careful about whether something is in fact a speciation event under the definition that one cares about.

If anyone is interested, I can provide relevant references for any of this work or for other examples, but frankly most of this is pretty easily googlable.

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 7:45 PM

The following hissed in response by: DamianP

Observed Instances of Speciation, including: from the Fruit Fly Literature, Housefly Speciation Experiments, Flour Beetles (Tribolium castaneum) and Speciation in a Lab Rat Worm, Nereis acuminata, as well as many examples of plant speciation.

Faeroe Island house mouse:

"Rapid speciation of the Faeroe Island house mouse, which occurred in less than 250 years after man brought the creature to the island."

(Test for speciation in this case is based on morphology. It is unlikely that forced breeding experiments have been performed with the parent stock.)

Source: Stanley, S., 1979. Macroevolution: Pattern and Process, San Francisco, W.H. Freeman and Company. p. 41

Cichlid fish:

"Formation of five new species of cichlid fishes which formed since they were isolated less than 4000 years ago from the parent stock, Lake Nagubago."

(Test for speciation in this case is by morphology and lack of natural interbreeding. These fish have complex mating rituals and different coloration. While it might be possible that different species are inter-fertile, they cannot be convinced to mate.)

Source: Mayr, E., 1970. Populations, Species, and Evolution, Massachusetts, Harvard University Press. p. 348

Source.

These are all old examples, as well. They have been known about -- and ignored -- for 20-30 years.

More recent examples -- Ring Species: Unusual Demonstrations of Speciation, including Ensatina salamanders and Greenish warblers (Phylloscopus trochiloides).

Does anyone need any more? This really is easy to find, as well as understand, if you are willing to put just a little effort in to it.

That was an excellent review of the issue, Dafydd. I would strongly disagree about the necessity of a belief in something watching over us, though. Very few people in western Europe actually believe in anything of the sort, and they tend to out-perform most other countries (including the deeply religious US) concerning a whole range of ethical issues. It is true that we cannot escape our Christian heritage (and nor would we want to), but I can say from experience that very few people actually believe that they will face judgment of any kind.

And don't get me started on The Euthyphro dilemma ("Is what is moral commanded by God because it is moral, or is it moral because it is commanded by God?"), which undermines any kind of divine command theory. It is safe to say that I am still to hear a satisfactory solution to the problems that it presents concerning a morality as instructed by God. As I always say, there are no easy answers to the question of morality, and I wish that people would stop looking for them, to be honest. We are all in the same boat, regardless of what we believe. Whether you are instructed by a holy book, by the feeling of something watching over you, or by natural empathy and reading secular moral philosophy, it is still incumbent on the individual to act in a proper manner. I fail to understand how people cannot see that.

Some would even say that it is the realization that we are on our own that has lead to the advancements in the last 50 years, or so. Although, then we would have to define what morality actually is, as many religious believers -- despite the unimaginable advancements -- would suggest that we have gone backwards. That is something that I would argue against all day long. The vast, vast majority of people are far better off in Britain today, than they were just half a century ago. That has had little to do with religion, in my experience, and it is certainly not due to a fear of judgment, or a feeling of being watched over. That is simply a complication of an issue that need not be complicated, in my opinion.

I would also urge you to at least pick up a book on the evolutionary origins of altruism, and morality in general. Of course, we must be careful when considering this fairly recent research, as it is all too easy to pretend that it explains more than it actually does, but it is at least an attempt to explain why we wish to behave in the way that we do.

The above hissed in response by: DamianP [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 28, 2008 8:39 PM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 12:52 AM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

"...abiogenesis ... isn't a problem for evolution since evolution describes what happened after there was more or less life as we know it." -- joshuahZ

Nice try, joshuahZ, but it is a MAJOR problem. You can't just say, on faith, that, because it obviously happened, it must certainly have happened your way. To say it, you must be able to trace the process in some detail at a molecular level, which I guarantee that, since no one else can, neither can you.

So, like all other neo-D types, you skip the hard part and then try to pass off micro-evolution as macro. Unfortunately, if your so-called "speciation" events are examined critically, they will be found to be nothing more than micro-evolution (no new information introduced, and possibly even some lost in the process), as opposed to macro-evolution (new information added to the gene-pool without any loss that offsets it). Remember, just because your "evidence" is suggestive to a credulous mind, that does not make it fact.

There just isn't enough time to debunk EVERY nonsensical claim that's made which allegedly supports such nonsense, so ... since you say "If anyone is interested, I can provide relevant references for any of this work or for other examples,..." all I can say is, "give it your best shot." And make it just one, or at most two, of what you think are absolutely unquestionable examples that prove without any doubt what you assert.

Ball is in your court, joshuahZ.

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 1:32 AM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

Oh, and one more thing, j.Z., do NOT just give me links without showing me you KNOW why they are relevant. Pretend I don't know, or can't learn enough on my own, to understand them, and so you have to define the evolutionary principal they illustrate, and then show clearly how they do in fact illustrate it.

Then, if I am able, I'll show where you are wrong. But I won't bother if all you do is throw random information at me. Been there, done that - big waste of time talking to someone who isn't listening.

Of course, that still won't address the issue raised by Ben Stein's movie, which is that the Macro-Evolutionists are suppressing information that challenges their unproven dogma, so if you could also address that it would be nice, although since it isn't what I'm calling you on, I won't hold it against you if you don't.

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 2:02 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Baggi:

Philosophy has developed out of Darwins theories (As pointed out in the movie) but this doesn't have anything to do with the science of Darwinism.

There is no science called "Darwinism."

The same is true of philosophies that develop out of ID, such as that a Designer must be supernatural, as you say (Without any sort of evidence) by definition.

If you claim we were designed by a natural entity, then did that entity evolve? If so, you have admitted the entire science of evolutionary biology.

If not, your two choices are:

  • The designer was himself designed;
  • The Designer is supernatural.

If the designer was himself designed, then you have simply pushed everything back one notch; wash, rinse, repeat.

If the Designer is supernatural, my case is proven.

Quod erat demonstrandum.

Why couldn't the designer have been designed, etc? Let's do a thought expirement Dafydd, who designed Stonehenge?

Just as we can tell that Stonehenge was designed so to we can tell that we were designed. Just because we can't say, "And here is the designer" does not mean a thing wasn't designed.

But we can say "here is the designer;" we know that Stonehenge was designed by the human beings who lived at that time. We can tell exactly what sort of tools were used to shape the stones, and we know how the stones were moved to that location. We know that humans of that time in other places had sufficient astronomical knowledge to design objects like Stonehenge. We can examine the bones of workers or sacrifices who were buried in the holes surrounding Stonehenge.

We know plenty about who designed Stonehenge; and what we do not know is simply the specific questions of which ordinary human did what... we don't know who exactly put the Rose Law Firm billing records in the residence section of the White House -- but we certainly know it was a human being, not Bigfoot.

ID gives us nothing at all about their alleged "designer;" and by the very nature of the supposed design -- creating the bacterial flagellum from scratch and somehow genetically engineering bacteria to perform a higher-level function than it had ever performed before -- the designer would have to have near godlike powers.

But there is no evidence external to ID's claims that any such beings existed or were on Earth. Thus the entire shebang is based upon the cockamamie conjectures of ID... unlike your Stonehenge example.

Falsifiability of established evolutionary theory:

It's falsifiable in so many ways, it's almost impossible to count. Here are a couple...

  • Under evolutionary theory that long predates Crick and Watson's discovery of DNA, every living creature descended from a common ancestor. Thus, had some living creatures had a completely different DNA code -- using other amino acids, for example, or a different meaning for specific sequences -- then that would have falsified evolutionary theory.

    Of course, after DNA was discovered and measured by scientists, they found that DNA followed the same code in every living being... just as evolutionary theory predicted.
  • Biochemists have mathematically estimated how long it would take for evolution to occur (I'm referring to calculations starting from Organism 1 to the organisms today).

    Had the Earth turned out, according to radiometric dating that was a hundred years in the future, to be as young as people used to think -- or at least much younger than evolution would require -- that would have tossed evolutionary theory into a cocked hat.

    Amazingly enough, the observations from nuclear physics, astronomy, astrophysics, and biology -- all measured separately, using distinct processes, widely dispersed in time -- all agreed very closely with each other.

Finally, you mention Darwin's own quote:

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down.

Is there a reason you failed to quote his very next sentence in the Origin of Species? You'll find it in Chapter 6, under the heading "Modes of Transmission":

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

You try to use this to indict evolutionary theory by citing Behe's claims of "irreducible complexity," while completely ignoring the fact that all of Behe's examples have been reductively explained. Isn't this exactly what I predicted?

Levi from Queens:

Find me an insect, a flatworm, a bird, a bat who has clearly evolved in a controlled environment, and you will utterly collapse creationism.

I am not interested in playing reductio ad infinitum. It's not up to me (or even to some evolutionary scientist) to spend years constructing the perfect experiment to "collapse" creationism. It's up to creationists to come up with actual scientific theories to supplant evolutionary theory.

That said, read below; exactly the experiment you demand has been performed and speciation witnessed... scores of times. I have not noticed that this "collapsed" Intelligent Design; so far as I can tell, they have never even responded to this point.

My prediction of how ID would actually react -- made before I realized how many examples there were -- is thus vindicated. Hence, I refer you to the last stanza of "Father William," by Lewis Carroll.

Z.Z.Black:

The first link I get Googling "observed.speciation" is this FAQ; starting at section 5.3, the FAQ recounts numerous examples of non-human-induced insect speciation observed in the laboratory or in the wild.

Is Levi from Queens reading?

DamianP:

I would strongly disagree about the necessity of a belief in something watching over us, though. Very few people in western Europe actually believe in anything of the sort, and they tend to out-perform most other countries (including the deeply religious US) concerning a whole range of ethical issues.

Rather depends on what you define as an "ethical issue," doesn't it? For example, many such comparisons I've seen include, e.g., socialized medicine and restrictions on the accumulation of wealth among those areas where Europeans are more "ethical" than Americans.

Another example: Countries such as Sweden and Japan have much lower homicide rates than we (though that has been changing lately)... but they continue to have much, much higher suicide rates, even discounting the differing definitions of homicide and suicide in cases where parents first kill their children, then themselves.

