Evolution is the best scientific explanation of humans

[Matthew_O]

Hi August, here are my replies to your questions:

***1. Please show how arranging fossils in a lineage is a falsifiable hypothesis.***

Scientists are often very proud individuals. So much so that view their activities as social scientists as pure science.

That question hits at the very heart of the bias physical anthropologists have for their work. Currently:

Fossil lineages are built on the presumption of the truth of evolutionary theory.

Which means of course fossil arrangement is not falsifiable. Therefore, it should not be included in evidence lines for evolution. I fully admit that this is not evidence for evolution.

However, this does not prevent fossil discoveries from being falsifications for evolutionary theory. A quality theory has plenty of scenarios that can falsify it. For example, if you were to find a human molar (or any human tooth) in any physical strata that is independently dated to be older than 5 million years (of which approx 80% of available strata layers are) you would have an excellent falsification candidate. There are numerous other variations of this that would work equally as well. Currently, no fossils of this type have been found.

***Question 2: There are a few examples of phylogenetic incongruencies, such as the 188 different genes from 5 different light-harvesting bacteria (Jason Raymond, et. al., "Whole-Genome Analysis of Photosynthetic Prokaryotes," Science 298 (2002): 1616-1619). There is also a study done on bats (Emma C. Teeling, et. al., "Microbat Paraphyly and the Convergent Evolution of a Key Innovation in Old World Rhinolophoid Microbats," PNAS, 99 (2002) 1431-1436.), which show incongruencies in the development of echolocation. The reason that phylogenetic incongruency is not often discussed, is because it is not an on/off type issue, there are grades of incongruency. There is therefore no falsifiable position on incongruency, all grades of congruency are assumed to be sufficient by evolutionary biology. Therefore any argument challenging it is met with the answer that it does not prove anything. It is also my impression that it is not touted too widely as evidence for evolution, as it can also be construed to be evidence for design. ***

Actually, there are numerous examples of slight incongruencies, and even a couple examples of large incongruencies. Genes do not always evolve at the same rate in different lineages. But beyond this, things can get tricky when there is horizontal gene transfer and molecular convergence.

I think your point on this is the lack of falsification in this system. However, this is one area where I would not agree. Statistical analysis of the rates of genetic change would be meaningless (and thus, be all over the place) if there was not some underlying principle at hand. A couple outliers does not change this. Now you would be correct in realizing that correlation does not equal causation, and you may well address an intelligent designer to the process, but this most certainly does not preclude evolution as the probabilistic mechanism to bring about such lines of fit.

Questions 3 and 4 upcoming

[Believer]

I'm going to reserve the right to not respond to Thinker's post.

Please answer my post, I would love to hear your stance on what has been said. Can you not answer it? Can you not answer WHY we are here? If there was no God, and the universe came about, which still is impossible, then what would our purpose be? Nothing. Do you like thinking inside the box? Not cool to call yourself a Christian and post like an atheist.

[Jbuza]

***What specific evidences that evolution has occurred are you talking about?***

1.) Biogeography of marsupials and their cytochrome C comparisons.
2.) Psuedogene consistency in primates
3.) Endogenous retroviruses

Where is the scientific evidence for Creationism? Can you please detail any of it?

1.) Biogeography of marsupials and their cytochrome C comparisons.
2.) Psuedogene consistency in primates
3.) Endogenous retroviruses

[Matthew_O]

Thinker: I'll make you a deal. I'll answer the portions of your post that are somewhat on topic:

***How do you know for a hardcore fact that we have CONSISTENT TRANSITIONAL forms for ANY species? Is there proof? Candidates are not proof.***

Never said they were. Nor can anything in science be proven. Plus, I'll go even further...there is no experimental evidence for transitional forms, period. Refer to my posts on how evidence for evolution is actually compiled.

