Scrub jays too weird for Wired mag?

_{News
March 13, 2015

Darwinism, Evolution, News

3}_{Categories
Darwinism
Evolution
News}

Share: Facebook; Twitter/X; LinkedIn; Flipboard; Print; Email

That’s, like, weird. From Wired:

As she gathered more and more data on different populations of the birds around the island, Langin had a revelation: The birds, members of one single species, had split into two varieties in different habitats. Island scrub jays living in oak forests have shorter bills, good for cracking acorns. Their counterparts in pine forests have longer bills, which seem better adapted to prying open pine cones. That may not appear to be something you’d consider a “revelation,” but it really is—if you believe in evolution. Ever since Darwin and his famous finches, biologists have thought that in order for a species to diverge into two new species, the two populations had to be physically isolated. Those finches, for instance, each live on a different Galapagos island, where their special circumstances have resulted in specialized bill shapes. Yet the two varieties of island scrub jay (they haven’t technically speciated—yet) live on the same tiny island. If they wanted to meet each other for a brunch of acorns and/or pine nuts and perhaps later some mating, they could just fly right over.

This is very, very weird. It’s an affront to a sacred tenet of evolution you probably learned in school: Isolation drives speciation. Well, speciation can also come about in a broadly distributed population, with individuals at one end evolving differently than individuals at the other, but nothing kicks evolution into overdrive quite like separation. Without it, two varieties should regularly breed and homogenize, canceling out something like different bill shapes (though rarely the two types of island scrub jay will in fact interbreed). And the island scrub jay isn’t alone in its evolutionary bizarreness. In the past decade, scientists have found more and more species that have diverged without isolation. Langin’s discovery with island scrub jays, published last week in the journal Evolution, is perhaps the most dramatic illustration of this yet. More.

Okay, first, knock out the bong pipe. Shower and put on some shoes. Have a look at the job board.

Darwin was wrong about everything except the fact that you could make a living somewhere, high in California. Turns out you can. About the rest, we dunno.

The birds had to be smarter than you. Not so hard.

By the way, all that Darwin’s finches stuff is nonsense too.

Follow UD News at Twitter!

Comments

Curly: Someone who doesn't even know what is meant by a "body plan" is in no position to tell me that I don't know what I'm talking about! Antennapedia and the other phenomena you name are not what is meant by evolutionary biologists when they talk about the origin of new body plans. It's clear you don't know the literature, but are just another "I read science blogs" sort of person, offering uninformed ideas about evolution. Since I spend my time reading major theoretical books by everyone from Darwin through Simpson and Monod to Gould and Shapiro, I'm a wee bit more familiar than you with what evolutionary theory actually says. I gave you the benefit of the doubt, because your tone was a little nicer than Zachriel's, but in the end, you're just another Darwinian thug, toeing the party line. My arguments are extremely clear and well-organized, but you are so blinded by your ideology that you aren't listening to what I'm saying. Also, you don't know the material well enough to recognize what I'm talking about, half the time. I'm giving it up, Curly. I'll just say this: if you don't believe that criticisms of current evolutionary theory, written by atheists and agnostics from a scientific and not a religious point of view, and published in peer-reviewed journals, should be allowed to be presented (in simplified, summarized, age-appropriate form) in high school science class, then you are a tyrant and an ideologue, who wants to rule over young minds rather than stimulate them to greater learning.Timaeus_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
06:39 PM
6
06
39
PM
PDT}

Curly, You are confused as ID is nit anti-evolution. Buy a vowel.
Random mutations most certainly can create radically new body plans.
Evidence please.
Take a look at drosophila: chromosomal inversions that bring genes under the control of other gene’s promoters can alter the expression of antennapedia, and produces flies with legs growing out of their heads.
Idiot. That is not a change in body plan. That is taking a body part and putting it in a different location. It is useless and would never happen in the wild. Unguided evolution can't explain fruit flies. It doesn't have a mechanism capable of getting beyond populations of prokaryotes and that is given starting populations of prokaryotes. YOU simply don't know what you are talking about.Joe_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
06:38 PM
6
06
38
PM
PDT}

Ah there it is, Timaeus. When we start to actually talk about the biology, the misconceptions that you (and the anti-evolution extremists here at UD) have, rears its ugly head. Random mutations most certainly can create radically new body plans. You don’t even need natural selection. Take a look at drosophila: chromosomal inversions that bring genes under the control of other gene’s promoters can alter the expression of antennapedia, and produces flies with legs growing out of their heads. Mutation of certain enhancer sequences alters the expression of ultrabithorax in drosophila embryos, and is able convert segment 3 into segment 2, resulting in flies with four wings instead of two. Small changes to the genome can certainly cause huge changes to body plan. I certainly hope none of your “full-time, professional biologists” are denying this. Goodluck trying to “explain why” there is disagreement among scientists on complex topics to a bunch of high school students. Bottom line: what is taught to high school students in biology class is the basics, it is not in disagreement within the field, and there is no reason to change the curriculum. What you call “Darwinian mechanisms” are the simplest example of evolution in action and therefore that is what is taught to students at the introductory level. My response is that you simply don’t know what you are talking about.Curly Howard_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
06:08 PM
6
06
08
PM
PDT}