When I say "Western morality," I refer specifically to that branch of it that percolated through the English speaking peoples of Europe and North America (and a few other places, such as Hong Kong and Grenada) prior to the intrusive morality of the EU.

I believe this to be the finest example of ethics and morality ever produced by the mind of Man. It includes individual liberty, democracy, Capitalism, freedom of speech (where you counter speech you don't like with your own verbal response, rather than with bombs), personal responsibility, a strong nuclear family, separation of governmental powers (including a strong and independent judiciary), a love of literature, art, and science, and so forth.

Other cultures include some-but-not-all of these.

It is true that we cannot escape our Christian heritage (and nor would we want to), but I can say from experience that very few people actually believe that they will face judgment of any kind.

I disagree: What one consciously believes is not so important to ethics as what one subconsciously accepts... including the sneaking suspicion that there's One who sees everything you do. (Bear in mind, I speak as a very hard-core agnostic.)

It is safe to say that I am still to hear a satisfactory solution to the problems that it presents concerning a morality as instructed by God.

It doesn't affect my point, because I'm neutral on whether the Bible was dictated by God or simply written by humans who believed that God spoke to them through their conscience. I'm talking about what people are taught (often inadvertently) and still believe (albeit subconsciously).

Still, on a larger canvas, contrast Europe, upper North America, and other former European colonies, and the behavior therein, with behavior in the ummah, in sub-Saharan Africa, and among indiginous peoples in South America, Pacific Islands, and so forth. The differences are stark -- and very few of us would fail to make a heirarchical moral distinction.

There is a certain ethnocentrism, of course; but pure cultural relativism is an absurdity. Among other contradictions, it requires one to be tolerant of absolute intolerance.

And even when there are eruptions of gross immorality or amorality within (for want of a better term) Christendom, such as the Nazis or the Communists, the reaction of the rest of Christendom is to violently suppress the deviants.

The morality-based anti-slavery movement arose here (the West), and nowhere else; same with the morality-based anti-racism movement, anti-sexism, post-Dark Ages modern science, and so forth. Much of this was later exported to the rest of the world, with greater or lesser success; but the epicenter is in the West, not the East, the ummah, or among non-Western natives.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 2:57 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Yonason:

There just isn't enough time to debunk EVERY nonsensical claim that's made which allegedly supports such nonsense...

Or evidently, even enough time to debunk a single evolutionary claim!

All this nonsense about "microevolution" vs. "macroevolution" and "no new information introduced" is a perfect example of moving the goalposts.

Levi from Queens demanded examples of observed speciation; JoshuaZ and Z.Z.Black linked to numerous examples. Levi has been answered.

If you want to open up a new front, based upon your idiosyncratic definition of "new information," then please define your terms and go to town. But don't try to claim that Levi was not answered, because he assuredly was.

Of course, that still won't address the issue raised by Ben Stein's movie, which is that the Macro-Evolutionists are suppressing information that challenges their unproven dogma, so if you could also address that it would be nice, although since it isn't what I'm calling you on, I won't hold it against you if you don't.

Do you hold it against me that I already did address this, at some length, in these two posts themselves?

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 3:05 AM

The following hissed in response by: DamianP

yonason said:

Nice try, joshuahZ, but it is a MAJOR problem. You can't just say, on faith, that, because it obviously happened, it must certainly have happened your way. To say it, you must be able to trace the process in some detail at a molecular level, which I guarantee that, since no one else can, neither can you.

So, like all other neo-D types, you skip the hard part and then try to pass off micro-evolution as macro. Unfortunately, if your so-called "speciation" events are examined critically, they will be found to be nothing more than micro-evolution (no new information introduced, and possibly even some lost in the process), as opposed to macro-evolution (new information added to the gene-pool without any loss that offsets it). Remember, just because your "evidence" is suggestive to a credulous mind, that does not make it fact.

You seem to be slightly confused, here. Abiogenesis is not the same thing as MET, and it never has been. With all due respect, you don't get to decide what is what. And it only illustrates the intellectual honesty of the scientific enterprise. We cannot say for sure how life first arose, and we are quite happy to admit that. Some of us find it to be quite liberating to admit that we don't know.

It has been mentioned on numerous occasions, but there are a number of interesting hypotheses which are currently being tested, but none have so far been accepted as the scientific consensus. It is an active, interesting, and fairly recent field of research.

MET doesn't have to explain how life first arose, as it explains the diversity of life, thereafter. As Common Descent is extremely well supported by evidence, it really is possible to see abiogenesis and evolution as two separate, though obviously related, scientific questions. Please, feel free to argue in the scientific literature that not knowing how life first arose invalidates all of the evidence for the diversification of life. However life first arose, we can say with a great deal of confidence that it then evolved to its present state.

Macro (evolutionary change at or above the level of species) and Micro (evolutionary change below the level of species) evolution have nothing to do with how life first arose, either. If you check out the link concerning common descent, it details 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution. All of this evidence is taken from the peer-reviewed literature, so to refute it, you are going to have to refer also to peer-reviewed literature, and not to creationist websites. That, I am quite sure, you cannot do. But, I suppose that it is all down to the suppression by "Big Science", isn't it? To believe that, you have to ignore hundreds of examples of unpopular ideas becoming the scientific consensus, because the evidence became overwhelming.

Speciation is macroevolution, and as I have shown, it has been observed both in the lab and in nature. Of course, it's possible to obfuscate and pretend that the examples given are not of speciation, but that would require you to actually define what you would consider speciation to actually entail, and that is one thing that creationists do not like doing. It is far better to create ambiguity so that they can duck and dive and pretend that, no matter what the evidence, it doesn't suggest that life has evolved and that we share common ancestry with all other life forms on earth. In other words, they are masters at shifting the goalposts.

And that brings me on to this nonsense about information. I see that, as per usual, you have not defined exactly what information is. It is hardly surprising as any definition that you provide, I can show you that you are wrong. I can't really be fairer than that, can I?

Natural selection is an information reducer: because not all individuals survive, and individuals with less adaptive traits don't survive, you're pruning the information for the non-adaptive traits out of the population.

But evolution is not just natural selection. Evolution is change plus natural selection. Natural selection chooses from the varieties that exist; change produces the new varieties. Change comes from many places - basic mutations can be the result of copying errors, of radiation or chemical agents altering the genetic code, of recombination, etc. That's the change - and that does introduce new information. Therefore, every mutation introduces new information in to the genome. How could it not do so?

Gene duplication is a particularly good example of a process that increases information. A PubMed search alone for "gene duplication" gives more than 3000 references.

I suggest that you take a look at some of these articles concerning creationist claims about information: Yet Another Creationist Myth: "Evolution Cannot Produce New Genetic Information."

The above hissed in response by: DamianP [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 5:32 AM

The following hissed in response by: Michael Babbitt

Dafydd,
I agree that if given 2 entities, the one that wants to survive the most (and the subsequent branching) would be selected over time. But my question still remains concerning survival itself. It is one of the defining characteristics of a living organism -- also the ability to reproduce (but computer viruses reproduce but are not alive: they don't try to survive. Where does this need/urge/desire -- the life urge itself -- come from if there is only 1 spark of life -- unless living organisms just showed up enmasse and fought for survival. At least 2 entities would need to exist simultaneously to even start the ball of Life rolling; one just poops out; the other is alive -- but where did it get its survival instinct? I guess, like the typical 5 year old I am still on the question, "Where did Life come from?" Oh well, that's the way life goes for me.

The above hissed in response by: Michael Babbitt [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 6:33 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

The abiogenesis question may even have an explainable answer. I simply find the clay crystals inelegant and silly.
I have had more than a few conversations with good people who think there is something unproven about macro-evolution. I believe it is, and the evidence shows it.
None of this impacts my faith.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 7:42 AM

The following hissed in response by: DamianP

Michael Babbitt said:

I agree that if given 2 entities, the one that wants to survive the most (and the subsequent branching) would be selected over time. But my question still remains concerning survival itself. It is one of the defining characteristics of a living organism -- also the ability to reproduce (but computer viruses reproduce but are not alive: they don't try to survive. Where does this need/urge/desire -- the life urge itself -- come from if there is only 1 spark of life -- unless living organisms just showed up enmasse and fought for survival. At least 2 entities would need to exist simultaneously to even start the ball of Life rolling; one just poops out; the other is alive -- but where did it get its survival instinct? I guess, like the typical 5 year old I am still on the question, "Where did Life come from?" Oh well, that's the way life goes for me.

Hi Michael. I'm not sure that I fully understand your point, here. Organisms -- including humans -- don't want to survive, per se. To state it rather simplistically, the organism that is "fittest" (i.e. most well adapted to its environment, as "fit" does not mean strongest, necessarily. It can literally mean anything that provides a survival advantage) is selected by said environment, and is therefore able to pass on its genes, more successfully. In general, there is no "want" involved.

For instance, an insect -- as far as we can tell -- is simply a biological machine. Therefore, it has no real say in anything. It is programmed entirely by its genes. Obviously, some mammals, and certainly the higher primates -- including ourselves -- are more than just biological automatons, if you will, but that doesn't mean that consciousness or our ability to reason has anything to do with the question that you seem to be asking.

Ask yourself: what is the alternative to survival, particularly for an unthinking organism? Does it need a "life urge"? Does it have a choice in the matter? Could a fly, say, "purposefully" end its own life? The answer to that is almost certainly, no.

I suggest that you read up on the current models of Abiogenesis. It is still highly speculative at this point, and nobody knows whether a "top down" or "bottom up" approach will be more fruitful. Perhaps, neither. Or perhaps something else - who knows?

What we do know is that, even if a "designer" (that seems like an awfully childish way to think, but that is probably just me) placed the first replicating molecules on earth, evolution still happened, thereafter. That is why MET doesn't hinge on finding out how life started.

The above hissed in response by: DamianP [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 9:08 AM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

Daffyd.

You asked if I read, and I had not. With bated breath, I walked through the link looking for an example where some sexually-reproducing creature had produced a critter (over however many generations) which could not successfully reproduce with the original species. There were absolutely none.

It's close. It's certainly close enough to believe it is probably true.