***I believe they will hand pick bones they find and MAKE them fit into what they want so they can say "hah, there you go, proof for macroevolution!***

Fossils are usually found by archaeologists and anthropologists. They work in a paradigm that currently accepts evolution as a correct assumption. However, there are mechanisms in place that prevent a physical anthropologist for just fitting the bone wherever they want:

a) the date of the strata that the fossil is found
b) the currently accepted typology for that particular fossil

These are limiting instances. But the real security comes from this. Scientists spend an inordinate amount of time (for many, their lives) looking for their one big break. Any fossil find that has the possibility of breaking the current paradigm = fame & big research grants. There is actually little incentive to add another singular fossil to the thousands that already support evolution. Hard to think there is a consipiracy there.

***What starts the initial creation?***

I believe God created the singularity which we term the Big Bang. Atheists imagine that matter and energy cannot be destroyed so the singularity had always existed (or the potential for it). This point, however, is moot. Evolutionary theory has no opinion on this.

Evolution makes no comment on where life comes from. It simply is an explanation of why we have such diversity of life on Earth. Most agnostics say, "It doesn't matter how or who started life; it is still patently obvious that evolution is how that life diversified".

***If there was no God, and the universe came about, which still is impossible, then what would our purpose be?***

Given these presuppositions it would necessarily obtain that there is no objective purpose. Life becomes a composite of subjective purposes.

___________________________________________________________

Jbuza:

That is a bit of a flippant answer. Now you might think my responses are dogmatic and that yours is an adequate response, but there is a purpose to how I approach this. All 3 of those scientific evidences are relatively complicated, and to detail all of them at length is simply not prudent. However, if any of those individually make you shake your head, I'd be willing to delve into the details.

[BGoodForGoodSake]

***What specific evidences that evolution has occurred are you talking about?***

1.) Biogeography of marsupials and their cytochrome C comparisons.
2.) Psuedogene consistency in primates
3.) Endogenous retroviruses

Where is the scientific evidence for Creationism? Can you please detail any of it?

1.) Biogeography of marsupials and their cytochrome C comparisons.
2.) Psuedogene consistency in primates
3.) Endogenous retroviruses

Care to explain?

[Matthew_O]

I think he is dogmatically saying that anything that is evidence for evolution is evidence for creationism.

Which of course, does not address the issue at all.

[Jbuza]

I think he is dogmatically saying that anything that is evidence for evolution is evidence for creationism.

Which of course, does not address the issue at all.

You listed observations without a word about how that proves evolution, so I responded in like manner.

[August]

Hi August, here are my replies to your questions:

***1. Please show how arranging fossils in a lineage is a falsifiable hypothesis.***

Scientists are often very proud individuals. So much so that view their activities as social scientists as pure science.

That question hits at the very heart of the bias physical anthropologists have for their work. Currently:

Fossil lineages are built on the presumption of the truth of evolutionary theory.

Which means of course fossil arrangement is not falsifiable. Therefore, it should not be included in evidence lines for evolution. I fully admit that this is not evidence for evolution.

However, this does not prevent fossil discoveries from being falsifications for evolutionary theory. A quality theory has plenty of scenarios that can falsify it. For example, if you were to find a human molar (or any human tooth) in any physical strata that is independently dated to be older than 5 million years (of which approx 80% of available strata layers are) you would have an excellent falsification candidate. There are numerous other variations of this that would work equally as well. Currently, no fossils of this type have been found.