Intelligent Design theory is the only testable explanation we have for our existence. ;)Joe_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
05:42 PM
5
05
42
PM
PDT}

Aurelio Smith (202): You ain't seen nothing yet! The repetitions will increase each time Zachriel replies, until they have reached the number of times that Zachriel has pompously spoken of himself as "we."Timaeus_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
05:33 PM
5
05
33
PM
PDT}

Aurelio Smith (201): I see that your misreading of plain English is an ingrained habit. I never said that I was not an Intelligent Design proponent. I said that I was not a creationist. I explained all of that -- in a post to which you never replied. But explicit statements seem to be of no use. You ignore them, anyway. Regarding the definition of ID: Intelligent design (on the biological side) holds that the basic structure and organization of living things did not arise by chance alone, or by chance combined with natural laws, but required in addition intelligent design. ID investigates the structures and nature and tries to establish the designed character of various systems, organs, and organisms. ID rests on no assumptions derived from the Bible or any other revealed literature, or from any religious tradition. ID makes no a priori assumption regarding the existence of God or gods. ID reasons to design from the facts of nature, not from religion. ID is not per se opposed to "evolution" in the sense of ancestor-descendant relationships between species. It is opposed to various versions of Darwinian thinking in which the evolutionary process has absolutely no designed aspect. ID does not require miracles or divine interventions. It infers design, not miracles. From all of this, ID is obviously different from creationism, since creationism in principle rejects evolution, since creationism *assumes* the existence of a God, since creationism *requires* miracles, and since creationism rests on a particular reading of a particular religious text. If want to see examples of the aforementioned features of ID, read Behe's *Darwin's Black Box* and Denton's *Nature's Destiny*. Not a single religious assumption is appealed to in either book. The arguments for design in the books are all based on known facts of nature. No opposition to evolution is stated; indeed, both books assume the truth of evolution, with the latter arguing for it very strongly. And the target of criticism in both books is Darwinian theory, and more generally, theories of origins which rest heavily on chance, accident, etc.Timaeus_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
05:31 PM
5
05
31
PM
PDT}

Curly: You're still not getting it. I did not mean literally that the name of Dawkins was currently mentioned in science class. I was using the names as a shorthand for the ideas associated with the names. I meant that the *ideas* expressed by Dawkins (and others) are taught in science class. E.g., evolution proceeds by mutations that are filtered by natural selection. That *is* taught in science class, whether any scientist's name is attached to it or not. I can strip my example of names easily: Claim 1: "Random mutations filtered by natural selection can create new body plans (e.g., can turn an amoeba into an elephant or a hippo into a whale)." Claim 2: "Random mutations filtered by natural selection are insufficient to create radically new body plans." What students are taught in biology class is Claim 1. (Whether it is put in exactly those words does not matter; that is the essence of the claim.) All that I am asking is for students to be *aware* that some *full-time, professional, evolutionary biologists who teach at good universities and research institutes and who publish many articles and books on evolutionary theory* support Claim 2 rather than Claim 1. I.e., I want students to know that there are people who reject Claim 1 *not* for religious reasons, not for "creationist" reasons, but because they think Claim 1 is bad science and that better science supports Claim 2. I am not asking for the textbook or curriculum to *agree with* Claim 2 over Claim 1. I am not asking for much time to be spent on Claim 2. (I have suggested maybe 20 minutes: do you find that unreasonable?) I am asking that the *existence* of Claim 2 not be suppressed. Also, you did not read what I wrote carefully. You say "telling students that “this scientist says one thing and this one says another,” is useless." Did you not see that in the very same post I said: "Of course, one would explain *why* the two scientists in question hold their respective views. That would be the whole point of the exercise — to show students how scientific disagreements are expressed and debated. Not to settle the question, but simply to make them aware of the scientific process." How could you have missed that? Your final statement is confused. "What's unsettled in evolution" is: *how much Darwinian mechanisms can accomplish*. That point therefore *must* be mentioned in even an introductory class on evolution. And you also seem to have missed the point that there is nothing intrinsically harder for a ninth-grade student to understand in non-Darwinian than in Darwinian approaches. So your argument about difficulty level goes out the window. I've given you your example. I want both the affirmation and the denial of the competence of Darwinian mechanisms to be mentioned in introductory evolution class. I've been specific. So what is your reply? Do you say that only the affirmation should be taught, and that the denial should be suppressed?Timaeus_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
04:36 PM
4
04
36
PM
PDT}