For the love of your fellow man (the ~50% of Americans who disbelieve in evolution) -- why does not somebody actually prove it to be true?

Also for the love of God.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 11:30 AM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

yonason, I was replying to Levi and Hunter's claims not yours but if you want I will do so. You appear to be missing the point about abiogenesis. Abiogenesis isn't relevant to the truth of evolution. Simply put, for all we know the first few cells were poofed into existence by God. And that doesn't alter whether or not evolution occurred at all. The questions are logically disjoint. Thus, I don't need an explanation of abiogenesis - whether it was divine, naturally occurring, or a result of an Infinite Improbability Drive creating a wormhole backwards in time. It doesn't alter whether or not evolution occurred.

Frankly Yonason your claim about what "macroevolution" means demonstrates what amounts to extreme ignorance. You can't even get the creationist canard correct. But for a moment, we we'll look at macroevolution_yonason which apparently has to do with the creation of new information. First, note that information is hard to quantify. There are a variety of different definitions used which act differently. However, I'm not going to go into these in any detail ( you may wish to read up on Kolmogorov complexity as a good example) but rather present a small thought problem about mutation. All small mutations are essentially reversible (I'm not talking now about large-scale deletions which can occur but are rare and pretty often fatal). Now, if you claim mutation X reduces the total information content in a genome then the inverse of X has to add information. Thus, one cannot claim that mutations are not adding information if one has any reasonable definition of information.

Now you may object that I haven't pointed to any useful mutations. That is a separate but common complaint. But I'll be nice and give a direct example now. In the mid 1990s it was discovered that certain bacteria had evolved to digest nylon. This had to be a new set of mutations because nylon is an artificial substance.

As to your other request about responding to the claims of persecution, as Dafydd says above he addressed that in the blog post we are discussing anyways.

Now to Levi: You say "With bated breath, I walked through the link looking for an example where some sexually-reproducing creature had produced a critter...There were absolutely none". I attempted to explain why the highschool defintion of species isn't always such a good one, but even regarding that I am forced to wonder if you were looking at the same material that we were. Many of the examples linked to are speciation by hybdrization or polyploidy in plants. (In fact the link given by Damian above to Observed Instances of Speciation lists the same example I gave with O. gigas) If you look at that page you'll see many more. For example, they discuss the famous and amusing Raphanobrassica where there was an attempt to interbreed a radish and a cabbage to get the edible parts of both. The resulting hybrid was not able to interbreed with either original species but was interfertile with each other.

That essay also mentions Drosophila paulistorum where speciation of flies occurred in the lab. The resulting crosses were completely sterile. As I pointed out earlier, speciation is so well demonstrated at this point that even AIG accepts that it occurs.


The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 12:59 PM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

levi,
The definition of species is something that breeds true to form.
This can be rather complicated.
An example of this is in the American Pitcher plant genus, Saracenia.
All nine species are cross fertile, but if bred with each other, will breed true to form.
Many are very distinctive morphologically.
I think using flaws in a scientific theory to defend one's faith is a losing proposition. That is why the official position of the Catholic Churc irt Evolution is that the Church is OK with it.
After all, the basics of genetics was discovered by a monk.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 1:30 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Levi from Queens:

For the love of your fellow man (the ~50% of Americans who disbelieve in evolution) -- why does not somebody actually prove it to be true?

Look at the timelines involved: It takes years for such speciation to occur, often decades. You're essentially asking why some scientist doesn't immolate his career by spending his entire productive era proving something that no scientist doubts... yet which would likely not convince a single scientist member of the Discovery Institute, let alone a lawyer like Phillip Johnson.

Can you see why this would not be an attractive option? <g>

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 1:40 PM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

@DamianP

Ok, so you don't want to talk about how the first cell arose. Can't say I blame you.

ASIDE: I tried reading your "Talk Origins" website link about 8 years ago and found it not just tedious, but careless with facts and ideas, and so I don't trust them. I also haven't read this website in a while, but have found it eminently more readable, not to mention trustworthy. It also presents all relevant sides in a careful and unbiased way that is quite refreshing.

MET ... explains the diversity of life, ....
Not really. As Lee Spetner says, it should, but it doesn't. In fact, that is an exchange with a poster at "Talk Origins."

Also, note that he uses "evolution A, and B" instead of Macro and Micro for the reasons he gives, then he says, "The distinction between these two meanings of evolution is often ignored by the defenders of Neo-Darwinian evolution. But the distinction is critical. The claim is made for Evolution A, but the proof offered is often limited to Evolution B [as, for example, in the reference given by Dafydd above]."

Just like at Talk Origins.

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 1:49 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

yonason

Wow, thanks for those links. That's a pretty darn good article to read by Lee Spetner.

All politicians ought to be required to read this along with Dafydd. The intentional blurring of the lines between Evolution A and Evolution B is a travesty and have mislead folks like Dafydd for years. So much so that he thinks we're all a bunch of religious following rubes who don't think for ourselves.

This is why i'm glad for movies like what Stein just did. Hopefully it will help folks look into it more and understand the controversy more.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 2:13 PM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

@Baggi

Thanks. You, and others who want to think about it instead of just rant, may also be interrested in this example of the harassment that Dafydd says doesn't exist.

I got that from this link at the website of a fluid dynamics engineering professor at University of Wisconsin. There he lists some examples of the kind of evidence that corroborates Ben Stein's movie, ... like this one:

"2. Brady's Article on Natural Selection

An article containing a long, detailed, and critical analysis of Selection Theory (R. H. Brady, Systematic Zoology, 1979) was once cut out of a volume in an Ivy League College library. A department head admitted responsibility. He said "Well, of course, I don't believe in censorship in any form, but I just couldn't bear the thought of my students reading that article". (Reported in an interview with Norman Macbeth in Darwinism: a Time for Funerals, Robert Briggs Associates, San Francisco, 1982.)"

So much for the putative "honesty" of evolution inquisitors, uh, I mean "scientists."

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 2:38 PM

The following hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black

Yonason discounts all material from talkorigins because he finds it "tedious". He also asserts that it's "careless with facts and ideas" without providing a single example of this carelessness. In other words, it takes effort to understand and it doesn't fit his preconceived notions, so he's going to reject it.

He then links to some eight year old exchange between a couple of biologists, as if this single exchange somehow overthrows the entire scientific consensus. It doesn't. It's simply another creationist retreating to a vague (read: non-rigorous, and therefore useless) notion of "information" without addressing the overwhelming fossil and genetic evidence for common descent or proposing any alternative to modern evolutionary theory. By the way, this exchange is also found on talkorigins:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/fitness/spetner.html

He then cites another incident 30 years ago when a single professor cut and article critical of evolution out of a library book, citing it as proof of the "Big Science" conspiracy theory.

Give me a break. The arrogance of laypeople with no relevant training thinking they know more than the generations of scientists who -- through lifelong study and experimentation -- have formed modern evolutionary theory from Darwin's ideas... it's just astounding. Yonason, if you or anyone else can propose an idea that fits the evidence better than MET, you'll win the nobel prize. Here's the rub, though: you actually have to do the work to gather evidence, make predictions, and demonstrate that your theory fits all available data better than the current theory.

If any readers truly want to learn about evolution with an emphasis on common descent, read:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/
I know yonason won't bother: after all, it's "tedious".

The above hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 4:33 PM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

Yonason, I'd be very curious to see what at all you found on the Talk Origins Archive to be "careless with facts." They give references for all the speciation events so you are of course able to look at the original papers yourselves. Regarding your comment that you found TOA to be "tedious" - science is difficult. It is frequently hard to understand and even when one understands something it will frequently clash with ones intuition. This is life. If you want to understand things you can't just dismiss science because you find it "tedious".

I note that you didn't respond in any detail to any of the points made about observed speciation so I'll assume you either agree that such occurs or find this to be sufficient evidence.

Moving on, the claims of censorship you link to are less than compelling. Frankly if the most you can get are the claims made in Expelled and the ones on that page you don't have much. For example, the quoted one is attributed to an unnamed Ivy league university through a third hand source. Yeah, that's reliable.

I'm not going to go into the details of the PBS claim other than to note that Dawkins refusing to debate Behe on PBS hardly constitutes censorship.

Similar remarks apply to all the examples there.

Again, if these examples and the examples given in Expelled are the best you've got then that really isn't saying much. I wouldn't even be that surprised if there were one or two occasions of real censorship but I haven't seen those and furthermore have certainly not seen any indications of any sort of systematic censorship that is being claimed.

Ben Stein had 90 minutes to present to the world all the great scientific evidence that is being censored. He didn't do so. Heck, he could have made the film slightly longer even and maybe not had so many clips of nazis and communists and old movies and would have had a good 30 or 40 minutes to talk. Or, he could put the relevant data on his website. But he hasn't. There's a simple reason: the data doesn't exist. Crying persecution and censorship isn't enough. Eventually you need to present cold hard data, hypotheses and experiments. Until then, there's not much worth examining.

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 5:02 PM

The following hissed in response by: minimalist

I'm always rather amused, and amazed, when creationists think they can get away with making up credentials when, in actual practice, they demonstrate no more depth of scientific knowledge than a below-average fifth grader.

yonason's comments are indistinguishable from any other random anonymous internets creationist. Lots of generic blabber about "information" (which they always refuse to define rigorously as it applies to biological systems), hoary young-earth creationist canards about speciation, etc.

It's almost like creationism is entirely built on lies and ignorance! Imagine that.

The above hissed in response by: minimalist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 5:08 PM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

"Yonason, I'd be very curious to see what at all you found on the Talk Origins Archive to be 'careless with facts'." -- JZ
I gave the exchange above between Spetner and Max who was being evasive throughout, and never did adequately answer Spetners criticisms, while Spetner answered all of Max's. Of course, if your bias is to side with Max because he is an evolutionist and you choose to ignore his weak and evasive arguments, then there's nothing I can say that will change your mind.

ZZB, above, disparages my using that reference because it was "...some eight year old exchange between a couple of biologists..." [that's your best shot?] even though it is over key issues which his champion ("some biologist") fails to win. And nothing has changed, because the same key assertions of evolutionists are as indefensible as ever.

