Happy Birthday, Mr. Darwin: Growing Majority of Americans Support Teaching Both Sides of Evolution Debate

[Sideline]

It would be easy. All one has to do is show that language, codes and symbols come from natural processes. Do you have any examples?

Why would I need to show that language comes about naturally? DNA isn’t a language. Who “reads” DNA? It is a set of chemical signals, not a language.

Codes, instructions and symbols convey thoughts. Thoughts come from a mind.

What “thought” is conveyed in the production of histidine?

Put it this way, other than saying, “It doesn’t, because it can’t, because it doesn’t.” Do you have any evidence to support your claim?

 

[The_Barbarian]

Barbarian, regarding the incorrect claim that there is no ordering of pebble sizes on beaches:
Better, the distribution of particle sizes in drumlins would work.

Yes, that would work, JUST AS WELL. There is an order to certain/many/most natural processes.

Actually, no. Particles are not sorted in drumlins, because they were carried by glaciers, not water.

Yes. But order alone is insufficient to define information.

That’s absurd. Radar images of hurricanes, for example, reveal a great amount of information contained in the storm. Even random sources in nature can provide a great amount of information.

Perhaps it would be good if you read up on “information?”

 

[The_Barbarian]

First, by WHAT definition?

**random
   /ˈrændəm/

1. proceeding, made, or occurring without definite aim, reason, or pattern: the random selection of numbers.
2. Statistics. of or characterizing a process of selection in which each item of a set has an equal probability of being chosen.**

If it’s ordered, it’s not random.

Second, order is not equal to information.

Of course. Information is a measure of uncertainty.

Third, randomness does not negate order.

See above. The relationship is not what you think it is.

Just so we know what you believe, how about showing us how you would calculate the amount of information in something?

 

[The_Barbarian]

You never answered what I stated. For evolution to occur from the beginning of a single-cell to that of an animal with organs and higher brain function, then genetic information must be replaced/added to/subtracted/tweaked/etc. etc, by new and larger amounts of information.

All new mutations add information to the population. And they occur randomly. Would you like to see the numbers on that?

Birds used to have teeth. Would the loss of teeth in birds be a loss of information or a gain in information?

Some humans in Italy have a new enzyme that protects them from hardening of the arteries. They also retain the old enzyme from which it evolved. Is that an increase or decrease in information?

You lose, because you’re too dang scared to answer the questions.

Someone is.

 

[grannymh]

As I indicated in my post, Haldane’s work has been looked at since he did it. He left out a number of things that were not known about at the time he did his work, such as neutral drift. For a discussion of Haldane (and of ReMine) see Haldane’s non-dilemma.

Mr Smart’s criticisms of evolution are warmed over versions of Dr ReMine’s use of Haldane’s Dilemma. The arguments are incorrect, as shown in Ian Musgrave’s piece I linked to above. To take just one example, Mr Smart uses only “alteration of one DNA nucleotide in the chromosomes”; there are other mutations which alter more then one neucleotide at once. Sometimes hundreds or thousands of nucleotides are changed in a single mutation. Because of this incorrect (name removed by moderator)ut the rest of Mr Smart’s calculations are not relevant - GIGO.
rossum

Dear rossum,

What interested me in Haldane’s work and your comments is the outline or structure of the list of data to be considered in determining evolution from ancestor to man. It reminded me of the mantra–who, how, what, when, where, why, cost–which I used many years ago when writing news releases and promotional material. The idea of fill-in-the-blanks worksheets in high school physics also rose to the surface.

My question – where would I find a general, basic mantra or outline for evolutionary investigations of the backward trail from present human beings to the point where they became human. Or maybe it would be a forward trail from the point of life to humanity? Or maybe what I am looking for are guidelines for organizing information? Speaking of information, I keep going back to the posts about information… Also genomes fascinate me. Maybe it is the idea of “missing information” or rather new territories to be explored that tantallizes me.

BTW, someone had bookmarked your post 70, thread “101 scientific facts from the Bible” and sent it to me. Very interesting! I’ve seen a similar idea which to me, had a glitch, but I can’t remember what.

My imagination loves to deal with possibilities about Adam & Eve so I’m thinking that I would start at a point in evolutionary theory… which is why I am working to understand evolution. (I am learning a lot from the back and forth on threads.) Actually, it’s my curiosity that is driving my interest in evolution along with the passion for understanding life, especially human life.

Blessings,
granny

All human life is worthy of profound respect

 

[Leela]

An example of a random pattern would be the distribution of pebbles on a beach, where the tiniest pebbles might be on the bottom, with increasingly larger pebbles on the surface. This is because the random action of the waves on the shoreline sort the pebbles.

