Contrition for evolution

Originally posted by Wulebgr
Here we go again. See http://www.redhotpawn.com/board/showthread.php?threadid=31679

I'm not sure what you're trying to say by quoting that thread. Please express yourself clearly if you choose to disagree with me or insult my opinions. To make empty, unclear statements is to emulate Darwin.

Originally posted by Bosse de Nage
Then your comments about it are equally meaningless.

Your ignorance of logic is obvious from the above statement.
Let me speak in terms simple enough for you can understand:

YOU obviously fit Darwin's theory in being closely related to monkeys.
I distinguish myself from that association.

Originally posted by llhank
I'm not sure what you're trying to say by quoting that thread. Please express yourself clearly if you choose to disagree with me or insult my opinions. To make empty, unclear statements is to emulate Darwin.

...is to emulate Darwin.

And his primate features... "Origins" is mostly postulation and pontification without representation... Darwin muses while amusing his readers with statements like "...but as by this theory, innumerable transitional forms must have existed, why do we not find them embedded in countless numbers in the crust of the earth" and then propounds for pages on how we will inevitably find them...

Wonder why he changed the title? I suppose it was a little politically incorrect - "On the Origin of Species by means of Natural Selection or the Preservation of Favoured Races in the Struggle for Life". And Hitler took this fellow seriously? It might've been funny if so many lives weren't lost because of these amusing musings...

Originally posted by llhank
I'm not sure what you're trying to say by quoting that thread. Please express yourself clearly if you choose to disagree with me or insult my opinions. To make empty, unclear statements is to emulate Darwin.

I've debated evolution endlessly in these threads. As a consequence, I feel as the judge must feel in the story in the thread I referred you to. If you believe that evolution is not science, then you understand neither science nor evolution. If you wish to make your criticism more clear and specific, I'll be happy to continue the debate (although it rarely becomes a true debate). There's a good reason to keep doubts about evolution in the spirituality thread, as most doubts stem from mis-reading of religious texts aggravated by ignorance of science.

If you believe that evolution is not science, then you understand neither science nor evolution. If you wish to make your criticism more clear and specific, I'll be happy to continue the debate (although it rarely becomes a true debate). There's a good reason to keep doubts about evolution in the spirituality thread, as most doubts stem from mis-reading of religious texts aggravated by ignorance of science.[/b]

If you believe evolution theory is a science then you'll love Scientology.

Let's make something crystal clear here. I'm not the one praising a theory, YOU are. The burden falls upon YOU to demonstrate, in iron-clad fashion, the validity therein. You have to put forth and then defend propositions, examples, experiments, and analysis, among other things. We mere skeptics simply attack the inconsitencies in your arguments. THIS is how science works.
Relating to evolution theory, there are volumes devoted to exposing inconsistencies in the reasoning derived from Darwin's work. Whereas you claim to be thoroughly involved in this debate I'm sure you're well aware of the issues.

Originally posted by llhank
Let's make something crystal clear here. I'm not the one praising a theory, ... You have to put forth and then defend propositions, examples, experiments, and analysis, among other things.

I was responding to your proposition,

Originally posted by llhank
Evolution is hardly science....it's a pipe dream of unsupported, unproven theories. The whole message is full of unanswered holes.

You offer no evidence or support for this proposition. Lacking that, I see no purpose in beginning a debate. I will not take the time to tutor you through Biology 101 all the way through graduate work.

Evolution is well established: it is one of the central theories of science. I don't have problems with it. Here in these forums--especially the spirituality forum--legions have attempted to impugn the credibility of evolution without success. You have offered a proposition, defend it.

Originally posted by llhank
If you believe evolution theory is a science then you'll love Scientology.

Let's make something crystal clear here. I'm not the one praising a theory, YOU are. The burden falls upon YOU to demonstrate, in iron-clad fashion, the validity therein. You have to put forth and then defend propositions, examples, experiments, and analysis, among other things. ...[text shortened]... s you claim to be thoroughly involved in this debate I'm sure you're well aware of the issues.

Scientology is a religion where everything is taught on faith, now bear with me for a long post to clear the alien ghosts out of your head about evolution.🙂

Evolution has been accepted by the scientific community since the 1870's. Evidence supporting evolution is far stronger now than it was 50 years ago. While evolution may be controversial with the public, it hasn't been controversial among scientists for the last 130 years. There is a ton of evolution research going on every day and we continuously work on filling those gaps people make such a big deal of. The fact is, any theory will have gaps because we are not relying on magic or miracles to explain every minute detail we don't understand yet.