The "speciation" that is being so excitedly touted as "proving" evolution, masquarades as what I called macro-evolution, (what Spetner more correctly calls "evolution-A") but is really just micro-evolution, which is a generally accepted process. So it proves nothing except that species can and do change. But, as Spetner points out, that is never with a net increase in information, by which I understand him to mean a net added functional improvement to the organism, and so does NOT support what they must prove for their hypothesis to be more than that.

Could it happen? I doubt it. But if they do, it will be quite an achievement. Unfortunately, as yet they have not. And to pretend they have is, at best, simply delusion.

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 6:55 PM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

Daffyd -- I can certainly understand why a scientist would not spend his entire career on an experiment. The experiment which I proposed is however not career-consuming.

It starts with less than two weeks of work -- design the experiment, do the math, put in a grant proposal. The math will tell you how long speciation should take -- I would guess a few months -- and you design the experiment so as to shorten that as much as possible (that is the reason for the radiation).

Then there is a couple of days to instruct the lab assistants and maybe 5 hours a week in supervising them as the experiment goes on. After speciation occurs or fails to occur, there is perhaps 80 hours of writing.

This is not a career-immolating burden. Somebody should do it.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 6:58 PM

The following hissed in response by: yonason

As my son would say, "This is sweet!"

Butterfly speciation event recreated

June 15, 2006

In a matter of months, butterflies sporting the yellow and red wing color pattern of a wild species were created through simple laboratory crosses of two other wild species, researchers report in the June 15, 2006 edition of the journal Nature.

And how did they do that? Why by crossing H. cydno and H. melpomene, of course. So, they crossed two "seperate" "species" and got a "brand new" "species."

BUT WAIT! I thought the criterion for a new species is that they can't cross mate?

I wish you guys could be CONSISTANT!

Study done at the "Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute" -- your tax dollars at work in support of a couple of pimps for a tropical interspecies butterfly brothal.

The above hissed in response by: yonason [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 7:10 PM

The following hissed in response by: minimalist

yonason, by now we all know you're no scientist, so asking you to read (much less understand) the original Nature paper would be too much to ask.

But for crying out loud, you could at least read the layman's articles all the way through!

In Ragoletis fruit flies, Swordtail fishes and African Cichlids there is growing evidence for homoploid hybrid speciation. This report of the laboratory creation of a hybrid butterfly nearly identical to a known wild species, and the observation that hybrid individuals don't mate with either parent species, provides the most convincing case to-date for homoploid hybrid speciation in animals.

The biological species concept defines many species on the basis that they don't mate in nature, not necessarily that there is a hard genetic barrier. For species that are highly selective in choosing mates (wing color, pattern, etc.), there is an effective barrier to interbreeding that might be overcome in very very very rare instances (laboratory forced crossings, or an exceedingly confused butterfly in the wild).

The effect is the same: reproductive isolation, the prevention of interbreeding between species, means that further genetic divergence is possible without losing any genetic changes due to interbreeding with the parent species.

This is all Bio 101 stuff, by the way.

The above hissed in response by: minimalist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 7:54 PM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

Frankly, I'm getting a little tired of answering some of these questions. First to Yonason- even if you somehow think that a verbatim conversation between two people demonstrates an entire collaborative project being careless with the facts the bottom line is that they give references so you can look up the myriad examples of speciation yourself. Simply saying that these examples are just microevolution doesn't cut it. These are examples of speciation. If you are conceding that point then good if not explain your objection to these examples.

Levi, your claims demonstrate deep misunderstanding of the subject at hand. "It starts with less than two weeks of work -- design the experiment, do the math, put in a grant proposal. The math will tell you how long speciation should take -- I would guess a few months -- and you design the experiment so as to shorten that as much as possible (that is the reason for the radiation)" - pray tell what math? How are you intending to do what calculation under what circumstances and what makes you think given that you haven't even specified a population size how you have any idea how long any such experiment would take? And in fact such experiments have been done to a limited extent, especially with fruit flies. Notably there was a series of papers over the last few years testing founder-flush speciation with populations. As someone who is mildly familiar with the literature (I wrote a paper for a bio course arguing that founder-flush speciation was more or less overrated) these do take a lot of time and resources. Experiments of these sorts often take years at a time and there's no magic set of mathematics that will tell you how long you should wait. We have some models about genetic diversity and related issues but nothing that gives anything like useful data about how often to expect speciation. Try to familiarize yourself a little bit with what you are talking about.

Finally, Yonason in regard to your last remark about the butterflies and being "CONSISTANT"(sic) if you read anything that I had said or many of the links given to you you would know that the classic highschool definition of species- interbreed to produce fertile offspring- is not sufficient for actual biology. I will suggest one more time that you consider for example the notion of ring species. And since you seem unable to understand my earlier comments about these I'll point you to the relevant Wikipedia article. The non-transitivity of the classic highschool species definition is one of many problems (if you took a college level course in genetics or conservation biology or evolutionary biology or cladistics or almost any upper level bio course you would know this. Or you could just read what people have pointed you to). Now, if collection A can breed with collection B to produce creatures of type C and C cannot interbreed with A or B but can breed with other C then A and B are as populations genetically isolated from each other. By most reasonable standards, A and B will be separate species and that is exactly what occurred in the case here.

Finally, I must register my amusement in that Levi seems to be complaining that biologists aren't breeding enough insects in labs and Yonason is unhappy that biologists are doing any insect breeding experiments to the point where he calls hard-working biologists "a couple of pimps" running a "brothel". Frankly, I prefer Levi's response of saying that more experiments need to be done more than Yonason's which comes across as simply anti-intellectual.

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 8:08 PM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

To JoshuaZ--praytell what math. There is math out there which utterly disproves the insufficient time objection to Evolution. Just utilize this math to determine the time required for evolving a new species.

Then evolve that species. The procedure is simple and straightforwards.

Just do it.

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 8:19 PM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

Levi, I really don't think you understood what I said. You said we "The math will tell you how long speciation should take"- this math doesn't exist.

We don't have any good models to get accurate predictions on how long speciation takes in general. We have decent understandings of some limited other elements of evolution and even a few that are related to speciation (for example we have some decent estimates on what repeated founder-flush does to gene pools). But there isn't any magic math that gives us estimates for how long speciation should take.

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 9:01 PM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

It amazes me how much people care about this topic.
There is nothing like this in discussing the Big Bang, quantum mechanics, or stellar evolution.
Here is my question:
Is someone who believes there is a God who created the universe, but has no problem with an ancient universe and evolutionary processes for life heretical and to whom?

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 9:29 PM

The following hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black

Hunter, you aren't being heretical to anyone, except perhaps biblical literalists and "Big Science" conspiracy theorists. Scientists certainly don't care about your faith, so long as you (a) don't reject hard-earned scientific knowledge based on faith instead of evidence, and (b) don't attempt to influence public policy to also reject any science you see as conflicting with your faith. Evolutionary scientists such as Miller are famously religious, and the mythical "Big Science" doesn't seem to care a whit.

Even someone like Yonason is only a minor annoyance to scientists. He hasn't demonstrated any familiarity with the mountains of evidence gathered over the last 150 years (or even the evidence linked in this thread), much less provided an alternative explanation for it. His arguments from ignorance might convince the credulous and those who already mistrust science, but no one else. The point is that he's not influencing public policy, so he's free to wallow in his ignorance and conspiracy theories without really affecting anyone else.

Unfortunately, when you get enough Yonasons together, they elect like-minded people, and the trouble starts. I, for one, don't want to go back to the dark ages.

p.s. Notice that Yonason has once again shifted the goalposts. Speciation, ring species, etc are no longer good enough. Maybe he wants to see Kirk Cameron's Crocoduck (ironically, a chimeric creature like that would actually invalidate evolution completely, and is but one of the ways evolution could be falsified).

The above hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 29, 2008 10:31 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

Now, if collection A can breed with collection B to produce creatures of type C and C cannot interbreed with A or B but can breed with other C then A and B are as populations genetically isolated from each other. By most reasonable standards, A and B will be separate species and that is exactly what occurred in the case here.

I'm no scientist, just a back woods, closed minded "creationist" of the sort that Dafydd rails against but perhaps you can help me feeble mind understand something.

According to the link given by yonason, what you're saying here is no Evolution A but Evolution B, which makes the assumption to Evolution A rather disengenious.

The reason is that species C doesn't come about via a gain in information, but rather through a limiting of something from A and B.

Just as Darwin once thought that there could be no end to variations in domestication, they've now discovered he was in error. I believe it was birds he was studying and how they came about breeding new species and from there we arrive at evolution A.

The problem is you're not gaining any new information. Basically, you've got X number of ingredients between A and B. To get to C you've used most of X number of ingredients and perhaps taken away one or two completely.

We couldn't have all come from such humble beginnings if what ive just said is an accurate description of the 8 year old conversation between 2 unknown biologists.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 12:04 AM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Joshua Z, Levi from Queens:

There is math out there which utterly disproves the insufficient time objection to Evolution.

To bring you up to day, Joshua, somebody -- I think it was Levi -- presented the argument of some anti-evolutionist who argued that there was not enough time for even the simplest DNA molecule to come into being; his calculation (and math is my speciality) assumed that, for the first DNA molecule to come into being, every atom in it would have to spontaneously fall into line by sheer random chance.

He assumed no boundary-value conditions that would channel the atoms and sub-molecules of the DNA molecule into form... such as the clay/crystal hypothesis or any other. Sheer random chance.

I tried to point out this was the wrong probability model to use. I gave a number of examples of self-organizing systems, but to no avail.

I think that's what Levi's talking about.

JoshuaZ, Z.Z. Black, Minimalist:

Please bear in mind, I'm not a biologist; I don't even play one on the web. So I have a couple of baby questions to ask you guys...

First, to clear up a point where you three and Yonason and Levi seem to be speaking at cross purposes. It's my understanding (which may be a misunderstanding) that there are a number of definitions of what constitutes a species, and some of them are very hard to determine for any particular population.

So it seems to me, with mostly a math background, that at the edges, the definition of what is or is not a separate species is somewhat arbitrary... it would depend on what definition you use and how thoroughly you test it.

So, for example -- and I'm not saying this is the case, just that this is an illustration -- some people might say, looking at one definition, that the North-Kaibab plateau squirrels and the South-Kaibab plateau squirrels are different species, while others might say they are two subspecies of the same species.