Timaeus, there is a huge disconnect between what you think is taught, and what is actually taught in early biology classes. None of that sentence which you claim is taught to students, is actually taught to students. Like I already said, microevolution is taught by looking at genes/proteins and macroevolution is taught by looking at lineages/descent. Overall the basic idea of variation in offspring and natural selection produces change in a population, is the focus. Do you really think a high school student is going to remember specific names of scientists? I don't think I'd ever even heard Dawkins' name until after I came to this site. And that was after taking a college evolutionary biology class. And no, what I asked for was a BIOLOGICAL example of what you would add. I think telling students that "this scientist says one thing and this one says another," is useless. If we are going to tell them about disagreement between the scientific community, it should be for by presenting them with the evidence for both sides. The problem is that what's unsettled in evolution requires a decent amount of background knowledge to understand.Curly Howard_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
03:59 PM
3
03
59
PM
PDT}

Zachriel: First, your condescending attitude toward an earlier generation of evolutionary biologists is noted. The fact is, had you lived then, you would have been just as sure of yourself about the evidence as you are now. Only your specific opinion is different; your cocky attitude -- "our scientific generation has it figured out, unlike those earlier incompetent generations" -- is the same. But of course that is exactly the attitude that I think the school system should *oppose*. Students should learn that the consensus science of today may be the junk science of tomorrow. And the *only* way to teach them that truth *with sincerity* (i.e., as something really *believed* by the teacher or textbook writer, and not merely as a mandatory "motherhood" statement to give arrogant, know-it-all scientists a surface patina of humility) is to give students *examples* (even if not taught in great depth) of people who disagree with the *current* consensus. Otherwise, the take-home message is hypocritical, and amounts to: "Science is an ever-changing, self-correcting field -- BUT you can take it from us, the textbook writers, that in *this* area no self-correction will ever by necessary, and that is why we are justified in suppressing not only the views but even the names of Shapiro, Newman, Wagner, etc. We don't want you to know even where to *look* for alternatives to what we are teaching you. There is no possibility that *those* views will ever be vindicated, and no possibility that the view your are being taught (the view of Coyne, etc.) will ever be overthrown. So just trust us, we are teaching you reliable stuff about evolution, and you don't need to think critically about it -- just learn it." Second, I did not say *simple* mutation, but "random" mutation, which can include non-simple changes. Stop putting words in my mouth. Third, in answer to your question, population genetics in itself cannot demonstrate that random mutations filtered by natural selection (even with "drift" thrown in) are enough to create radically new body plans. Neo-Darwinism, however, asserts exactly that. And that is precisely what an increasing number of talented young and mid-career evolutionary biologists dispute. But you want their views never to reach student ears. Your view of science education is ideological and totalitarian. To repeat: Darwinian evolutionary theory is highly speculative. Darwinian evolutionary theory is highly speculative. Darwinian evolutionary theory is highly speculative. Darwinian evolutionary theory is highly speculative.Timaeus_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
02:53 PM
2
02
53
PM
PDT}

Curly: If the students have enough basic biology to be taught neo-Darwinism (which is what they are taught now), they have enough basic biology to be taught some of the criticisms of neo-Darwinism. If you can teach the students: "Richard Dawkins believes that random mutations, filtered by natural selection, can turn a hippo into a whale in 9 million years, you can also teach them "Stuart Newman does not believe that random mutations, filtered by natural selection, can turn a hippo into a whale in 9 million years." Of course, one would explain *why* the two scientists in question hold their respective views. That would be the whole point of the exercise -- to show students how scientific disagreements are expressed and debated. Not to settle the question, but simply to make them aware of the scientific process. There is your example. I could provided hundreds of the same type. But one should be adequate. How many total minutes of class time, do you suppose, would it take to express the disagreement I've given in my example? 5 minutes might be enough! But even if it took 20 minutes, can 20 minutes not be spared out of an entire biology course to give students an idea of the range of opinion within a scientific field? The real reason for suppressing such disagreements has nothing to do with shortage of time. The real reason is neo-Darwinian bullying.Timaeus_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
02:13 PM
2
02
13
PM
PDT}

Too much happened in too little a time period. That’s the point. The problem isn’t the “survival of the fittest,” but the “arrival of the fittest.”
Nobody knows at present what genetic modifications made the valve possible. And until we don't know, you can't claim that "too much happened". Would a point mutation in a regulatory region be "too much", for example? By the way, the valve immediately falsifies BA77's argument from another thread that even an advantageous feature can't be fixed in an entire population quickly. In those lizards it happened very quickly.Piotr_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
12:37 PM
12
12
37
PM
PDT}

If there were an answer to this, wd400 would have provided it. He hasn’t.
To get an answer you'd have to ask a (well posed) question. To get the wating time for a mutation you'd need know the type of mutation, the rate for that type of mutation, the effective population size of the population and the census population size (since both matter for selection). The series of mistakes you've made in referring to this paper suggests you have no idea about any of those..wd400_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
12:35 PM
12
12
35
PM
PDT}