Random means without any pattern.

Nature can only produce repetitious patterns which are periodic, while Intelligence produces patterns which are non-repetitious and aperiodic, like the words in this posting.

Pattern means repetition.

The “exact arrangement of pebbles on the beach” is EXACTLY what one would expect to find if that arrangement were ordered by nature through natural processes.

To say that would suggest that if one pebble would have been in a different location, we would have to conclude that teh process for not natural. Obviously, this is not so.

On the other hand, if you were flying an airplane over the beach and saw a bunch of large rocks forming huge letters spelling out “HELP!!!”, then you would surmise, CORRECTLY, that natural processes did not bring that arrangement about.

I agree. We could conclude that the message was designed. My question is how we could ever say that EVERYTHING is not designed.

We already have that - it’s called “logic.” We constantly are assessing patterns around us, and making determinations on whether those patterns were the result of natural processes, or if they were intelligently derived.

You may be on to something. But you still need to describe a method of distinguishing patterns that are the result of natural processes or human intelligence from those that are the result of unnatural intelligence.

As a matter of fact, one of the best known SCIENTIFIC methods for performing such tests is referred to as “forensics.”

Can you unpack this?

Best,
Leela

 

[rossum]

For evolution to occur from the beginning of a single-cell to that of an animal with organs and higher brain function, then genetic information must be replaced/added to/subtracted/tweaked/etc. etc, by new and larger amounts of information.

I have emphasised “larger amounts of informaiton”. How have you measured the amount of informaiton present? Unless you can actually measure the amount of information present then you have no idea whether the amount is larger, smaller or the same. What measure of information are you using?

We are talking about “evolution”, not allelic frequencies.

You are incorrect. Evolution is defined as the change in allele frequencies in a population over time. The theory of evolution is the best explanation we have as to how this change happens.

Here’s what Laurence D Smart had to say about his material:

That is my point, it was his material, not yours. You did not give him any credit for his work. I did not accuse you of infringing copyright, I accused you of using his work without making it clear that it was his work and not your work.

Actually, He is. And you don’t get to tell Christians what is, and what is not Christianity.

That was precisely my point. You do not get to tell biologists what is and what is not evolution.

And evolutionists will tell you that Natural Selection is the MECHANISM for evolution.

That was what I said: “natural selection is part (though not all) of evolution.”

Now, would you like to try answering the question again?

Natural selection is based on three basic facts:* living organisms produce more offspring than in needed to maintain the population.

• there is hereditable variation among members of a species.
• there are limited resources of food, space, etc. for any species.

Given the overproduction of new organisms and limited resources, then there will not be enough resources for all individuals. Hence there is competition for resources. Given the hereditable variations, some individuals will do better in the competition for resources than others. Those individuals which do better in the competition for resources will tend to have more offspring in the next generation. The increase in offspring will increase the proportion of those advantageous hereditable variations in the population. That results in a change in the proportions of different alleles in the population. That is how natural selection drives evolution.

rossum

 

[PEPCIS]

"SHW:

I am not personally an inclusive literalist when it comes to Bible interpretation. Far from it. And I certainly do not believe that the creation accounts should be interpreted in a strictly literal context. I was actually pointing out the dangers, if a person interprets everything in the Bible literally.

PEPCIS:

But you ARE

the Literalist. Biblical Literalists attempt to interpret the Bible LITERALLY where it clearly should not be interpreted thusly. You are FORCING a LITERAL interpretation where none is warranted.

This may help:

I got this from John Martignoni’s Bible Christian Society website:

"The ‘literal’ meaning of a passage of Scripture is the meaning that the author of that passage of Scripture intended to convey. The ‘literalist’ interpretation of a passage of Scripture is: ‘that’s what it says, that’s what it means.’

Thanks Monty. I think that SHW probably is already aware of this, but chooses deliberately to ignore such advice. The fact is, those passages, while intended to give a literal account of what occurred, are also written in a manner which intends to convey the context loosely.

For example, the thrust of the passages in question are different. The first account has in mind a general overview of the creation account from day one through day six, while the second account only has in mind the sixth day because that centers around man.

SHW is just regurgitating the atheists’ talking points. The atheists state that in the first account of Genesis one, that God created

1. 
   *]land
   *]vegetation
   *]animals
   *]man
   
   while the second account in Genesis 2 claims that God created
   
   1. 
      *]land
      *]man
      *]plants
      *]animals
      
      This is due to a severe difficulty in the area of discernment, because SHW has taken the path of so many other erring Christians in accepting evolution simply because they have been personally unable to reconcile the Creation with contemporary scientific declarations.
      