(Again, I'm not saying this is true of those two exact populations; I'm just pulling something out of my hat. But there would probably be other populations where one definition would say separate species, while another would say same species.)

But if the definition of species is a bit fuzzy, then wouldn't the distinction between microevolution and macroevolution be at least equally fuzzy? (I don't even know if anyone but ID proponents even uses the terms; are they used by biologists?)

In any event, if Evolution-A and Evolution-B are also arbitrary, then it seems pointless to categorically distinguish between them... evolution is evolution, whether some particular biologist chooses to call it speciation or not.

Buttressing this point (in my non-scientist mind) is the idea I just had that it should be entirely possible that one very primitive species (of bacteria, for example, or algae) could undergo a certain number of mutations and be dubbed a new species... while some other more complex organism (an insect or rodent or somesuch) could undergo a larger number of mutations -- more evolution than the bacteria underwent -- yet still be called the same species.

Think of dog breeds; if a bacterium underwent as many morphological changes as exist between a Great Dane and a Miniature Poodle (different color fur, texture fur, size, metabolic rate, brain capacity, etc.), wouldn't it be more likely to be called a new species of bacteria?

So if some organisms can undertake more mutations and still be called the same species than would be the case for some other organism, wouldn't that make any distinction between microevolution and macroevolution even more arbitrary and fuzzy?

I'm asking how I, as a mathematician, can know for certain just how much evolution is allowed within the rubric of "microevolution," where one more mutation would make it "macroevolution." (I have an uneasy feeling the answer is, "any amount necessary to account for all observed changes, thus preventing it from being used as an example of speciation.")

Second question, much easier to answer: This discussion has sparked my interest in biology. What is a good layman's book that will introduce many of the concepts discussed here, talk about some of the most interesting studies and experiments, and especially have a chapter or two on abiogenesis theories? Something fairly recent would be nice.

I'm not afraid of the math, obviously; but it couldn't require university work in biology, or it would lose me.

Thanks,

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 1:44 AM

The following hissed in response by: hunter

I think those arguing either way about information content would be well advised to read something on evodevo before making big statements either way.
The topic is much more complex than what is being discussed here so far.
As to micro vs. macr evolution, I don't think there is a real difference.
Both are about variation. Some influence survival, others don't.

The above hissed in response by: hunter [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 4:48 AM

The following hissed in response by: levi from queens

JoshuaZ -- there is an impassioned defense of evolution against creationism by Kenneth Millar called Finding Darwin's God. I thought it was an excellent book, and he walked through the math necessary to show that there was sufficient time for today's natural world to have evolved. It even had a time/evolution unit -- the darwin. This is the math which should show how long it should take to evolve a new species in a laboratory.

If this math is fallacious, then the "insufficient time" argument of the creationists has not been adequately rebutted. I felt the math was correct (but did not do a detailed examination of it).

The above hissed in response by: levi from queens [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 7:36 AM

The following hissed in response by: minimalist

Hi Dafydd,

You're correct that the biological definition of "species" is a tricksy thing, even perhaps arbitrary in some cases!

I think one aspect that many biologists agree upon is that you need some form of reproductive isolation. In simplest terms, this means two species that simply do not interbreed in the wild. This doesn't necessarily imply a genetic barrier: two species may be separated simply by extreme choosiness in mate selection (such as butterflies that choose by wing pattern), or temporal isolation (such as cicadas with life cycles of differing lengths, which therefore emerge in different years).

Often, species separated in this way can hybridize genetically, but don't, because of these constraints. But this separation of species (or subspecies, if you will) can lead to further genetic divergence, simply because the two populations are not mixing and "diluting" the genetic changes.

You're also right that there is a ridiculous amount of genetic diversity among bacteria. We're not just talking about sequence similarities between genes, but also the number of genes and size of the genome. Take a look at this chart comparing genome size among species of bacteria and archaebacteria: the bacterial genome ranges from about 0.5 million base pairs for the humblest Mycoplasma, to 10 million or more.

And this doesn't even convey the difference in the actual genetic content of the bacteria: you'll find large differences in the presence, absence, or intermediate stages of various protein complexes. For example, the bacterial flagellum, one of Behe's so-called "irreducibly complex" structures. Scientists found them to be highly reducible: after the publication of Darwin's Black Box, further sequencing of new bacterial genomes found flagella with far fewer components than Behe claimed were "absolutely required" for a working flagellum, and the core components of the flagellum show a high degree of similarity to a secretion complex (the Type III secretion complex), which presents a plausible outline of a pathway for the stepwise evolution of the flagellum.

But I'm starting to get off point.

You're also right that "microevolution" vs. "macroevolution" is a distinction that only creationists make. Those terms actually were used by biologists once, but not very much anymore -- not for decades, really. Needless to say, scientists used the terms very differently from creationists. Scientists use it to refer to speciation. A rather thorough history of the term can be found here , so I'm just going to address the specific misconception from yonason/Spetner here.

In order to get at the heart of yonason/Spetner's misunderstanding, you have to remember that there are multiple forces at work in evolution. There are a lot, but for simplicity's sake we'll boil it down to random mutation and natural selection.

Spetner is quite right that many evolutionary events are due to a reduction in genetic diversity: selection of the allele that works best in the environment. For what he calls "Evolution A", you need to add to the pool of alleles, add more options for the organism to sift through and select. Where he goes awry is his assumption that mutation cannot produce novel genetic 'information'. This is flatly counterfactual. We have, in our lifetimes, observed or inferred the birth of novel genetic information in many cases. I brought up the Apo A-1 "Milano" mutation in humans, and another commenter also mentioned nylonase in bacteria. The latter is particularly striking since it is the de novo birth of an entirely new enzyme.

But anyway, the fact of the matter is that beneficial mutations happen. They are rare, to be sure, but that's the nature of it.

Nor is it necessarily true that all mutations are harmful: take a single gene, and look at the vast sequence diversity between species. So many residues are different, yet the protein retains the same essential function. Most mutations are neutral.

When you add events such as gene duplication, exon shuffling, and the like on top of that, you can see that the genome has a lot of leeway; it's really easy for an organism to 'experiment' with genetic changes.

As for books on evoution, I'd absolutely recommend Carl Zimmer's Evolution: the Triumph of an Idea. It's a companion book to the recent-ish PBS series, it's eminently readable and pretty thorough, and it even addresses creationism a little bit. At the Water's Edge is good follow-up reading to that, dealing with tetrapod evolution, water-to-land transitions, etc. Jonathan Weiner's The Beak of the Finch also holds a special place in my heart, though it deals more with small-scale evolution that creationists pooh-pooh. It still conveys the joy and wonder of seeing evolution in action in a very lovely fashion.

To be honest I don't know offhand of any books that deal with abiogenesis very well or thoroughly for the layman, if only because the subject can be pretty complex and obtuse for someone without at least a mild background in chemistry or biology. But there's a lot of great insights to be found if you're willing to put in the effort; the RNA World hypothesis both depends on, and has resulted in, fascinating insights into the flexibility of RNA (it catalyzes! it carries information! it dices!) You might simply want to check out the TalkOrigins and EvoWiki pages on RNA World and abiogenesis, and see if any books they recommend/reference catch your fancy, for further reading.

The above hissed in response by: minimalist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 7:59 AM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

Hmmmm, for some reason Dafydd I missed your response to me. Was wondering why you ignored my post, now I know you didn't.

There is no science called "Darwinism."

Of course not, just as their is no science of Intelligent Design. They are all biologists, or microbiologists, etc. But to distinguish those who study evolution based on Darwin's theories and those who study evolution based on Intelligent Design theories, we call one Darwinism or Neo-Darwinism and the other ID.

If you claim we were designed by a natural entity, then did that entity evolve? If so, you have admitted the entire science of evolutionary biology.

Let's distinguish between what I claim and what ID claims, since this movie's focus is on ID and not on what I might believe.

ID says the same thing you will say later in this conversation regarding Stonehenge.

If not, your two choices are:

The designer was himself designed;

The Designer is supernatural.

A third choice is there are other natural processes in the universe that we are not yet aware of. There are probably other choices but if my understanding of the "seeded by aliens" theory is correct, this would be a third option.

But we can say "here is the designer;" we know that Stonehenge was designed by the human beings who lived at that time.

Woah! So, Dafydd, who designed the designer of stonehenge?

ID gives us nothing at all about their alleged "designer;" and by the very nature of the supposed design -- creating the bacterial flagellum from scratch and somehow genetically engineering bacteria to perform a higher-level function than it had ever performed before -- the designer would have to have near godlike powers.

We shouldn't be afraid of where science leads us. You've claimed that Stonehenge was designed but you've given me nothing about who designed the designer of Stonehenge.

What's good for the goose is also good for the gander. You're going to end up telling me that Darwinism and Neo-Darwinism do not have to explain to me from whence it came, yet ID proponents do.

We look at the same facts and draw different conclusions. Somehow though, it's alright for you not to answer the infinite regressive trap but not alright for the IDers.

But there is no evidence external to ID's claims that any such beings existed or were on Earth. Thus the entire shebang is based upon the cockamamie conjectures of ID... unlike your Stonehenge example.

You like to use the words "no evidence" as if we're all a bunch of ignoramouses (Well, you do assume that about us Creationists anyway) but really, why be so disingenious?

As for myself, and outside of the realm of ID, I see plenty of evidence for beings that existed which could have created us that are external to ID. You might not be convinced by that evidence but the fact that their were recorded witnesses to the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, to supernatural miracles, to conversations with God Himself, is indeed evidence.

You pretend that you're open minded about the subject but you're only deluding yourself Dafydd.

The truth is that those who come at evolution from the perspective of Intelligent Design have two options. They can assume naturalism/materialism, as you do, and just admit that there could be things in nature that exist that we are yet to understand (Aliens seeded our planet) or they can assume supernaturalism and not be confined to the assumptions of the scientific past.

Whereas someone like Dawkins is forced to create new words like "Designoids" to explain why things have the appearance of being designed, IDers have no such compunction.