Among many mechanisms, there’s substitution, indels, changes in copy number, translocation, inversion, and chromosome rearrangements.
Which of those mechanisms are blind watchmaker mechanisms and how did you determine that?Joe_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
11:51 AM
11
11
51
AM
PDT}

Piotr: Just ran across this open page:
I beg your pardon? In a tiny population an innovation can be fixed very quickly, even by drift alone, but especially if it confers any kind of advantage.
Fixation can occur quickly. But the 'mutation' that's supposed to happen will take forever to happen. Neutral drift is subject to the exact same problem, with the further problem of 'fixing' slower. If there were an answer to this, wd400 would have provided it. He hasn't. As to the quote, this is from a paper quoting an experiment that took place in 1971. The original paper appears to have been written in 1982. There were a series of experiments that took place. The quote you're using may, or may not apply to what we're talking about. I'm not going to take the time to sort it out. If it is true that there was another species already on the island, matters very little to the underlying genetics. Too much happened in too little a time period. That's the point. The problem isn't the "survival of the fittest," but the "arrival of the fittest."PaV_{March 27, 2015
March
03
Mar
27
27
2015
11:37 AM
11
11
37
AM
PDT}

Ok Timaeus, I like your idea of teachers spending some time on current unanswered questions in the sciences to get students thinking, instead of just cramming as much info in knowing only a small fraction will stick. Now the problem is that when you say I should go read certain authors to hear about their version of evolution. I'll be able to understand it, but the question is: can it be taught to high school students who have only a very basic understanding of biology? That is why I originally asked for a specific biological example of what you would add to the curriculum.Curly Howard_{March 26, 2015
March
03
Mar
26
26
2015
03:48 PM
3
03
48
PM
PDT}

Timaeus: You are trying to convince *me* of something. Actually, we're pointing out to the reader why your requirements are not requirements of science. Timaeus: To convince *me* that neo-Darwinian mechanisms can do what you say they can do, you will have to provide stepwise descriptions. As we already stated, simple mutation and selection are not sufficient to explain mammalian diversity. Timaeus: The belief that mesonychids were ancestral to whales was derived from teeth etc., not molecular evidence. And that tenuous fossil evidence was wrong. There was a contradiction between the fossil evidence and the molecular evidence. The molecular evidence was confirmed by new fossil discoveries. Hence, there are two lines of evidence that point to evolution of whales from artiodactyls. Timaeus: Neo-Darwinism employs population genetics, but makes assertions that go beyond what population genetics can establish. What assertions are those?Zachriel_{March 26, 2015
March
03
Mar
26
26
2015
10:40 AM
10
10
40
AM
PDT}

Zachriel: You are trying to convince *me* of something. Therefore, what is important is what is required by *me*, not what is required by *you*. To convince *me* that neo-Darwinian mechanisms can do what you say they can do, you will have to provide stepwise descriptions. Otherwise, I will continue to use the word "speculative." And if the word offends you, I assure you I take the greatest pleasure in offending you, even if -- no, *especially if* -- you are a full-time evolutionary biologist. Your statement about molecular evidence predating fossil evidence is sheer assertion, at least in relation to my example. The belief that mesonychids were ancestral to whales was derived from teeth etc., not molecular evidence. Neo-Darwinism employs population genetics, but makes assertions that go beyond what population genetics can establish. It is those assertions, not population genetics per se, which I call speculative, and will continue to call speculative, until you give me the stepwise accounts. Darwinian evolutionary theory is highly speculative. Darwinian evolutionary theory is highly speculative. If you want more of the same, keep replying.Timaeus_{March 26, 2015
March
03
Mar
26
26
2015
09:42 AM
9
09
42
AM
PDT}