You seem to be asking for a definition of evolution, which, I need to point out, is not the same theory of evolution that Darwin proposed. And there are far more volumes of information on evolution than there are against it. There are tons of books explaining an enormous number of things using evolution. Anyway, here is my best definition of modern evolutionary theory in a few sentances: Evolution is descent with modifcation. On the micro level we are talking about the changes in the gene frequency of different genes in a population from one generation to the next, and this is a FACT, it happens and we have seen it. On the "macro" scale, it is that over many generations of offspring (thousands or millions) diverege and can create new species. Also, that all species alive today are derived from one common ancestor. This is what all debate from non idiots is about.

Now I will try to quickly explain the processes of evolutionary theory. There are huge books on this and people spend their entire lives doing research, but here are the basics.:

Here is an example of natural selection which is the main part of how evolution works: Imagine a population of green beatles is a forest. The beatles blend in and are hard for birds to see. When the forest burns down, suddenly the green beatles are easy to spot, but the brown mutants are more camoflaged. The green beatles are more likely to be eaten than the brown ones, so, the brown ones survive to reproduce. Imagind that the forest doesnt grow back for one reason or another and eventually, through natural selection, almost all the beatles will be brown. (I am assuming you aren't declaring the whole science of genetics a non science here, if you are, I will need another long post or might just give up). The point is, animals or plants (or microbes, fungi, whatever) with better chances to reproduce, like not being eaten by birds, will pass these traits on to their children. While the disadvantaged animals will not reproduce as often and so they will end up with less children and over time most or all of the population will have the more successful trait.

So I hope that is a good example of the basic "propositions" of evolution. I'll answer everything else in a big post tool I just want to clear up all the stupid misunderstanding of evolution once and for all. Although seriously, take a college level evolutionary biology course, or at least high school bio outside of Kansas. Evolution is one of the basic principals of biology today.

Originally posted by llhank
If you believe evolution theory is a science then you'll love Scientology.

Evolution has been observed on a small scale. The classical example that is often quoted is of moths in England during the Industrial Revolution.

These moths were white and used this to help disguise themselves against the bark of birch trees. However when the Industrial Revolution came along the soot in the air turned the bark of these trees black.

These moths had always had mutated members who were black. However they were quickly eaten by birds because they lacked the camouflage of the rest of the species.

But when the bark turned black suddenly it was good to be black. The black moths lived longer and had a greater chance of laying eggs. Eggs that held the black mutation. The number of black moths started to grow and eventually they were all black.

This was evolution at work, and it was observed. But of course that isn't science in the slightest. It's just some pipe dream. Believing that God zapped them black is much more sensible.

Okay, so this post is about common misconceptions about evolution that people play off from when trying to promote other ideas. Already mentioned a bit, but I feel like making a bigger deal out of it.

First and foremost, the idea that evolution is only a theory and apparently the subset of this that I didnt see until this thread, that it is not real science. When scientists use the word theory, they're referring to a logical, tested, well-supported explanation for a great variety of facts. A theory is in no way tenative. There are not very many scientific theories to have ever been created and all of them, I believe, are currently accepted. Those I can think of are: modern atomic theory, theory of plate tectonics, Einstein's theories of relativity, the germ theory of disease, the heliocentric theory, the modern synthetic theory of evolution, and the gene/chromosome/DNA/RNA theory of inheritance/protein synthesis. These theories all have been modified over time to better explain data but have never been disproven or have any major claims against them scientifically. Evolution is on par with these other theories, so you should spend just as much time arguing that DNA has nothing to do with inheritance or the sun goes around the earth.

A law is not higher than a theory, it is a pattern that can be predicted, theories are used to explain why laws are true.

It is true that evolution as an origin of species can't be tested well in the lab, but the same is true of cosmology or geology. And we can synthesize amino acids running a current through what we think the primordial soup would have been like, so that is good supporting evidence that that step is possible. Just because we can't directly observe something doesnt mean the theories and hypothesises about it are less reliable. And evolutionary theory is the ONLY scientific theory or hypothesis which does a good job of explaining observed phenomina. It has been said that "Nothing in biology makes sense except in the light of evolution."

Basically, evolution isn't just some guess or idea, it is backed up by lots of evidence and has been refined and tested and subjected to harsh peer review for over 100 years. If you have any better model, I and the scientific comunity would like to hear it. If not, then you need to understand how science works.

If someone comes up with a new scientific theory with more explanatory power , then modern evolution will have to be swept aside just as Lamarckism was. Creationism and Intelligent Design don't qualify as competing scientific theories because they're not scientific. They don't offer natural explanations for biological phenomena.