Is there a reason you failed to quote his very next sentence in the Origin of Species? You'll find it in Chapter 6, under the heading "Modes of Transmission":

If it could be demonstrated that any complex organ existed, which could not possibly have been formed by numerous, successive, slight modifications, my theory would absolutely break down. But I can find out no such case.

Nice distraction. Darwin set out an example of how his theories could be scientifically falsified. His failure to falsify his own theories does not in anyway negate future scientists falsifying his theories.

I'll assume from your attempt at destraction that you admit that Behe is doing just that. Using science to falsify Darwin's own theory by using Darwin's own method of falsification.

If Behe is doing that, then ID is scientific.

You try to use this to indict evolutionary theory by citing Behe's claims of "irreducible complexity," while completely ignoring the fact that all of Behe's examples have been reductively explained. Isn't this exactly what I predicted?

You've misunderstood my intent. I did no such thing.

Instead, I used Darwin's own words to demonstrate that if his theory is indeed falsifiable by the method he proposed, then Behe is using that method and ID is science.

It may be concluded that Behe is wrong and has failed to falsify Darwin's theories. It doesn't matter what you conclude in that regard. What matters is that if such is concluded, then ID is a scientific enterprise. Either Darwin was wrong and his own theories cannot be falsified by the method he claims, or Behe is doing science via ID.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 1:31 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

You're also right that "microevolution" vs. "macroevolution" is a distinction that only creationists make. Those terms actually were used by biologists once, but not very much anymore -- not for decades, really. Needless to say, scientists used the terms very differently from creationists. Scientists use it to refer to speciation. A rather thorough history of the term can be found here , so I'm just going to address the specific misconception from yonason/Spetner here.

Don't you contradict yourself above. You say that they are terms only "creationists" use but then you admit that they were used in the past and are still used, just, "not very much anymore". You really do think we're dumb. Both can't be true. Also, you can't have your cake here and eat it too. You want to put words in Spenter's mouth but he uses the words Evolution A and Evolution B and gives a definition of both. Here is what he writes:

At the outset, I shall establish an important and necessary guideline in this discussion of evolution. The word evolution is generally used in at least two different senses, and the distinction between them is important. On the one hand, the word evolution is used to denote the descent of all life from a putative single primitive source. It is the grand sweep of evolution that is supposed to have led from a simple beginning, something perhaps simpler than a bacterium, to all organisms living today, including humans. This descent is supposed to have occurred through purely natural means. Neo-Darwinian theory (NDT), which is the prevailing theory of evolution, teaches that this development occurred through random heritable variations in the organisms followed by natural selection. I shall denote the word evolution used in this sense as Evolution A. When evolution is discussed for popular consumption, it is most often Evolution A.

The second sense in which the word evolution is used is to denote any kind of change of a population. The change can sometimes occur in response to environmental pressure (artificial or natural selection), and sometimes it can just be random (genetic drift). I shall denote the word used in this second sense as Evolution B. Evolution B has been observed. Evolution A is an inference, but is not observable. The distinction between these two meanings of evolution parallels the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution, but the two pairs of terms are not identical. Evolution A is certainly what is called macroevolution, but what is called macroevolution is not identical with Evolution A. In any case, I prefer to use the A and B to avoid having to carry whatever baggage might go with the macro/micro distinction.

Tell us where he is wrong instead of trying to dismiss him by calling him a "Creationist".

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 1:48 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Minimalist:

I found the abiogenesis FAQ of FAQs; I'll start going through it. Assuming I'll eventually come to points I don't understand, is there a related (abiogenesis) discussion section of TalkOrigins where I could go to ask questions?

I put the Zimmer book on my Amazon wish list; I'll probably buy it next time I'm buying something else (to get it above $25 for the free shipping).

Thanks,

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 1:48 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

btw, Dafydd, I wanted to add this...

You wrote:

Under evolutionary theory that long predates Crick and Watson's discovery of DNA, every living creature descended from a common ancestor. Thus, had some living creatures had a completely different DNA code -- using other amino acids, for example, or a different meaning for specific sequences -- then that would have falsified evolutionary theory.

Of course, after DNA was discovered and measured by scientists, they found that DNA followed the same code in every living being... just as evolutionary theory predicted.

This is very typical by the followers of Darwinism. This is another example of taking a known thing like DNA, claiming that pattern as a prediction of evolution, and then using the fact the pattern fits the prediction as evidence for the truth of Darwins theories. The same exact "prediction" would have been made if DNA were somehow different.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 2:33 PM

The following hissed in response by: minimalist

Lots of microevolutionary changes add up to "macroevolution". This is completely uncontroversial in the scientific community. Don't blame me for this, take it up with Theodosius Dobzhansky:

"we are compelled at the present level of knowledge reluctantly to put a sign of equality between the mechanisms of macro- and microevolution" (1937)

What some scientists have proposed recently are some macroevolutionary mechanisms that can account for rapid large-scale change/speciation -- but this is only in addition to the much more common phenomenon of "micro+micro+micro+..." These models (like 'species selection') are still theoretical -- there still aren't any good real-world examples they can point to of being unambiguous examples of species selection.

As a result, these recent theories of macroevolutionary mechanisms are not well-accepted, but the models they create can be compelling and thought-provoking.

Which still doesn't detract from the established, uncontroversial idea that micro+micro=macro.

The point, to reiterate, is that there is no barrier between microevolution and macroevolution -- for all intents and purposes, and in most, if not all (if the 'species selection' theorizers are incorrect) cases, that is what long-term evolution reduces to.

Creationists have a long history of trying to invent 'barriers' that prevent micro from adding up to macro: "kinds" for young-earth creationists, and "irreducible complexity" for ID, but they propose nothing solid or testable regarding the nature of such a supposed barrier.

For YECs, the barrier between "kinds" is simply "the sort of evolution we can't observe in real time"; this they also equate with "macroevolution". The definition of "micro" is equally arbitrary, and basically boils down to "the level of evolution we can't plausibly deny".

Irreducible complexity, as an idea, was simply DOA already when Behe published Darwin's Black Box, because plenty of research into the evolution of such systems had taken place existed prior to that point, and tons more has been carried out since.

He lied by omission, and his denialist mindset was vividly revealed on the stand in Dover when, after he claimed the research didn't exist, the prosecutors plopped down 50 or so peer-reviewed research articles in front of him -- and he then declared that it "just wasn't enough."

The above hissed in response by: minimalist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 4:18 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

minimalist,

I notice that instead of answering the charge, here, i'll quote myself

Tell us where he is wrong instead of trying to dismiss him by calling him a "Creationist".

Just to be clear, let's quote yet again and explain where this is wrong:

At the outset, I shall establish an important and necessary guideline in this discussion of evolution. The word evolution is generally used in at least two different senses, and the distinction between them is important. On the one hand, the word evolution is used to denote the descent of all life from a putative single primitive source. It is the grand sweep of evolution that is supposed to have led from a simple beginning, something perhaps simpler than a bacterium, to all organisms living today, including humans. This descent is supposed to have occurred through purely natural means. Neo-Darwinian theory (NDT), which is the prevailing theory of evolution, teaches that this development occurred through random heritable variations in the organisms followed by natural selection. I shall denote the word evolution used in this sense as Evolution A. When evolution is discussed for popular consumption, it is most often Evolution A.

Where is he wrong?

Which still doesn't detract from the established, uncontroversial idea that micro+micro=macro.

Demonstrate, do not just assert, that Evolution B + Evolution B = Evolution A.

And attempt to do so without all the name calling.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 5:11 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

My bad, I forgot to include the second half of the quote:

The second sense in which the word evolution is used is to denote any kind of change of a population. The change can sometimes occur in response to environmental pressure (artificial or natural selection), and sometimes it can just be random (genetic drift). I shall denote the word used in this second sense as Evolution B. Evolution B has been observed. Evolution A is an inference, but is not observable. The distinction between these two meanings of evolution parallels the distinction between macroevolution and microevolution, but the two pairs of terms are not identical. Evolution A is certainly what is called macroevolution, but what is called macroevolution is not identical with Evolution A. In any case, I prefer to use the A and B to avoid having to carry whatever baggage might go with the macro/micro distinction.

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 5:14 PM

The following hissed in response by: minimalist

I already explained where he went wrong, but I'll make it more explicit for you:

The inference that "Evolution A" happened is entirely reasonable and supported by both the fossil evidence and the DNA evidence. We have transitional forms in the fossil record, and we have gene alignments that demonstrate the relatedness of genes between organisms.

Inference is a valid scientific method. We know through observation that the genome is capable of spontaneously undergoing the sorts of changes required. Simple point mutations, gene duplication, exon shuffling, chromosomal breakage or fusion, recombination, insertion of retrotransposons, etc. We know through observation that beneficial mutations that increase "information" (for whatever arbitratry definition you choose) occur. We also know through observation that selection works.

We can trace changes in the genome; we can see where genes duplicated by comparing the surrounding, noncoding sequences. We can use molecular clock calculations to determine when species might have diverged, and see if it matches the fossil evidence. And the convergence between several lines of evidence can sometimes be breathtaking (See the bottom of this page regarding yeast and fruiting plants, for example.)

And this isn't even getting into evo-devo.

There simply is no genetic change between species that cannot be accounted for by any of the above. If Spetner has a real-life example of some sort of insurmountable 'genetic barrier', let him present it. Let him demonstrate how natural, observed mechanisms cannot account for it.

Behe at least tries to be specific, with his examples of "irreducible complexity", but the changes he envisions are practically at the kingdom level -- and he is on record as accepting common descent, "the grand sweep of evolution". (And, as I've said, his examples are reducible anyway.)

The demand for one specific sort of "observation" (real-time observance of divergence) not only demands an unreasonable amount of time, it would also rule out a lot of other valid science based on stuff that can't be immediately observed, but nonetheless produce workable, tangible results. It'd also make it very hard to prove a court case. The evidence for evolution? We know about the motive, the ability, the timing, and in many cases, the methods. Case closed, man.

The above hissed in response by: minimalist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 5:55 PM

The following hissed in response by: Baggi

The inference that "Evolution A" happened is entirely reasonable and supported by both the fossil evidence and the DNA evidence. We have transitional forms in the fossil record, and we have gene alignments that demonstrate the relatedness of genes between organisms.