***Question 2: There are a few examples of phylogenetic incongruencies, such as the 188 different genes from 5 different light-harvesting bacteria (Jason Raymond, et. al., "Whole-Genome Analysis of Photosynthetic Prokaryotes," Science 298 (2002): 1616-1619). There is also a study done on bats (Emma C. Teeling, et. al., "Microbat Paraphyly and the Convergent Evolution of a Key Innovation in Old World Rhinolophoid Microbats," PNAS, 99 (2002) 1431-1436.), which show incongruencies in the development of echolocation. The reason that phylogenetic incongruency is not often discussed, is because it is not an on/off type issue, there are grades of incongruency. There is therefore no falsifiable position on incongruency, all grades of congruency are assumed to be sufficient by evolutionary biology. Therefore any argument challenging it is met with the answer that it does not prove anything. It is also my impression that it is not touted too widely as evidence for evolution, as it can also be construed to be evidence for design. ***

Actually, there are numerous examples of slight incongruencies, and even a couple examples of large incongruencies. Genes do not always evolve at the same rate in different lineages. But beyond this, things can get tricky when there is horizontal gene transfer and molecular convergence.

I think your point on this is the lack of falsification in this system. However, this is one area where I would not agree. Statistical analysis of the rates of genetic change would be meaningless (and thus, be all over the place) if there was not some underlying principle at hand. A couple outliers does not change this. Now you would be correct in realizing that correlation does not equal causation, and you may well address an intelligent designer to the process, but this most certainly does not preclude evolution as the probabilistic mechanism to bring about such lines of fit.

Questions 3 and 4 upcoming

Hi Matthew,

Thanks for the honest answers. It is not often one can have civil conversation about the topic. Lately we seem to have a few good evolutionist defenders here, like you and Bgood.

1. Fossil record: I understand what you are saying about finding certain morphological characteristics in specific strata serving as sufficient for falsification, but I don't quite get how that follows. Without determining ancestry, how do you predict what is expected to be found in strata? Also, without showing lineage, the actual progress of species throughout history cannot be demonstrated? By finding no human molars in 5 million year old strata, all you have shown is that there were no humans back then. Isn't lineage the whole point of the fossil record as proof for evolution?

2. Phylogenetic incongruency: Yes, as I explained in my paragraph, it does not matter what size the incongruencies are, they are always assumed to be within the margin of error to be explained away by lateral gene transfer. There are also some other explanations: divergent molecular data, too much interference in the molecular data, biased data for a particular species, estimation errors if many species are studied, and then something a bit more contentious, weighting of molecular data. The question still remains though, at what point do these explanations become ad hoc, so as to falsify the assumption that for evolution to hold true, different species must produce congruent phylogena? Among the issues for evolution in this line of reasoning are two things: Firstly, the null-hypothesis related to congruency/noncongruency seems to be a pretty generous distribution, and secondly, there is no predictive mechanism for the size of the distribution. (Paraphrasing Cornelius Hunter)

[norman619]

Well the problem I have with ID being taught in a public school setting is that it's basically teaching a religious view. To teach it along side a scientific theory would do 2 things. First it looks like gov is supporting religion and 2 it lowers science to the level of religion. Scientific theories are made to be revised as more and better information is available. Religious views are not so flexible. Anyone that says any of the scientific theories out there are w/o their flaws is sadly misinformed. Every single theory we have is flawed. A theory is simply our best guess given the current information at hand. Many people mistakenly think theory = law = fact. It does not. It is simply a view based on years of research and testing. How anyone can think something based mostly on faith and viewed as fact by it's followers has any business being taught along side a scientific theory is just trying to push their own religious views on others or are afraid their kids will show an aptitude for free thought and individualism and think for themselves. Religion belongs in the home, church, and any non-federally funded institutions and/or organizations.

There are many individuals and groups who do not accept the explanations of evolutionary theory. This is prima facie obvious given the backlash against the idea of evolution within North America. That's fine - and should even be expected - because no one is required to accept every explanation given for a phenomenon.

However, when scientific curriculum is being developed by public schools, it should provide the most current scientific information that is widely established in the academic community (of scientists). There is no objective criteria out there that would preclude evolution as being the only modern scientific explanation for human origins. And if you disagree with this statement, I would like to hear why you disagree. But before you do, let me provide a bit of additional information to clarify my position.

1. There is a normative statement in there about what schools should teach. If you wish to discuss educational philosophy, that's fine, but that discussion should deal with that topic only, and not evolution.