Timaeus: “Unless you can give *a fair number* of the *hypothetical* (I won’t insist on actual) steps at the genetic/molecular level, and relate those to corresponding phenotypical changes, your account of the mechanism is *largely* speculative.” That still isn't required. We have independent evidence of genetic change, which in this case includes everything from simple mutation to chromosome rearrangements, we have evidence of how those genetic changes cause changes in phenotype, and we have evidence of the transition molecular and fossil, then that is evidence supporting the hypothesis, even if we can't determine the exact history of those genetic changes in a particular lineage. Timaeus: What I meant by “chronology” was that the evolutionary theorists of the 1950s cannot possibly have read articles written in the late 1990s. Nonetheless, the molecular date predicted the fossil evidence, contrary to your statement that the only evidence was fossil evidence. Instead, we have independent lines of evidence supporting the transition. It is this type of confirmation, from molecules in living organisms to rocks that provides scientific support. This is contrary to your insistent that only a particular type of evidence is suitable. Timaeus: As for your last point, neo-Darwinism is just as much a “modern speculation” as the writings of the biologists I mentioned. No. Neodarwinism, meaning here population genetics, is strongly supported, and an important mechanism of evolutionary change. Timaeus: But by the way, at least *some* modern speculations *should* be taught, in physics, and in all sciences, if they come from *serious practitioners in the field*. Again, they primarily teach Newtonian Mechanics, and usually only touch on Relativity, even though Relativity is a century old. Teaching the controversy in physics would not be productive for an introductory course on physics. Mung: point mutations are not sufficient to explain anything. That is incorrect. There is substantial evidence of evolution by point mutation. Mung: What other mechanisms are there that are sufficient to explain mammalian diversity? Among many mechanisms, there's substitution, indels, changes in copy number, translocation, inversion, and chromosome rearrangements. There's natural selection, of course. There are mechanisms of speciation, such as allopatry. Then there is contingency, such as the occasional cosmic impact.Zachriel_{March 26, 2015
March
03
Mar
26
26
2015
06:09 AM
6
06
09
AM
PDT}

Zachriel:
No one thinks that point mutations are sufficient to explain mammalian diversity, if that is what you mean.
By extension, point mutations are not sufficient to explain anything. Or, if you're simple minded, point mutations are sufficient to explain what point mutations are sufficient to explain. What other mechanisms are there that are sufficient to explain mammalian diversity? How can you possibly know?Mung_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
08:31 PM
8
08
31
PM
PDT}

Zachriel: Originally my term here was "speculative" not "only speculative." However, I see that in one later post I said "only speculative." Fine; I will rephrase: "Unless you can give *a fair number* of the *hypothetical* (I won't insist on actual) steps at the genetic/molecular level, and relate those to corresponding phenotypical changes, your account of the mechanism is *largely* speculative." What I meant by "chronology" was that the evolutionary theorists of the 1950s cannot possibly have read articles written in the late 1990s. (And by the way, in the 1950s, the data used was *almost entirely* the fossil data, comparative anatomy, and geographical distribution. Not nearly enough was known about molecular biology then to make much use of it.) As for your last point, neo-Darwinism is just as much a "modern speculation" as the writings of the biologists I mentioned. All of the theorists are in the game of *postulating hypothetical mechanisms that could account for evolutionary change*. You have no *principled* reason for excluding from consideration the mechanisms proposed by the people I've mentioned. To exclude them merely because they were proposed in 1995 or 2005 rather than 1935 or 1945 or 1955 is idiotic. They are just as theoretically plausible as, and in many cases more empirically sound than, the neo-Darwinian speculations they are opposing. You just don't like them. But by the way, at least *some* modern speculations *should* be taught, in physics, and in all sciences, if they come from *serious practitioners in the field*. I don't say they should be taught in depth, but they should be mentioned. Any *good* science teacher, any science teacher who is more than a wind-up mechanical doll spitting out prescribed curriculum, but actually an *educator*, will from time to time mention, if only as a tag-end to a lesson to interest some of the keener students, some new development in science which might catch their fancy. So if a science teacher, having taught a lesson on "the universe," throws in some remarks about a Harvard professor and a Stanford professor who have speculated about multiple universes, indicating that this is a speculation that is out there, not confirmed, but an interesting avenue for future research, not only is no harm done to a high school student; quite the contrary, that remark might be the spark that launches the career of the next Hawking or Einstein. The insistence that you and Curly seem to have, on hiring science teachers who are automatons who never exercise any pedagogical judgment, never do anything to spark student interest, and on using textbooks that teach only the "standard" views and never mention any loose ends or open questions, is revolting to me. Whatever it is that you and Curly are pushing, it isn't science; it's some form of indoctrination. I might have expected such a model of teaching (science instruction as spoon-feeding) to come from scientists in Communist China or Stalin's Russia; that it comes from Americans is shocking.Timaeus_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
06:14 PM
6
06
14
PM
PDT}

Timaeus: I did not say that molecular biology had provided no “support” for evolutionary accounts. What you claimed was that unless we can provide a step-by-step scenario, then the mechanism is only speculative. That is not correct. It's not only speculation if we have supporting evidence. Timaeus: You continue, like almost all the critics here, to confuse evidence for common descent with evidence for a particular mechanism, e.g., the neo-Darwinian. No one thinks that point mutations are sufficient to explain mammalian diversity, if that is what you mean. Timaeus: Finally, your chronology is a bit out of whack, to say the least. Evolutionary theorists were arguing, based not on molecular evidence but on anatomical evidence, that whales descended from Mesonychids (currently regarded by many as ancestral to hippos and other artiodactyls), as far back as the 1950s. No. Our chronology is obviously correct. Paleontologists, based on very tenuous data, though that whales descended from primitive Mesonychids. It was the molecular data which predicted the fossil data. You suggested the only data was the fossil data, when that is far from the fact of the matter. Timaeus: The reason that relativity is taught later than Newtonian physics is not because relativity is less true, or more speculative, or more dubious, than Newtonian physics; it’s because it requires greater sophistication and training to grasp than Newtonian physics. But modern speculations are generally not taught, even though physics is in a great deal of flux. Only established physics are taught in introductory classes. Similarly in biology.Zachriel_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
05:05 PM
5
05
05
PM
PDT}