So you're saying that you do not dispute what he said, there is no observations of Evolution A, only inference.

I'm surprised, but glad to hear we are making progress.

Inference is a valid scientific method.

Looks like we are in total agreement on this point. Ive heard otherwise from other supporters of "ID is not science" saying that ID requires inference and inference isn't science, so i'm glad to hear you state otherwise.

The demand for one specific sort of "observation" (real-time observance of divergence) not only demands an unreasonable amount of time, it would also rule out a lot of other valid science based on stuff that can't be immediately observed, but nonetheless produce workable, tangible results. It'd also make it very hard to prove a court case. The evidence for evolution? We know about the motive, the ability, the timing, and in many cases, the methods. Case closed, man.

Again, i'm really surprised but have to say this is leaps and bounds of progress being made here.

Now, as long as we have the same requirements of ID, we're all on the same page.

ID infers a designer, but for some strange reason Dafydd says we must identify the designer.

Perhaps you could explain it to him better than I can?

The above hissed in response by: Baggi [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 6:22 PM

The following hissed in response by: minimalist

No, sorry, your understanding is incorrect. ID isn't wrong because it is an inference, it is wrong because is is an inference based on nothing.

Unlike evolution, ID offers no testable, replicable mechanism by which "the "design" took place.

Unlike evolution, ID offers no specifics on the timing of the design events, no way to determine it.

Even when they try to offer real-world examples of ID (Behe's so-called "irreducibly complex" structures), more plausible evolutionary pathways exist -- as well as tons of actual lab research on them (unlike ID, which does no labwork).

We infer evolution happened via mutation/selection because we see the same mechanisms in constant operation all around us.

ID'ers claim ID happened without offering any evidence of, or mechanism for, "design", much less any hints as to the nature of the designer. YES, you do need to know this in order to have some idea of the mechanism being employed.

Incidentally, that Dawkins "Designoid" response? That was his answer to the question 'Is there any way that ID could be scientific'. This is because we know that biological organisms (us) exist who have the capacity (mechanism) to manipulate genomes. It is not outside the realm of possibility that there are other biological organisms (aliens) who could do the same. We have no objective evidence that supernatural designers exist, or any idea about the mechanism employed, hence no reason to infer they are any part of any process of 'origins'. Dawkins' personal position remains as it always was: that adaptation by natural evolution can produce the superficial appearance of design to our outcome-oriented minds.

The above hissed in response by: minimalist [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 7:06 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

Baggi:

Was wondering why you ignored my post, now I know you didn't.

Then be forewarned for the future: This isn't a BBS, and I make no promise to respond to every comment by every commenter; it's simply too much work.

I respond as the mood strikes.

This is very typical by the followers of Darwinism. This is another example of taking a known thing like DNA, claiming that pattern as a prediction of evolution, and then using the fact the pattern fits the prediction as evidence for the truth of Darwins theories. The same exact "prediction" would have been made if DNA were somehow different.

Let's clarify the timeline:

  1. Origin of Species was published in 1859, postulating that all extant species descended from a common ancestor.
  2. Thus, all creatures should share fundamental structure. That is the general prediction.
  3. James Watson and Francis Crick first described the structure of DNA -- the base pairs -- nearly a century later, in 1953.
  4. From that moment, every evolutionary biologist would realize that if this were the basic structure of DNA, and if all creatures descend from a common ancestor, then all species must have the same DNA structure... the same base-pair code. That is the specific prediction.
  5. At some later point, when it became possible to check this prediction, it was verified. Thus, the prediction was fulfilled.

Do you understand now why this is a successful test of evolutionary theory?

Predictability doesn't require that all the data be gathered in the future... only that the specific measurement made to test the prediction hasn't already been made when the prediction is enunciated.

I could, for example, elaborate a theory that predicted that all meteorites of type X would have a magnetic field intensity within range Y. Then other scientists who had access to X meteorites could rush to their labs and measure the mag fields; if the intensity was within Y, my prediction would be confirmed. If not, then my theory would be falsified.

See, even though the meteorites had been gathered over hundreds of years, this particular measurement has not yet been made for all of them. Thus, mine would be a predictive theory.

DNA studies could have really thrown evolutionary theory into a cocked hat if, for example, every creature had a completely different DNA structure... another example of the falsifiability of mainstream evolutionary theory.

There is no science called "Darwinism."

Of course not, just as their is no science of Intelligent Design. They are all biologists, or microbiologists, etc. But to distinguish those who study evolution based on Darwin's theories and those who study evolution based on Intelligent Design theories, we call one Darwinism or Neo-Darwinism and the other ID.

But "Darwinism" and "Neo-Darwinism" are not the names of that science. You can call it evolutionary theory, evolutionary biology, mainstream evolutionary theory... anything like that.

But I explained in some detail in the post itself why it's not only insulting but completely misleading to call it "Darwinism;" it implies it's a cult of personality -- like Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism -- or a religious sect, like Lutheranism.

And that is, of course, precisely why IDers continually call it Darwinism... because they are trying to indoctrinate poorly educated viewers into believing it's just some cult or religion, rather than a science. As I noted, nobody calls physics "Newtonism" or Chemistry "Boyleism."

Unless you think it meet that Intelligent Design be known henceforth as "Soapy-Samism."

A third choice is there are other natural processes in the universe that we are not yet aware of.

If so, then we're not yet aware of them.

Woah! So, Dafydd, who designed the designer of stonehenge?

Nobody, of course. The designers of Stonehenge are human beings, and they evolved naturally.

You have only three choices for the putative "Designer" referred to in ID literature:

  1. That it itself was designed by some greater Designer. In this case, we simply drop this line of inquiry and ask instead about the greater Designer. As the universe is finite, you cannot have an infinite succession of contingent beings... so at some point, the chain ends with case 2 or case 3.
  2. That it evolved through natural processes. If this is true, then that proves that intelligent life can evolve entirely through natural processes... with no "designer." (In which case, ID is simply wrong, as its only claim is that such evolution is impossible.)
  3. That it was neither designed by a Designer nor evolved through natural processes. This is the choice we label "supernatural," as there is no explanation for such a Designer that invokes only the physical universe.

Case 1 is an infinite regression of non-answer. Case 2 is hotly denied by ID, since it necessarily contradicts ID claims. Therefore, the only logical conclusion is that, when ID proponents say "Designer," they mean a supernatural being of seemingly infinite power who is not bound by the physical laws of the universe.

In other words, while they may coyly say "Intelligent Designer," they really mean God.

We look at the same facts and draw different conclusions. Somehow though, it's alright for you not to answer the infinite regressive trap but not alright for the IDers.

You're not drawing conclusions, because your assertions do not logically follow the premises.

Evolution answers the infinite-regression trap very nicely, because it concludes that human beings came from simpler and simpler ancestors, all the way back to the first proto-bacterium.

Evolution plus abiogenesis -- the latter is not as well developed as evolutionary theory but is far more scientific than Biblical Creationism, of course -- completely saves us from the "trap," because it says life itself developed from non-life without any help from earlier life or the supernatural; my squinty-eyed translation from the Greek of abiogenesis is "creation [of life] from non-life."

I'll assume from your attempt at destraction that you admit that Behe is doing just that. Using science to falsify Darwin's own theory by using Darwin's own method of falsification.

Yes, "assume" is the appropriate word here; yours certainly not a conclusion.

If Behe is doing that, then ID is scientific.

If he were, then it might be; but he's not, and it isn't.

Behe does not prove in any way that some structures are irreducibly complex; I don't think he even defines the term. And how could one prove his conjecture anyway? If a hundred years passed, and people could still not explain some structure, that wouldn't prove it was inexplicable.

Likewise, no matter how many examples of "irreducible complexity" Behe announces (with fanfare) that are later explained reductively, that is not proof that the next example won't turn out to be the one.

Thus, the Behe Conjecture can neither be fully proved nor fully disproved. In the realm of science, it has as much meaning as the sentence, "Colorless green ideas sleep furiously."

It may be concluded that Behe is wrong and has failed to falsify Darwin's theories.

Behe is wrong, and he has failed to falsify Darwin's central thesis.

It doesn't matter what you conclude in that regard.

I didn't draw that conclusion; I'm just the informer.

What matters is that if such is concluded, then ID is a scientific enterprise. Either Darwin was wrong and his own theories cannot be falsified by the method he claims, or Behe is doing science via ID.

Bit of an undistributed middle there...

How about: (3) Behe isn't doing what you claim he's doing.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 7:42 PM

The following hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black

This is very typical by the followers of Darwinism. This is another example of taking a known thing like DNA, claiming that pattern as a prediction of evolution, and then using the fact the pattern fits the prediction as evidence for the truth of Darwins theories. The same exact "prediction" would have been made if DNA were somehow different.

What are you talking about? Common descent predicted a universal genetic code, because anything else would have invalidated the theory. There was no post-hoc rationalization.

But the evidence from genetics goes way, way beyond a universal code. For decades before we began sequencing genomes, scientists had used cladistics based on physiology to construct a detailed tree of life. Gene sequencing could have instantly falsified common descent if the genetic relationships didn't match the physiological ones (or didn't exist at all). Instead, genetic analysis has confirmed the tree of life to a spectacular degree(*). The chances of the two trees matching in the absence of common descent are virtually zero.

As minimalist pointed out, evolution is backed by multiple lines of evidence, the convergence of which makes it one of the strongest theories in science. As Pope John Paul II said, "the convergence, neither sought nor fabricated, of the results of work that was conducted independently is in itself a significant argument in favor of this theory."

*: Note that you can't attempt to explain the genetic relationships based on "common function" or similar hand waving. The genetic relationships are present even in non-coding portions of the DNA. They are even present in DNA inserted into the genome by retroviruses throughout the history of life.

The above hissed in response by: Z.Z.Black [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 7:44 PM

The following hissed in response by: DamianP

I see that no peer-reviewed research has been presented in rebuttal of any of the various examples? What a surprise! Or not.

Just to add to what minimalist has said, and giving a real life example of how inferences are made, read this: Reproductive history writ in the genome.