2. I'm not atheist nor a deist; I'm a Christian.

3. I accept evolutionary explanations for human ancestory.

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Well, the way evolution is taught and the way its used, it's obvious it's pushing a religious view as well...so we only allow one religious view to be pushed at a time or what?

[norman619]

Ummm... science it not a religion. LOL There is no faith in science. You actually look for the real answers for things and test established ideas for their validity to the best of your ability. If a better idea comes along you dump the old one for the new one. Tell me where in any religion this takes place. Religions are rigid. They are full of "facts" not theories. They do not encourage free thought. You follow the teachings. To suggest they may be flawed or even wrong is heresy.

And how is evolution used? It's not a tool. It's an idea. It's a good idea which has it's flaws but that's fine since again we don't expect scientific theories to be THE answer. They are just the current proposed answer. Now there are many scientists that treat science like a religion. This is VERY true. Back in the 80's NBC aired a special called "The Mysterious Origins of Man" which looked at various ideas. It also tore evolution a new a-hole which upset many professional scientists a great deal. It was the first honest look at the whole subject of our origins I have ever seen on television. It's purpose was not to provide answers. Only to present the information at hand and showed how established anthropological models do not quite fit. Yeah it fits if you ignore many flaws in collecting the data they use and if you ignore all of the anomalous finds. But anyway the producers of the show actually put many of the letters they were getting from people of science. My god the stuff was crazy. They could not argue with the information presented since anyone can verify the reality of what they presented so they made personal attacks. This was the best example of scientists treating their respective fields like a religion. I found it funny and a little sad. I hoped people in their positions would be open to fair and honest challenges to their theories. But these few mental midgets do not invalidate the scientific process or science itself. Over all it's about seeking true knowledge not dogma.

Well, the way evolution is taught and the way its used, it's obvious it's pushing a religious view as well...so we only allow one religious view to be pushed at a time or what?

[sandy_mcd]

My god the stuff was crazy.

Who is your God ?

[Kurieuo]

Well the problem I have with ID being taught in a public school setting is that it's basically teaching a religious view.

This is to be argued not stated. I've heard the "big bang" was also considered "religious" due of its theological implications. I think that important to bear in mind that one can still deal in science, regardless of any implications of such science.

Kurieuo

[AttentionKMartShoppers]

Norman, you misunderstood me....what I said is that evolution is taught like religious dogma in school. When I was in school, only things that supported it (and at times, things that really didn't support it, or were downright false) were used as well, but never any of the things that evolution had a problem explaining (that's what ID oponents want done, both sides taught)...BUT, here's the fun part, science does involve faith. Never called it a religion though...

[BGoodForGoodSake]

I think he is dogmatically saying that anything that is evidence for evolution is evidence for creationism.

Which of course, does not address the issue at all.

You listed observations without a word about how that proves evolution, so I responded in like manner.

Lets begin with one topic at a time and you tell me how it supports your side.
1.) Biogeography of marsupials and their cytochrome C comparisons.

Mitochondria is an organelle theorized to have once been an independant lifeform.

Cytochrome C is a protein found in mitochondria, it is apparently vital for functioning because it is found throughout the plant and animal kingdoms as well as many unicellular organisms.

However variations can be found in this protein. As you may remember from previous discussions a proteins sequence of amino acids can be changed without affecting the function of the protein. This is because the function is dependent on the shape of the protein.

Comparitive analysis of the cytochrome C among mammals has shown that differences between the protein among the species syncs up with proposed evolutionary lines.

A biogeographical study shows that marsupials have been isolated from other mammals for a long period as their cytochrome C differs substantially from those of other mammals yet are similar to each other.

Thus the occurance of marsupials almost exclusively on and around the continent of Australia.

One should also note that mitochondrial DNA is not a haploid derivitive as our other genes are. In other words all our mitochondrial DNA comes directly from our mother.