Another common misconception is that evolution is about progress forward or to more advanced or more "perfect" creatures. This is simply not true. Evolution has no goals or foresight, mutations crop up randomly and are selected for or against. Things like the eye that people talk about weren't a series of random mutations to get to an eye, they were random mutations that happened to end up with an eye as an end product, and those with better eyes were more sucessful. Planaria have light sensing patches on their heads which help them against other similair organisms, so it isnt like the eye just appeared out of nowhere.

Which leads to my next misconception, the idea of "missing links". The media is particularly guilty of spreading this one since it sounds cool and important. But the truth is that species arent links in a chain leading from a common ancestor to today. A species is a group of animals who can interbreed with each other, but not with other groups. But because change is gradual, you can't follow evolution as one species to another in sudden changes, the line is blurred and is really more of a continuum. So you often see it reported that "the missing link" has been found, but really these are just individuals part way along the evolution to humans.

I am curious what better way you have to explain the seeming partial steps between humans and chimp like beings that we have found in africa and asia. Why aren't there any Australopithecus' around anymore and how come there was no mention of them in the bible that supposedly records all of history???

Finally the idea that the stongest survive. Survival of the Fittest isn't about who would beat who in a fight. "Social Darwinism" has nothing to do with evolution. It is about who can survive and reproduce most effciently. It is all about sex. A peacock with a brighter tail is more vunerable to predators, but they still won in selection over the duller peacocks who could hide and run away better and even the birds who fly. This is because the females choose to mate with them, often before they get eaten, while a dull bird may live longer but never mate. On a side note, the reason females choose bright males is believed to be related to parasites. A male who can devote energy to a big showy tail is healthy, eats well, and has a good immune system. If he were more vunerable to parasites or incompetant at foraging, his tail would be more dull. Thats all I can think of for now, enjoy mega post #2.

Originally posted by XanthosNZ
Evolution has been observed on a small scale. The classical example that is often quoted is of moths in England during the Industrial Revolution.

These moths were white and used this to help disguise themselves against the bark of birch trees. However when the Industrial Revolution came along the soot in the air turned the bark of these trees black.

...[text shortened]... ightest. It's just some pipe dream. Believing that God zapped them black is much more sensible.

That old hoax? I can't believe you're still duped by it. H.B. Kettlewell glued moths to trees for those beautiful photos you probably drooled over. Peppered moths hide under leaves during the day, they don't sit on tree trunks waiting to be picked off. Their main predators are bats, not birds; and anyway, birds see more in the UV range than people do, so what looks camouflaged to us may not look so to a bird.

There were white and black peppered moths before the revolution and there still are today. You have no way of confirming that the black moths were mutants of the white ones. It was only a change in relative numbers. If you want to discuss something "scientific" don't shovel that type of crap.

It simply does not matter whether the experiments of Kettlewell were valid or not. Natural selection has never been denied by creationists, nor is it a key argument for evolutionists. Its written in the foreword to the 1971 edition of Darwin's Origin of Species that the Peppered Moth observations did not show evolution in action, but rather natural selection, which creationists readily adhere to. They are mutually exclusive, and should not be confused as the same. If anything, it preserves the genetic information already present, much like quality control in an assembly line with motor vehicles. It is not a changing force that turns an animal from one kind to another.

You started off with moths, and you ended with moths. Your "classical" example, is a good one for the type of ignorance people exhibit about evolutionary theory.

Originally posted by llhank

First, write in the post box, not the quote box. Anyway, that should have been another in my common misconceptions post: NO ONE EVER SAID THAT HUMANS EVOLVED FROM CHIMPS OR MONKEYS!!! The theory is that chimps and humans have a common ancestor, and it is undenable that we are more closely related to chimps than to any other animal living today. Astralopithicus (can't be bothered to look up the spelling this time) is a lot more chimplike in some ways, yet much more humanlike than chimps. It is thought to be closer to the common ancestor than we are. Please explain why things used to exist, (dated before creationists say the world began) that look like a partial step between chimplike ancestors and humans. If God created different "kinds" why would they have seeming half-way steps (forgive my use of that, but it is the least confusing metaphor) between chimp-like beings an humans.

Originally posted by Halitose
That old hoax? I can't believe you're still duped by it. H.B. Kettlewell glued moths to trees for those beautiful photos you probably drooled over. Peppered moths hide under leaves during the day, they don't sit on tree trunks waiting to be picked off. Their main predators are bats, not birds; and anyway, birds see more in the UV range than people do, so ...[text shortened]... cal" example, is a good one for the type of ignorance people exhibit about evolutionary theory.

It wasn't a hoax, Here is a letter from an evolutionary biologist Bruce Grant:

In recent weeks your newspaper has printed letters debating revisions in
high school biology curricula. Some of the correspondents have leveled
charges of fraud directed at evolutionists for attributing changes in the colors
of peppered moths to natural selection. As I am one of the evolutionary
biologists who study peppered moths, I feel obliged to comment. Charges of
fraud cannot be left unchallenged.

