A little proof of Evolution

If you need to stick a creator in there, that's as reasonable a position to take as any I guess.


But how deceiving, improbable and unnecessary would that be? An omnipotent being wouldn't have any reason to deceive anyone. Why should he? "I did it this way, deal with it!"


No, no, and no. No such thing. Baloney. Not only does this directly contradict your first statement, but it completely misrepresents the principles of evolutionary theory.

I mentioned Kenneth Miller in my post to Ulrika - his book "Finding Darwin's God" does a masterful job of explaining exactly why your last statement is as wrong as it could possibly be. Miller is a Christian AND a scientist, and lays out the position for evolution's coexistence with religion quite eloquently. He's living proof that you're wrong.


Which is an ok position to take, but it doesn't make it impossible. (See Dawkins: The Blind Watchmaker). What you're talking about is the human need to find patterns and explanations in things, even if there are none which are readily explanable. That need does not directly require that those patterns or explanations really exist -- only that we want to see them.

Think of it this way. In pre-history, humans banded together to form tribes. Tribes survived better because we were the weakest, slowest species on the food tree and we could accomplish more through team action than alone. Those ancestors who were loners tended to die off so only the community types were left. Out of that evolutionary imperative sprang our need for community. Those tribes which saw and understood patterns also had a survival advantage -- migration patterns of prey animals, the changing of the seasons, cloud formations to predict weather, etc. Those who didn't recognize patterns probably forgot to migrate south in the winter (or hide from hail storms) and died out

So it should be very simple to understand why patterns are so very important to us humans. What we need to be careful of, however, is finding patterns where there either aren't any, or the pattern is buried deeper than our eyes can reveal. That's where science comes in. It gives us vision where we cannot see and reason where we cannot otherwise comprehend.

I'm sorry you interpret the statement that your primary religious book is fiction as an attack on Christianity. Frankly all founding documents of superstitious belief systems are fiction by definition and vary in relative absurdity. Whether it's Christianity, Wiccanism, Scientology, Mormonism (sic), they're all different takes on the same fantasy world.

~Ulrika~

as opposed to your fantasy world?

If I had a belief system based on the existence of supernatural entities, then yes.

~Ulrika~

It's also possible that he created the Earth 5 minutes ago, and also manufactured the evidence, including all of our memories, so that it appears much older.

It's also possible that you are the only consciousness that exists, other than the creator, who is feeding you one huge continuous hallucination of existence. Perhaps you are a brain in a vat in some decidedly non-omnipotent mad scientist's laboratory. How could you tell?

You can't, nobody would be able to, so when deciding what we think is true we generally ignore possibilities of which we have no evidence. But yes, various forms of solipsism are pretty much unassailable positions if one wants to take them.

I have to deny that I am looking for patterns that do not exist.
However it has been achieved I believe that physical substance itself is a result of an action. Whether it is the result of a prior action or a present action or whatever.

It is true that humans have a psychological need to strive for
order usually to produce an often false sense of security.

But what is the alternative? Safely staying within the bounds
of pre-established scientific findings is a form of safe refuge
itself.
These mysterious patterns of unknown order you allude to sound suspicious.
Are you implying that a complex system does after all need
a cause to come into being?

Nor is any type of Evolution. At least theres proof you can point to. But wheres the beef when it comes to Creationism, er I mean Intelligent Design?

This is a good post, it reveals that we are attempting to
identify the nature of the exterior of the context that we are
trapped within.
At the very least it could be indicative of the need for different
forms of thought and or proofs to evaluate the nature of
our experience of this thing.
Otherwise we will remain on the same level as ai npc's inside
a virtual environment.

No, what you mean is that fundamenalist cannot dis-prove Evolution so you reconstruct it to something else... Typical Christian reconstructionist

You ignore the fact that many mutations are good. Thats how eyes came about (a billion years ago)

Why do any of you bother? Totally pointless.

Why do you bother asking that question?

Echo, lol.

It's not a pointless debate. As long as the Christian right continues to try and abolish the separation between church and state and turn our secular democracy into a theocracy, there will be a point to this debate.

ID is nothing more than an cleverly disguised redirect, yet another attempt by fundies to get the rest of the world to fall inline with their belief system. Our public education system has long been a target of the religious fundamentalists. They understand that if they can indoctrinate children early, they can install a theocracy in just a generation or two. It's a downright terrifying thought.

If you think I'm being alarmist, just consider the fact that the leader of the free world is currently making foreign policy decisions inline with his religiously based core values, which include his belief in the rapture and the prohecies of the bible (the Jews, the chosen people, reclaiming their birthright to the holy land, sound familiar?). He learned these values as a kid from religious zealots who agree with the likes of Mr Kline.

His coup was lead by fundamentalists who took advantage of the ignorance of the masses by bringing religious issues to the forefront of the debate. They specalized in reducing the public discourse to a debate over religious values (Gay Marriage, Abortion, etc...).

Consider the fact that while I'm typing this, religious war is escalating to even greater scales in the middle east.

I'd call the debate anything but pointless. I'd say it's probably the most important discussion we as a society should be having.