      If SHW were to have faith in the Word, instead of beginning with the declaration that science always trumps the Bible, then he would come to the Bible looking for ways to understand the nuances of the creation accounts, and how they are reconcilable, instead of accepting an atheistic interpretation.
      
      For example, when these atheists state that Genesis one has the order of creation differently than in Genesis two, what they mean is that man is created BEFORE the animals and plants, while in the first account man is created AFTER the animals and the plants.
      
      Let’s start with the plants. In Genesis one, the “vegetation” that is referred to is of a general variety, whereby the Genesis two account speaks of agricultural plantings. That is why the accounts are “different.” In the first account, the focus is on the individual days, and what occurred in each of those days, whereas in the second account, the focus is on Man, and the things that God did for Man, like make a garden for him to till with specific plants and seeds.
      
      It must be remembered that Genesis 2 is not an account of the creation of land and water and all plants and animals, because that had already taken place in Genesis one.
      
      Next come the animals. Just as in the plants, we must remember that the Creation has already been performed. Animals and plants have already been created on their respective days. But this account shows that God takes man, and creates a special garden - a place of sanctuary and labor - so that man can see the uniqueness of the garden from the rest of Creation.
      
      With the animals, we remember that God had already commanded: “Let the earth bring forth living creatures after their kind…” So, in Genesis two, we have God creating other unique animals before Adam so that he is able to see that Man is special, and unique from all the rest of Creation.
      
      There is no discrepancies in the creation accounts, just discrepancies in their minds.

 

[grannymh]

I have emphasised “larger amounts of informaiton”. How have you measured the amount of informaiton present? Unless you can actually measure the amount of information present then you have no idea whether the amount is larger, smaller or the same. What measure of information are you using?

rossum

Shouldn’t the question be – What is the value of the infomation?
This basic question could lead to questions similar to "Is the infomation bringing about the intended purpose? In other words, “Does the information work?”

This saying comes to mind: “Jack of all trades, master of none.”

 

[Detales]

Dear SHW and Monty,

That is a useful definition as far as contrasiting “literal” and “literalism.” That is a very important kind of distincition to make. There are other similarly important distinctions that are as useful. I have found them collected together in a rather wonderful book. It is being used, in fact, in some courses on comparative religon for exactly that reason, as it also deals with the problems of transaltion, meaning, witnessing, etc. Sadly, the work in question has a very unfortunate and misleading title, at least as far as more traditional christianists go, and there have on similar grounds been criticisms of the author’s personal beliefs. Nevethless, I have found the book as it stands to be one of the most useful texts in this area I have ever found. And though it is aimed by way of example primarily at religious studies, it may as well be used in the examination of other areas, including scientific, and of thinking in general. It is also vastly entertaining and very well annotated.

The name of the book, should you be interested, is Insights for the Age of Aquarius: a handbook for religious sanity. The author is Gina Cerminara. Though the book is out of print, copies of it may yet be obtained for anywhere from $1 to much more expensive.

Another useful work in this area is Maurice Nicoll’s The New Man: an interpretation of some of the parables and miracles of Christ. He goes into what might very well be the meaning of Mark 4:33,34. You may want to go to the library for this one, the paperback starts at about $30, with some editions, used, over $100.

As for “literal” vs “literalism,” a very interesting history of that phenomenon may be found in two consecutive works by Tom Harpur. Though some may find his work incindiary, I nevertheless found in his pages much that is relevant to this issue. Those books are *The Pagan Christ *and Water into Wine. Both are currently available. Whether one agrees with his exposition or not, it is a clear diliniation of much of current scholastic thought in that area, including some sources I had not yet heard of.

 

[PEPCIS]

"PEPCIS:

An example of a random pattern would be the distribution of pebbles on a beach, where the tiniest pebbles might be on the bottom, with increasingly larger pebbles on the surface.
Barbarian:

Better, the distribution of particle sizes in drumlins would work

PEPCIS:

Yes, that would work, JUST AS WELL. There is an order to certain/many/most natural processes.

Actually, no. Particles are not sorted in drumlins, because they were carried by glaciers, not water.

I know nothing about the sorting of particles in drumlins, but if you care to share an article on it, I’d be glad to investigate it and see if it is anything like your claims.

Ok, so apparently you want to call random “totally without pattern or recognition.” That’s still incomplete, because not all random forces create phenomena which are “totally without pattern or recognition.” I’m inclined to come to an opposing conclusion, simply based on intuition.