It's a terrific example detailing how we -- humans -- still produce yolk sacs (filled with fluid, but no yolk) in the first few months of an embryos development. This fits in with the fact that there are remnants of yolk proteins in our genome, left over from an important transition in the mammalian lineage. There are many similar examples -- we have the remnants of a tail bone in the lower back (see human vestigiality, for examples), and the mammalian auditory ossicles correspond to the reptilian jawbone (in other words, the malleus and incus (in humans) are homologous to the reptilian articular and quadrate). Not only do we have the fossils to show this, but the genes are also homologous (i.e. correspond). It is an example of exaptation, the re-purposing of existing structures during evolution.

All of these examples -- and many, many more like it, from several different areas of science -- provide fairly incontrovertible evidence. If you disagree, put in the hard work to show otherwise. Or at least make yourself aware of such things so that you can argue against it. Not being able to observe something is a pretty poor excuse, especially as so many people are given life sentences, or even put to death, when nobody was there to observe the crime. If you won't accept scientific inference, you should be absolutely livid about the number of the people that are tried by the criminal justice system.

Scientific inference is a perfectly valid method, particularly when those inferences are consistently tested against new (and old) data. People seem to think that there is some big conspiracy. But science has to be useful, otherwise it simply won't be funded. It cannot be useful if prior inferences were wrong, as that will obviously skew all future research. You can argue that usefulness is being derived from false inference, but you would have to show that to be true. Complaining has never, and will never, get you anywhere.

The above hissed in response by: DamianP [TypeKey Profile Page] at April 30, 2008 7:47 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

DamianP:

All of these examples -- and many, many more like it, from several different areas of science -- provide fairly incontrovertible evidence.

Ooh! Ooh! I found one of those all on my own, just looking at a skeleton in the natural history museum at the Smithsonian Institution: Cetaceans have shoulder blades.

Other than descent from a land animal, why would a dolphin, for example, have a pair of scapulae? They have no arms or legs.

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 1, 2008 3:32 AM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

"JoshuaZ -- there is an impassioned defense of evolution against creationism by Kenneth Millar called Finding Darwin's God. I thought it was an excellent book, and he walked through the math necessary to show that there was sufficient time for today's natural world to have evolved. It even had a time/evolution unit -- the darwin. This is the math which should show how long it should take to evolve a new species in a laboratory."

Not having read Ken Miller's book I can't comment in detail. But the ability to do back of the envelope calculations for the long-term evolution of structures or diversifying of life doesn't mean one could look at individual collections and estimate how long it would take them to speciate. Those aren't the same calculations at all.

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 2, 2008 12:14 PM

The following hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh

JoshuaZ:

I still don't understand, from a mathematical perspective, the obsession with speciation. We agree that the definition is kind of fuzzy... unless I'm misunderstanding, what really happens is that a given population changed and changed and changed, until at some point in its history, biologists more or less agree that it was a new species.

I get the feeling that the "speciation barrier" is sort of like what people imagined about the "sound barrier" before 1947: That it was a "wall in the sky," and if you hit it, your plane would explode.

When USAF pilot Captain Chuck Yeager finally broke it (October 14th, 1947, in the Bell X-1 "Glamorous Glennis"), he reported that the turbulence that had increased from Mach 0.91 to 0.94 started decreasing again before Mach 1.0... and that he didn't even feel anything when he went from 0.99 through 1.00 to 1.07. It turns out there was no "barrier;" it just took a lot of thrust to push the clumsy jets of the 1940s that fast.

  • Note to British movie fans: Contrary to David Lean's movie the Sound Barrier (1952), it was an American Air Force pilot, Chuck Yeager, not an RAF pilot, who first flew at Mach 1. (There is also no evidence that any Messerschmidt Me-262 achieved that speed in a dive... and in fact, it could not have without becoming unstable and breaking apart.)

Is it the same with speciation? I would imagine by analogy that there is no "barrier" to speciation because nature doesn't really recognize the distinction of a species -- it's an arbitrary designation of taxonomists, like deciding that Archaeopteryx really is the first bird, not just a feathered, flying dinosaur.

I'm certainly open to being told that I'm misunderstanding basic elements of science here...

By the way, the books I finally ordered were:

I hope those are good choices; I went by reader reviews (ignoring any reviews that slammed the books for "robotic neo-Darwinism," or other obvious Creationist/ID code words), date of publication -- though that may refer to the pb date, not he original publication date -- and price. The whole shebang rolled in at $34.59 (free shipping, of course).

Every book I looked at -- eight, I think -- included reviews from people whining that the author wasn't as good a writer as Sean Carroll... so I decided to toss in at least one Sean Carroll book!

Joshua, what do you think of those books, assuming you've read them? Will I be pleased... or cursing my foolish choices?

Dafydd

The above hissed in response by: Dafydd ab Hugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 2, 2008 2:33 PM

The following hissed in response by: JoshuaZ

Dafydd, Re: the "sound barrier" - I think that engineers and physicists knew that there wasn't any sound barrier since the V-2 was able to go well over the speed of sound. As I understand it, by the time Yeager was around, the real question was whether it was possible to reasonably engineer something that could both withstand the stress and would be able to let a human pilot it.

Re books: I've actually not read a single book on that list but I've read other books by many of those authors. Zimmer in particular is very good- his other books I've read are very readable and chock full of cool facts (if you enjoy Evolution: The Triumph of an Idea then I strongly recommend you read Parasite Rex also by Zimmer). Sean Carroll is an excellent writer as well.

I have good things about Hazen by word of mouth but I haven't read anything by him so I can't reasonably comment there.

The above hissed in response by: JoshuaZ [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 2, 2008 7:05 PM

The following hissed in response by: Ben Pugh

I didn’t see anyone respond to two points Baggi made in much earlier posts, to which I think responses are illuminating, so let me give it a whack.

From a Baggi comment on April 26:

“This is why only the critics of ID say that ID somehow is looking for God. As a matter of fact, the arguments are somewhat silly as the critic proclaims, "You can't prove God with science!" and the ID Proponent responds, "You're right, therefore we're not trying to do that." and then the critic responds, "Then who is the designer?" and the ID Proponent responds, "We don't know, nor are we looking." and the critic responds, "AHA!!"


Very strange, I know, but this conversation takes place over and over again.

Like I said before and i'll repeat here, ID is not looking to prove the existence of anything supernatural (IE: Not natural) as Dafydd's strawman insists. Instead, ID is out to demonstrate that in nature we can find evidence for Intelligent Design.”

The critical point here is that ID’ers openly claim not to be looking for the “designer” nor even the physical processes by which the “design” was accomplished. Why not?!?! If ID was a serious scientific inquiry, they should be enormously curious about precisely how their theoretical designer designed the different species. After all, all the species on earth are made out of the same sub-atomic particles, which obey the same laws of physics. How did the “designer” manipulate these building blocks into the different species? ID’ers respond: we don’t care. Why not?!?!

The real reason they don’t care is that they believe the “designer” is a supernatural God. Actually discovering a natural process and mechanism by which a “designer” could have created different species would be just as much of an affront to their religion as evolution itself. So they merely present other possibilities – like space aliens – to try to get their theory accepted as “science” and not “religion,” and thus able to be taught in public schools, but do absolutely nothing to pursue that otherwise enormously fascinating – and scientific – area of inquiry. It goes without saying that they have no evidence of the process or mechanics by which the “designer” went about his/her/its work.


And from another comment from Baggi later on:

“Darwin set out an example of how his theories could be scientifically falsified. His failure to falsify his own theories does not in anyway negate future scientists falsifying his theories.


* * *

Instead, I used Darwin's own words to demonstrate that if his theory is indeed falsifiable by the method he proposed, then Behe is using that method and ID is science.”


ID is not science. If ID attempted to assert a theory or hypothesis as to how the “designer” designed the different species then it would be science. However, ID’ers, as noted above, openly distain from investigating that question. To those of us with a brain, the reason why is patently obvious – they are religious Creationists seeking to get Creationism taught in public schools through the ruse of ID. Their goal is merely to sow distrust in evolution so they may more easily convince other people to believe Creationism instead. The argument is a simple one: See, look how evolution doesn’t work. Since it’s the only explanation that “science” has given us as to how we humans were created, the only explanation left is Creationism as described in the Bible. This argument works on people who do not have the inclination or ability to actually dig into and understand the science, or people who want to believe in Creationism anyway.

Merely criticizing evolutionary theory is not science. To be science, ID’ers must come up with an alternative explanation for the physical processes leading to observed phenomena (the existence of different species) that is testable and falsifiable, and describe how their theory would be falsified by later experiments and observations, just like Darwin did.

Nowhere that I know of has any ID’er ever presented a hypothesis for how a designer actually designed the different species (i.e., put forth a hypothesis of the specific physical, testable processes by which the “designing” occurred) and then set forth examples of experiments or observations the results of which might falsify the hypothesis. If any ID’er has, please show me where. Did Marvin the Martian modify his Illudium-36 Explosive Space Modulator so it could reorient the molecules of huge piles of pure organic elements to create all the different species on earth? How long would this take? Interesting that ID’ers are the first to argue that math models disprove evolution but are totally silent on how any “intelligent design” could take place on natural time tables. How long would it take scientists today to create a single strand of DNA out of the raw elements?

ID’ers think what they are doing is science. That is, they clearly have come up with an alternative explanation of how the observed phenomena of different species came into existence (via the efforts of some “intelligent designer”). Fine in so far as that goes. However, their alternate explanation – ID – is not a scientific one because it’s not really an explanation. ID does nothing to explain how there came to be different species because it does nothing to explain how the designer pulled it off. ID as an explanation is no more legitimate than if I said that my cat - a hyper-intelligent being from a parallel dimension – did it. How, you ask? ID’ers don’t care. They say “intelligent design” because it sounds good to their target audience – people who want to believe in Creationism.

Without providing a testable hypothesis, all ID’ers are doing is criticizing evolutionary theory. Whoop dee do. Scientists know that general relativity and quantum mechanics are incompatible. So I guess neither theory is correct in any sense at all. We should just throw them both out and acknowledge that God really moves everything in the universe according to his whims.

ID’ers are anti-science. They are anti-knowledge. They are anti-truth.

Wir mussen wissen. Wir werden wissen.

The above hissed in response by: Ben Pugh [TypeKey Profile Page] at May 8, 2008 9:01 PM

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