Rage on Cindy and Ulrika, I volunteer to head up your presidential exploratory committee. :=)

Wonderful post.

~Ulrika~

Why thank you, that could be the first time any one has ever complimented one of my posts. =)

This business with the birds doesn't even need mutation. Shifting the balance of alleles within the population would be enough.

The fact that this article conflates the two issues makes it not much more than pro-evolution marketing.

There is surely a faster adaptation mechanism, probably driven by sexual reproduction (which will often happen within a few generations) and a slower one driven by mutation. If this isn't the technical definition of micro vs macro evolution, there ought to be another term.

Saying that the distinction between micro and macro evolution is a fantasy is a little strong, considering how much we still have to learn about biology.

--Alvin

(who believes in evolution, but doesn't believe in marketing hype)

Education in any form is indoctrination. The issue is just whether you agree with what is being taught or not. I believe in evolution, I am agnostic. I do not believe that there is an erosion of separation of church and state. I indoctrinate my kids daily, and I hope you do the same Erik Pasternak. If everyone with differing view could discuss them rather than fight over them, well we could all be happy happy. In regards to the president the real issue is not Bush, it’s that we have a 2 party system. I don’t feel life would be very different if Gore or Kerry were in there. We need to be able to vote for who we want, not just vote against the OTHER guy.

Be Good!
Puli

While I agree with the sentiment of the mentioned post... (except the leader of the free world bit... Bush is NOT the leader of the free world at all), being complimented by Ulrika is no compliment at all really...

On the other hand, you're right about one thing... mainstream Christian beliefs have (in the US at least) been co-opted by right wing fundies who are about as good Christians as the pharisees of Jesus time were good Jews. (i.e. not at all)....

It's a shameful thing, but you learn to live with it I suppose.

NOT

from www.dictionary.com

2 entries found for indoctrination.
in·doc·tri·nate ( P ) Pronunciation Key (n-dktr-nt)
tr.v. in·doc·tri·nat·ed, in·doc·tri·nat·ing, in·doc·tri·nates
To instruct in a body of doctrine or principles.
To imbue with a partisan or ideological point of view: a generation of children who had been indoctrinated against the values of their parents.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
in·doctri·nation n.
Source: The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition
Copyright © 2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company.
Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. All rights reserved.


indoctrination

n : teaching someone to accept doctrines uncritically

Source: WordNet ® 2.0, © 2003 Princeton University



And hopefully, with continued diligence by the great Americans who guard against the nefarious aims of the fundamentalist right, this trend will continue.



Ummm, the two party system was the basis for the founding father's vision for America. It's the only way to ensure that Majority rules. If you have 5 parties, 4 of them get 19% of the popular vote, and one gets 24%, you now have 24% of the populace ruling the the other 76%.

The idea is to pick the party that is MOST representative of your point of view. I don't agree with 100% of the domacratic party platform, but I do agree with most of it.

This isn't really about Bush vs Kerry. The Democrats realized that Americans weren't going to switch horses mid-stream, so the best and the brightest didn't run in 2004. Kerry was a joke and I'm no fan of his.

It is however about Bush vs Gore, and I believe whole heartedly that things would be very different if Gore were president today instead of Bush. Let's just consult the resume's...

Gore

EDUCATION: Vanderbilt University School of Law, 1974-76. Vanderbilt University School of Religion, 1971-72. B.A. with Honors (Government), Harvard University, 1969.

POLITICAL: Vice President of the United States, 1993 - present (Elected 1992; re-elected 1996). U.S. Senator, 1985-93 [Elected 1984 (61%); re-elected 1990 (70%)]. U.S. Congressman, 1977-85 [Elected 1976 (94%), re-elected 1978 (unopposed), 1980 (79%) and 1982 (unopposed)]. Unsuccessful candidate for the Democratic nomination for President, 1988.

PROFESSIONAL: Newspaper reporter, Nashville Tennesseean, 1973-76. U.S. Army (Vietnam), 1969-71.

Vs.

Legacy Student at Yale (got in because of daddy), C average.

Joined the Texas air national gaurd to avoid going to Vietnam, went AWOL.

Fired from the board of directors of three different oil companies, asked to leave the Texas Rangers organization.

Recovering alcoholic, 2 DUI convictions.

4 years as "Governor of a big state"

Instrumental in his Father's failed reelection campain in 1991.

I dunno, but something makes me think he might have done a few things differently.

Well, "leader of the free-world" is a euphanism often reserved for the PODUS. I use the term loosely of course.

I often wonder if the evangelist watching soccer mom/zombies of america ever compare the republican party platform to the actual words of Jesus, doesn't seem possible.

Shifting the alleles, in fact, would be a mutation.


So any factual news release covering scientific discoveries is "marketing"? how so?


It may be a little strong, but it's still more accurate than Kevn's nonsense claiming micro-evolution happens but macro-evolution doesn't.