For example, water draining down a bathtub creates the order of a vortex, which contains no information.

But at the beach, you’ve shown order can arise from natural processes.

PEPCIS:

Yes. But order alone is insufficient to define information.

Barbarian:

That’s absurd. Radar images of hurricanes, for example, reveal a great amount of information contained in the storm. Even random sources in nature can provide a great amount of information. Perhaps it would be good if you read up on “information?”

Ooooo, I love ad hominems disguising themselves as questions!!!

How about we do this: you define information so that we can see if you know what you are talking about, and I’ll define information so that you can know what I’m talking about.

See you in a future post!!

 

[oriel16]

Natural selection is based on three basic facts:* living organisms produce more offspring than in needed to maintain the population.

• there is hereditable variation among members of a species.
• there are limited resources of food, space, etc. for any species.

Given the overproduction of new organisms and limited resources, then there will not be enough resources for all individuals. Hence there is competition for resources. Given the hereditable variations, some individuals will do better in the competition for resources than others. Those individuals which do better in the competition for resources will tend to have more offspring in the next generation. The increase in offspring will increase the proportion of those advantageous hereditable variations in the population. That results in a change in the proportions of different alleles in the population. That is how natural selection drives evolution.

rossum

That is about as honest as I have seen but it arises from an essay of overpopulation and resources driving the justification for invasion ( not evolution) transfered to biological evolution.You call it the ‘fact of natural selection’ and indeed many stupid Christians beg questions from that empirical ‘fact’ but it all amounts to the disgusting transfer of an essay on human supremacy on to creation and biological evolution -

“An Alaric, an Attila, or a Zingis Khan, and the chiefs around them, might fight for glory, for the fame of extensive conquests, but the true cause that set in motion the great tide of northern emigration, and that continued to propel it till it rolled at different periods against China, Persia, italy, and even Egypt, was a scarcity of food, a population extended beyond the means of supporting it.” Thomas Malthus

“Without consideration of traditions and prejudices, Germany must find the courage to gather our people and their strength for an advance along the road that will lead this people from its present restricted living space to new land and soil, and hence also free it from the danger of vanishing from the earth or of serving others as a slave nation. The National Socialist Movement must strive to eliminate the disproportion between our population and our area—viewing this latter as a source of food as well as a basis for power politics—between our historical past and the hopelessness of our present impotence” Hitler

“One day something brought to my recollection Malthus’s “Principles of Population,” which I had read about twelve years before. I thought of his clear exposition of “the positive checks to increase”—disease, accidents, war, and famine—which keep down the population of savage races to so much lower an average than that of civilized peoples. It then occurred to me that these causes or their equivalents are continually acting in the case of animals also… .” Charles Darwin

The idea of betrayal for 30 pieces of silver comes to mind and this only refers to the anti-scientific empirical approach.A Church that does not actively fight the root cause of this problem ,and Darwin is merely a symptom,hardly represents the Church of Christ.The trajectory of a supremacy ‘cause’ is so obvious and so explicit that those who even consider carrying on discussing the matter as the empiricists would have it are as bad as the non believing empiricists themselves.

 

[PEPCIS]

[SIGN]“Is it not a wonder that anyone can bring himself to believe that a number of solid and separate particles by their chance collisions…could bring into being so marvelous and beautiful a world? If anybody thinks that this is possible, I do not see why he should not think that if an infinite number of examples of the twenty-one letters of the alphabet…were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to fall so as to spell out, say, the whole text of the Annals of Ennius. In fact I doubt whether chance would permit them to spell out a single verse! [If] these people can bring themselves to assert that…these chance collisions of atoms can make a world, why cannot they build a porch, or a temple, or a house or a city…a much easier and less laborious task."
– Cicero, 45 B.C[/SIGN]

 

[buffalo]

[sign]“Is it not a wonder that anyone can bring himself to believe that a number of solid and separate particles by their chance collisions…could bring into being so marvelous and beautiful a world? If anybody thinks that this is possible, I do not see why he should not think that if an infinite number of examples of the twenty-one letters of the alphabet…were shaken together and poured out on the ground it would be possible for them to fall so as to spell out, say, the whole text of the Annals of Ennius. In fact I doubt whether chance would permit them to spell out a single verse! [If] these people can bring themselves to assert that…these chance collisions of atoms can make a world, why cannot they build a porch, or a temple, or a house or a city…a much easier and less laborious task."
– Cicero, 45 B.C[/sign]

What is the opposite of Intelligent Design? Stupid Disorder.

 

[oriel16]

What is the opposite of Intelligent Design? Stupid Disorder.