Some background about peppered moths is necessary. The common form of this
moth species is pale gray. About 150 years ago, a black specimen was
discovered near an industrial city in England. Over the years, the black
(melanic) form became ever more common as the pale form became rare. By
1900 the black form exceeded 90 percent in peppered moth populations
throughout the industrialized regions of England. The phenomenon was dubbed
industrial melanism.

Because people knew that birds eat insects, scientists as early as 1896
suspected that birds were eating the different color forms of peppered
moths selectively based on their degree of conspicuousness in habitats
variously blackened by industrial soot. Extensive experimental work supports this
view, although questions remain. Other scientists proposed that moths
responded to the presence of pollutants by developing darker body colors. We now
know from genetic analysis that the colors of adult peppered moths are
determined by genes; thus, the changes in the percentages of pale to black moths over
generations reflect changes in the genetic makeup of moth populations.

As industrial practices have changed in many regions, we have observed
black moths plummet from 90 percent to 10 percent in the just the past few
decades. Once again, we have observed significant genetic changes occur in
moth populations. Evolution is defined at the operational level as genetic
change over time, so this is evolution. Of the several factors known to
produce evolutionary change, only natural selection is consistent with the
patterns of the changes we see occurring in moth populations. Evolution
examined at this level is as well established as any fact in science.

We still have work to do. We do not all agree about the relative roles of
contributing factors, such as the flow of genes between moth populations
in different regions, the importance of lichens on trees, where on trees
moths might hide from predators, how important is differential predation,
and so on. As in any branch of science, participants endlessly debate
interpretations. Such wrangling is the norm, and it stimulates additional
research. That is how we make progress.

Our debates have never been secret. For recent overviews of the
controversies, please see http://www.wm.edu/biology/melanism.pdf or
www.els.net/elsonline/html/A0001788.html . Yet, unwarranted charges of
fraud, fakery and cover-ups repeatedly appear in letters printed in
newspapers. In your paper, Ms. Katrina Rider "asserts" the peppered moth story is a
hoax. She conveys the impression that dead moths were glued to trees as part of
a conspiracy of deception. She seems unaware that moths were glued to
trees in an experiment to assess the effect of the density (numbers) of moths on
the foraging practices of birds. Taken out of the context of the purpose
of the experiment, the procedure does sound ludicrous.

But, should we blame Ms. Rider for her outrage upon learning that moths
were glued to trees? No. Instead, I blame Dr. Jonathan Wells, who wrote
the article she cites as her source of information. While he has done no work
on industrial melanism, he has written opinion about the work. To one
outside the field, he passes as a scholar, complete with Ph.D. Unfortunately, Dr.
Wells is intellectually dishonest. When I first encountered his attempts
at journalism, I thought he might be a woefully deficient scholar because
his critiques about peppered moth research were full of errors, but soon it
became clear that he was intentionally distorting the literature in my
field. He lavishly dresses his essays in quotations from experts
(including some from me) which are generally taken out of context, and he systematically
omits relevant details to make our conclusions seem ill founded, flawed,
or fraudulent. Why does he do this? Is his goal to correct science through
constructive criticism, or does he a have a different agenda? He never
mentions creationism in any form. To be sure, he sticks to the scientific
literature, but he misrepresents it. Perhaps it might be kinder to suggest
that Wells is simply incompetent, but I think his errors are by
intelligent design.

Bruce Grant

Originally posted by Halitose
They are mutually exclusive, and should not be confused as the same. If anything, it preserves the genetic information already present, much like quality control in an assembly line with motor vehicles. It is not a changing force that turns an animal from one kind to another.

How the frell do you figure that? Mutually exclusive, that is about as far from the truth as you can get and doesnt even make sense from any point of view. Do you even know what mutally exclusive means??? And Natural selection has been demonstrated, time and again to be a force for change, not "quality control". Come to think of it, I really only have two questions for you: What are you smoking? and will you share with the rest of us cause it must be really good stuff.

Originally posted by UmbrageOfSnow
It wasn't a hoax, Here is a letter from an evolutionary biologist Bruce Grant:

In recent weeks your newspaper has printed letters debating revisions in
high school biology curricula. Some of the correspondents have leveled
charges of fraud directed at evolutionists for attributing changes in the colors
of peppered moths to natural select ...[text shortened]... lls is simply incompetent, but I think his errors are by
intelligent design.

Bruce Grant[/b]

Yes?

I'll happily retract the hoax statement as the moths were glued to the trees for photographic and experimental reasons. No agenda here but for science to run its course. I'm sure.