Zachriel: I did not say that molecular biology had provided no "support" for evolutionary accounts. The presence of a certain gene or protein in two creatures far apart in time may "support" a hypothesis in the sense of "being compatible with" the hypothesis. I was asking for more than that. What I wrote was: "utterly lacking in a detailed account of the alleged molecular-genetic changes and their corresponding phenotypical changes" So if you hypothesize that there were, say, 500 significant phenotypical changes between the putative artiodactyl ancestor and the whale, you should be able to give a molecular-genetic account running in parallel to the morphological account, with about 500 suggested molecular/genetic changes. If you really understand the mechanism you are appealing to, this should be no problem. But of course, if you have only a vague understanding of the mechanism, e.g., "Given millions of years, lots of small changes add up," then you won't be able to specify anything. You continue, like almost all the critics here, to confuse evidence for common descent with evidence for a particular mechanism, e.g., the neo-Darwinian. The molecular evidence you refer to supports common descent; it does not necessarily follow that the Darwinian mechanism was the main mechanism involved in the transformations. The molecular evidence would be there even if neo-Darwinism is largely wrong about evolutionary mechanisms and some other modern account (e.g., that of Newman or Wagner) is largely correct. As long as you keep muddling common descent with mechanism, you will be driving around in circles, never getting anywhere in these discussions. Again and again I have to tell you clowns that ID is not anti-evolutionary per se. There are plenty of ID proponents who accept "evolution": Behe, Denton, Torley, O'Leary (last I heard, anyway) and many others. The ID criticism is aimed at the neo-Darwinian mechanism. (Or, if at other proposed mechanisms, those mechanisms which are equally "stochastic," as they say in fashionable jargon.) Thus, posting endless arguments for common descent doesn't address the ID challenge. Of course, some ID proponents, in addition to being ID proponents, are *also* creationists; and they will be against common descent itself. But as I've repeated here -- not often enough, apparently, maybe only a million times -- I'm not a creationist and I'm not arguing against common descent per se. Finally, your chronology is a bit out of whack, to say the least. Evolutionary theorists were arguing, based not on molecular evidence but on anatomical evidence, that whales descended from Mesonychids (currently regarded by many as ancestral to hippos and other artiodactyls), as far back as the 1950s. Yet note that all but one of your "predictions" from molecular data are from the 1990s. Neo-Darwinians had already committed themselves on whale evolution long before that. It wasn't primarily molecular evidence that inspired their evolutionary trees. Your justification for wanting to exclude alternate views of evolutionary mechanisms from high school science classes, based on your physics analogy, is unacceptable. The reason that relativity is taught later than Newtonian physics is not because relativity is less true, or more speculative, or more dubious, than Newtonian physics; it's because it requires greater sophistication and training to grasp than Newtonian physics. This is not the case regarding the evolutionary theories that I'm discussing. The evolutionary theories I'm discussing don't require any more biological training to grasp than the theories of Coyne, Dawkins and Miller do; there is no reason of *intellectual difficulty* to postpone their teaching until later. The reason they are excluded is purely political: the neo-Darwinians have had their amour propre badly wounded by the past 25 or 30 years of evolutionary theory, and they cannot hold out much longer in the academy proper; but because textbooks tend to be several years behind in the science they present, the Darwinians, as long as they can continue to write the textbooks (and the curriculum), can sustain themselves at the high school level even as the university slips away from them. It's no accident that one of the writers of a textbook that figured big in the discussions around the Dover trial was Ken Miller, as doctrinaire a neo-Darwinian as you are ever likely to find (after Dawkins). Give it up, Zachriel. Your partisanship is quite obvious to everyone here. All of here eat, drink, and breathe books and articles on evolution; we know the positions of the various writers, and we know the politics of these debates. You can't conceal your biases with a patina of objectivity. You resent Shapiro and anyone else who criticizes your beloved neo-Darwinism, and you don't want the views of any of those people to reach high school students in any form. You are so resentful you would try to block them from appearing even in a deprecatory footnote. Well, your petty partisan academic resentments don't deserve any public consideration in the question of high school curriculum. If you want to keep defending a dying paradigm at the university level, go to it; but don't try to hold back bright young high school students from gaining a broader perspective on the subject matter.Timaeus_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
04:53 PM
4
04
53
PM
PDT}

There aren't any known mechanisms that can produce the changes required in order to get a whale from a land mammal. The evidence supports whales giving rise to whales.Joe_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
02:24 PM
2
02
24
PM
PDT}