The intelligent design advocates try to work within the empirical framework that is causing the problem .The empiricists did hjack science from within the Christian tradition and tried to set it apart hence the rise of such vacuous platforms as random mutations vs intelligent design.

I have seen this on the sci.forums such as relativity where the proponents and opponents create elaborate scenarios that are promoted ,defended or attacked .They never actually do anything because the emprical framework from which it arose itself is based on distortions,all they can do is cut each other to pieces in the attempt of some to find their way out of a conceptual labyrinth created by Newton and others who think being trapped in somebody’s imagination (Newton’s) is acceptable

You do not climb into bed with somebody suffering an infectious disease ,you can attempt to treat the symptoms as intelligent design tries to do but eventually you contact the same disease.An intelligent person looks at the environment where the disease is coming from and roots it out rather than treating individual cases or the symptoms.

 

[Ender]

"PEPCIS:

order alone is insufficient to define information.
The Barbarian:

That’s absurd.

PEPCIS:

order is not equal to information.

Of course.

Can you clarify this?

Ender

 

[Ender]

Natural selection is based on three basic facts:

• living organisms produce more offspring than in needed to maintain the population.
• there is hereditable variation among members of a species.
• there are limited resources of food, space, etc. for any species.
  Given the overproduction of new organisms and limited resources, then there will not be enough resources for all individuals. Hence there is competition for resources. Given the hereditable variations, some individuals will do better in the competition for resources than others. Those individuals which do better in the competition for resources will tend to have more offspring in the next generation. The increase in offspring will increase the proportion of those advantageous hereditable variations in the population. That results in a change in the proportions of different alleles in the population. That is how natural selection drives evolution.

A very clear explanation of what drives evolution … is there an equally clear explanation of those instances where evolution appears to be parked, such as with turtles, sharks, and crocodilians?

Ender

 

[grannymh]

Regarding rossum’s post 500

A very clear explanation of what drives evolution … is there an equally clear explanation of those instances where evolution appears to be parked, such as with turtles, sharks, and crocodilians?

Ender

Are there instances where evolution speeded up so that generations were shorter than expected?

 

[rossum]

My question – where would I find a general, basic mantra or outline for evolutionary investigations of the backward trail from present human beings to the point where they became human. Or maybe it would be a forward trail from the point of life to humanity? Or maybe what I am looking for are guidelines for organizing information?

You are asking about systematics. Linnaeus started things off by classifying organisms according to their properties. It was soon noticed that some properties did not overlap, and so were more useful for classification than others. There is no overlap between fur and feathers - no organism has both, just fur (mammals), feathers (birds) or neither (the rest). Overlapping features (like legs) are not so much use. Snakes have no legs while lizards and spiders both do, but it is obvious that lizards are more like snakes than spiders. All of this allowed early biologists to build a nested hierarchy based on these non-overlapping characteristics. Some organisms showed a strange mix of characteristics, like a platypus which has fur but also lays eggs. Such strange animals (and some fossils with similar strange mixes of characteristics) allowed biologists to link together different parts of the hierarchy into a tree - the Tree of Life. In order to classify something you need to know what the important non-overlapping characteristics are; that is what is taught in university classes on the subject.

The Tree of Life site will give you the forward trail from the origin of life to humans. For the backwards trail have a look at Richard Dawkins’ “The Ancestor’s Tale”. You may not agree with his religious views, but in this case his science is good.

Enter DNA. Now that we can sequence DNA from many different organisms we have an independent way to classify organisms, by looking at their DNA. This method involves mathematics and information theory - we try to minimise the number of changes in DNA required to build the tree. The important point is that the tree we derive from DNA is within ten decimal places of the Linnaean tree we derived from non-overlapping characteristics. That is a 0.00000001% difference between the two trees. This gives us a high degree of confidence that the tree we are seeing is real and not just an artefact of the way we measure things.

Actually, it’s my curiosity that is driving my interest in evolution along with the passion for understanding life, especially human life.

Curiosity drives a great number of scientists: “how does that work?”

rossum

 

[rossum]

A very clear explanation of what drives evolution … is there an equally clear explanation of those instances where evolution appears to be parked, such as with turtles, sharks, and crocodilians?

The “parking” is often just appearance. New species of crocodile, turtle and shark evolve - it is just that they do not have major differences from the earlier species they replaced.

If a general pattern is well adapted to its environment and that environment is stable then that general pattern will tend to persist in that environment for a long time. There will be variations on the pattern, but for the time that the environment remains stable the variations will be small.

In general marine environments are more stable than land environments so we tend to see more stability in marine species than land species.

rossum