Macro-evolution is simply a convenient term used to describe what you get over millions of years of cumulative micro-evolution. Without micro-evolution there isn't any macro-evolution. New species don't just spring out of thin air -- they arise as a cumulative result of genetic mutation acted upon by outside forces in natural selection. The difference between a Hyracotherium (which looked more dog than horse) and the modern Equs is striking -- but when one examines the 30-some intermediate forms and diverging branches that occurred between then and now, it's clear that today's horse is the product of over 55 million years of cumulative micro-evolution which rolled up into about 30 major speciation events, or macro-evolutions. The difference is more than just rhetorical, it's measurable.

Not marketing really, just promotion. News outlets are full of pieces advertising products, services, and ideas under the heading of "news". Not that there's anything wrong with that.

Of course there's something wrong with that, and when it happens, people complain about it. Like when the bush administration was actually taping fake news broadcasts with actors as reporters and sending them off to the networks as press releases to promote their propaganda in favor of the war in Iraq. People bitched because it wasn't news, it was propaganda.

When scientists publish a breakthrough paper that stands up to peer review and the AP reports on it, it's news, not propaganda.

Paaahhhhhhlease.............

Did somebody say my name?

Adaptation is the result of evolutionary mechanisms, most specifically natural selection. Short term adaptation, as many have noted in here, is simply the change of the frequency of existing alleles, such as those effecting beak length. However continued environmental pressures will favor new alleles that are beneficial within the selection pressure. Some might call this micro evolution, which is simply evolutionary changes within a species.

Macro evolution is frequently used for larger scale changes that have accumulated over a larger period of time, and lead to speciation. Taking a step back, the arguments for macro evolution in this sense, all boil down to the notion of common ancestry. You see, in addition to explaining the mechanisms that cause biological diversity, evolution also informs us about the history of life.

What we know with a great deal of certainty is that all extant species of life are related to each other via common ancestry. Evolution is a process that creates biological diversity via the birfucation and subsequent divergence of populations. Over time, this process of descent with modifcation creates a tree of species, all related via common ancestors, a bit like a family tree. Some species will share more common ancestry than other species, such as chimapznees and humans which are more closely related than humans and pigeons. This is because the last common ancestor between humans and chimpanzees lived more recently, about 6 million years, than the last common ancestor of humans and pigeons, which was somewhere around 250 million year ago.

Now, I said that we know this with a great deal of confidence, and this is true. Creationists would like to deny this fact, but it simply cannot be contested rationally. The reason we know this is because the idea has been so well tested.

In science, an hypothesis, such as common ancestry, is tested by deducing one or more testable things about the world that MUST be true, if the hypothesis is true. These are called predictions of the hypothesis. This provides for potential falsification of the hypothesis. If testing the deductions confirms them, then the hypothesis is supported; if they fail, then the hypothesis must be rejected. Over the last 150 years the hypotheses of evolution, such as common ancestry, have been well tested.

I will present one such example here. But it will take a brief foray into the science of Taxonomy. Carl Linnaeus, in the early to middle 18th century, discovered that modern species fit neatly into a natural, nested hierachy based on sets of characters that were shared by different species. A nested hierarchy is an arrangement of objects such that you have groups of objects within groups of objects, a bit like the folders on your hard drive. However, in taxonomy, what determines the presence of a species in one of these groups (called a taxon) is the set of character traits it shares with other species. So, for instance, species with a backbone are all in the taxon Vetrabrates. It is a natural nested hierarchy because you never find a species that really belongs in two different taxa. For instance, you'll never find a bird that is also a mammal.

Now, absent the concept of common ancestry, there is no good explanation for WHY species can be arranged into a natural nested hierarchy. However, with common ancestry, it makes sense. The traits whereby we classify a species as belonging in one or another taxa have been inherited from a common ancestor in which these traits originated.

So, back to the testable prediction for common ancestry. If common ancestry is true, and the nested hierarchy of species is due to inheritence of shared characters, then this nested hierarchy represents the true relationships via descent of all living species. If this is true, then independent attempts, using independent data, to construct such hierarchies (called phylogenies) should produce essentially the same tree. So, for instance, if phylogenies built using molecular data, like gene sequences, did not match anatomical phylogenies, then there must be some other mechanism at work than inheritence of shared characters.

This prediction is being constantly tested, over and over, in modern phylogenic research. By and large phylogenies developed using independent data agree with one another with statistical significance.

This was just one example of the kinds of testing the concept of common ancestry has been undergoing by scientists. There are many more, and if you're interested, this excellent essay covers many such evidences: http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/

Back to the question of micro vs. macro evolution. Although one can draw a distinction to assign to these two words, that distinction is arbitrary. Research actually shows that evolution is scale independent. That means that, like a fractal, whatever scale you observe it, the landscape of evolutionary change looks essentially the same. Here is a reference: http://armandleroi.com/research/pdf/Leroi013.pdf

That was rather long-winded, so I'll stop here. I will note, however, that despite the strong scientific consensus on evolution, creationists will continue to disagree. They do not do so for rational reasons, but for religious ones. It is a rare creationist who changes his views due to rational, logical argument. By and large, those of us who suport sound science are preaching to the choir.