Timaeus: You take me to task for not being specific enough with references to the primary literature that support Shapiro, and then, at the end, you dump a claim on me about molecular data and fossils without explaining *which* fossils and *which* evolutionary transitions you are talking about, and without telling me the source (book? periodical?) of the particular claims you are making. Your claim about whale evolution concerned "utter lack" of molecular support when it was the molecular evidence that predicted the fossil evidence. In any case, we're more than happy to support our claim.
Boyden & Gemeroy, The relative position of the Cetacea among the orders of Mammalia as indicated by precipitin tests, Zoologica, New York Zoological Society 1950. Gatesy et al., Evidence from milk casein genes that cetaceans are close relatives of hippopotamid artiodactyls, Molecular Biology and Evolution 1996. Shimamura et al., Molecular evidence from retroposons that whales form a clade within even-toed ungulates, Nature 1997. Ursing & Arnason, Analyses of mitochondrial genomes strongly support a hippopotamus-whale clade, Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences 1998. Gingerich et al., Origin of whales from early artiodactyls: hands and feet of Eocene Protocetidae from Pakistan, Science 2001.
So, the fossil data was a late-comer and acted as independent confirmation. Timaeus: If your purported causal mechanism cannot show even hypothetical steps between one form and another quite different form, then the causal mechanism you propose is only speculative. Whales transition is supported by molecular evidence, and more recently by fossil evidence. Timaeus: You have to demonstrate that the neo-Darwinian mechanism by which finch beaks are elongated is fully adequate to change an artiodactyl into a whale; and you have not demonstrated that. No one is claiming to know all the details of the molecular evolution of whales. Timaeus: Further, many competent evolutionary biologists deny that macroevolution is simply an extrapolation of microevolution in the way that both Darwin and the neo-Darwinists imagine. The evidence supports incremental change. Timaeus: The job of an educational system is to represent the science as it is found today; and today, whether you like it or not, evolutionary theory is in great flux, with fundamental debate over mechanisms and their relative weight. So is the theory of gravity, but introductory courses in physics generally teach Newtonian mechanics. If they touch on non-Newtonian mechanics, they might mention century-old General Relativity, but probably not the various speculations that are current in physics.Zachriel_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
02:13 PM
2
02
13
PM
PDT}

Zachriel: You take me to task for not being specific enough with references to the primary literature that support Shapiro, and then, at the end, you dump a claim on me about molecular data and fossils without explaining *which* fossils and *which* evolutionary transitions you are talking about, and without telling me the source (book? periodical?) of the particular claims you are making. How about applying the same standard to yourself that you do to me? I don't need your lectures on "the scientific method"; it is likely I've read more of Kuhn, Feyerabend, Burtt, Descartes, Bacon, Galileo, Darwin, etc. than you have. But I wasn't speaking about "the scientific method"; I was speaking about speculation as opposed to empirical demonstration. If your purported causal mechanism cannot show even hypothetical steps between one form and another quite different form, then the causal mechanism you propose is only speculative. You have to demonstrate that the neo-Darwinian mechanism by which finch beaks are elongated is fully adequate to change an artiodactyl into a whale; and you have not demonstrated that. Further, many competent evolutionary biologists deny that macroevolution is simply an extrapolation of microevolution in the way that both Darwin and the neo-Darwinists imagine. This denial is what high school students need to be made aware of. I gave you page references where you can find many of Shapiro's examples regarding natural genetic engineering. I told you that the links to the original data are on his website. If you are too lazy to look them up, don't blame me, and don't blame Shapiro. It's nice to hear that biology students are taught that "even strongly supported theories are modified or discarded over time." That should, in principle, make them very wary of claims in any field that "the science is settled" and everyone has to shut up and defer to "the experts." I like that! So can we expect that these graduates of your marvelous ninth-grade biology program, which you defend so uncritically, will be duly critical of the AGW advocates, who claim that "the science is in" and that everyone has to shut up and stop debating the degree of human influence on greenhouse gases and global warming? I haven't yet seen this wave of critical young minds of which you are speaking. Indeed, what I see is that science grads are taught to defer to expert consensus by an almost Pavlovian reflex, and to scorn the maverick or independent thinker who questions the consensus. Finally, you impute to me support for the phrase "teach the controversy." The phrase is not mine. It means -- as you should know if you follow the public discussions at all -- teach the controversy *over whether or not evolution even happened*. I have not asked for the biology curriculum to teach any controversy over whether or not evolution happened. I have asked for it to make students more aware about the controversy over mechanisms. So you are either using the phrase incorrectly, ignorant of what it means, or you are deliberately trying to misrepresent my position -- which you know is not anti-evolution -- to readers here. It's quite clear to me that you -- and whether you are a third-rate biology prof teaching at a third-rate satellite campus like (to name one at random) the University of Minnesota at Morris, or just some computer science geek who reads Scientific American a lot and thinks he knows all about evolution from that, I don't know, and don't care -- dislike Shapiro and anyone else who challenges what you deem to be the "mainstream" account of evolutionary biology. You therefore don't want these people even mentioned in the schools. But your prejudices shouldn't determine the biology program. The job of an educational system is to represent the science as it is found today; and today, whether you like it or not, evolutionary theory is in great flux, with fundamental debate over mechanisms and their relative weight. To conceal this from high school students is to give them an overly polished and artificial representation of what science is all about. Because of your prejudice in favor of the status quo, you are willing to see the necessary concealments performed in the high school biology curriculum (just as some climatologists are quite willing to conceal temperature data to get the public to see things their way); I want a more honest presentation of science, uncertainties and all. I have the greatest respect for the scientific enterprise when it is properly carried out. I don't have respect for those who want to "package" science so neatly that its essentially provisional nature is masked, and who want to use the school curriculum (or the courtrooms of the nation) as a propaganda tool to enforce adherence to one particular theory of evolutionary mechanism, or one particular theory of climate change, or one particular theory of anything.Timaeus_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
11:35 AM
11
11
35
AM
PDT}

Zachriel again tells us why unguided evolution is not science and should not be taught as such:
What is required in science are testable entailments.
Zachriel never does say what unguided evolution's testable entailments are. Most likely because there aren't any but Zachriel likes to sound like it knows what it is talking about.
Actually, it was the molecular data (e.g. precipitin 1950, casein in 1996, retroposons 1997, mitochondria in 1998) that predicted the fossils (2001).
Yes, the molecular data that supports a common design. Well done.Joe_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
10:41 AM
10
10
41
AM
PDT}

Curly: I gave you a specific example! I said that, *in addition to* teaching the view that "random mutations plus natural selection" is the main motor of evolution, with other mechanisms being very much ancillary, it should also be mentioned that a number of very competent evolutionary theorists think that "random mutations plus natural selection" explains only a small part of evolution and has been a misleading path. I named you names: Shapiro, Newman, Wagner. All you have to do now is go and read a bit about their evolutionary theory, and you will know what I want to add to the curriculum. No large dose of anything in ninth-grade biology; just a few balancing statements. In upper years of biology, a more extensive coverage of the debates.Timaeus_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
10:32 AM
10
10
32
AM
PDT}

Timaeus: I’ve now indicated where they can be found. I’ve therefore met your repeated demand. So I’m off the hook. The point of naming one was to discuss whether it met the definition of "engineering". You've shown no interest in such a discussion, but want to "teach the controversy" to children anyway. Timaeus: I’m asking only for a line or two, a footnote or two, a broad allusion to a loyal opposition within evolutionary biology. Introductory biology usually includes an historical component so students can see how science progresses, how even strongly supported theories are modified or discarded over time. Timaeus: Shapiro cites many research articles which show that at least some unicellular creatures have the capacity to alter their own genomes within their own lifetimes. We already addressed one of those examples, and it doesn't support "engineering". Timaeus: In other words, the “speculative” part is focused on “became a whale *through random mutations and natural selection*.” If you can provide me with the list of selectable steps, at the molecular-genetic level, by which the putative hippo-like ancestor became the whale, you are welcome to provide it. If you cannot provide it, your claim is speculative, as opposed to empirical. The scientific method doesn't require listing every step. What is required in science are testable entailments. For example, Timaeus: It’s one of those great examples of Darwinian storytelling with a few fossils that make it superficially plausible, but as usual utterly lacking in a detailed account of the alleged molecular-genetic changes and their corresponding phenotypical changes. Actually, it was the molecular data (e.g. precipitin 1950, casein in 1996, retroposons 1997, mitochondria in 1998) that predicted the fossils (2001).Zachriel_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
05:30 AM
5
05
30
AM
PDT}

Tell the students this:
Loci that are obviously variable within natural populations do not seem to lie at the basis of many major adaptive changes, while those loci that seemingly do constitute the foundation of many if not most major adaptive changes are not variable.- John McDonald, “The Molecular Basis of Adaptation: A Critical Review of Relevant Ideas and Observation”, Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics: 14, 1983, p77-102
Also tell them that there aren't any known cases of microevolution that can be extrapolated into macroevolution. You know, tell them the truth.Joe_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
03:24 AM
3
03
24
AM
PDT}

No, we wanted you to pick an example with citation so that we could examine together whether it supported the concept of “engineering”.
Lenski's lab- E coli engineering the ability to utilize citrate in an O2 rich environment.Joe_{March 25, 2015
March
03
Mar
25
25
2015
03:21 AM
3
03
21
AM
PDT}

Prev 1 2 3 4 5 6 … 10 Next

You must be logged in to post a comment.

Leave a Reply