Predictability of Evolution

_{December 5, 2006

Intelligent Design}

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We often hear the ridiculous assertion that the theory of evolution is as well tested as the theory of gravity.

The theory of gravity can predict precisely where the planets will be a million years from now. What can the theory of evolution predict a million years into the future?

Essentially, ToE predicts nothing. It explains history after the fact which is a whole lot different than predicting something before it happens. Of what value is a theory with no predictive power? Why do we bother teaching our children a valueless theory of history that more often than not is disbelieved and causes so much strife? Just the facts, ma’am, please.

All life on earth is related through common structures such as the genetic code. That’s a fact. How the relations were established is not a matter of fact but a matter of speculation. Leave the speculation out of primary school. There are more facts surrounding biology than we possibly have time to teach in primary education. That is what we should be teaching. Just the facts, please.

Comments

Thanks PaV, That is a jaw dropper and could be a thread of its own. I remember reading about the deletion of junk-DNA in that experiment but I didn't know it included highly conserved regions. From the article:
To find out the function of some of these highly conserved non-protein-coding regions in mammals, Edward Rubin's team at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory in California deleted two huge regions of junk DNA from mice containing nearly 1000 highly conserved sequences shared between human and mice. One of the chunks was 1.6 million DNA bases long, the other one was over 800,000 bases long. The researchers expected the mice to exhibit various problems as a result of the deletions.
And the punch line after the mice had no problems:
The level of conservation was even higher than that for many genes. "What's most mysterious is that we don't know any molecular mechanism that would demand conservation like this," Haussler says.
The experiment was reported in Nature. 2004 Oct 21;431(7011):988-93.Jehu_{December 5, 2006
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mike1962 "Well, I can say one thing, if someone(s) had a hand in the design of the biosystem on this planet, I hope he/she/they/it shows up soon and puts the matter to rest. " Boy, I couldn't agree more. Some kind of teleology seems reasonable, but all this discussion on each side with each stating conclusions beyond what the evidence will justify just proves to me how little we know, and we are supposedly educated. I wouldn't mind a little more clarity from this designer either.bj_{December 5, 2006
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Michael Tuite: "Assuming your goal is 2), letÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s begin by with a recent high-profile example: The team responsible for the discovery of the sarcopterygian fossil Tiktaalic used evolutionary theory to predict precisely (geographically and stratigraphically) where they would find this tetrapod ancestor" Try again. You question displays an ignorance of ID. ID neither rejects evolution, nor common descent. It's the nature of the process of change that is at issue, as well as certain features of cellular life. ID asserts that this process is an intelligently designed system, with intelligent input possible at various stages, perhaps only at the beginning (complete frontloading), or at various intervals. NDE has nothing over ID with regards to the fossil evidence. Thus, an ID adherent could look at the fossil record and "predict" exactly what a dyed in the wool darwinista might predict with regard to the Tiktaaklic. This is not the 6-day, 24-hour day, Biblical Creation blog. (Although some of the participants (not me) may believe that.) If that's what you're looking for, you came to the wrong place.mike1962_{December 5, 2006
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NewScientist article: "He thinks it is pretty clear that these sequences have no major role in growth and development. "There has been a circular argument that if it's conserved it has activity." Isn't this quite an admission?Collin_{December 5, 2006
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Tims : "How can you test for a designer?" Good question. The answer is CSI, like the flagellum. Teleology says it is designed. Darwinism say the design is merely apparent. But these are simply two philosophical views. NDE says that CSI can come about by RM+NS, but they cannot prove it. ID says that apparently designed things ARE designed, given what we KNOW about things that look like this, and therefore we should assume that it IS designed. This "war" is a philosophical one, not a "scientific" one because science is necessarily subsumed in the assumed philosophical view. Neither view may be "true", but at least ID has one thing going for it: it can entertain a range of possibilities without regards to intelligent input and stochastic properties. NDE arbitrarily limits itself to stocastic properties. It seems obvious to me that the reality may very well lie outside of a stochastic-only reality. What on earth are the anti-ID people afraid of? Oh, right, the Theocracy. Good grief. Well, I can say one thing, if someone(s) had a hand in the design of the biosystem on this planet, I hope he/she/they/it shows up soon and puts the matter to rest.mike1962_{December 5, 2006
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Dave, here's the link:( it was in June 2004) http://www.newscientist.com/article.ns?id=dn5063PaV_{December 5, 2006
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dopderbeck: "They do, in the biotechnology and pharmaceutical industris. Disease-resistant crops and vaccines are two examples that come to mind." Neither of these have anything to do with the validity of NDE. Care to demonstrate how what we *know* about plant genetics and viral mutation leads to the conclusion that NDE is responsible for novel cell types, tissue types, and body plans?mike1962_{December 5, 2006
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bfast, "If it is presented as Ã¢â‚¬Å“the best theory so farÃ¢â‚¬Â, great!" No, if it presented as the "best theory so far if we assume (and that's one huge assumption) that no intelligence was involved", then fine, since that's the reality. If one is commited to an anti-ID position, a priori, then sure, NDE is the "best theory." Whoopdie doo. If we commit to the idea that the sun revolves around the earth, then why sure, epicycles are the "best theory." The flaggelum is an embarrassing thing for the darwinists. They rant, they rave, they invent lame "expanations" (like Matzke's) full of holes, and still there is nothing. (One may just as easily, if not easier, invent a story that the type 2 secretor devolved from the flagellum). They deny the sun while it shines in their faces. Whatever. Thank God there are people who have the guts to think outside the box. The Revolution shall win from without. (End of rant.)mike1962_{December 5, 2006
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KL I asked for something from the Templeton Foundation. If there was an official request for proposals it should appear there. Two very brief quotes from one Templeton VP in an opinion piece in the Times is hardly confirmation of a request for proposals. See if you can find something official on the Templeton website like I did where a month before the times article nothing can be found except an explicit denial of funding ID research. This is still just rumor. We don't know who was asked to submit proposals, how long they were given to prepare proposals, how much funding was offered, and what strings went with it. Even more to the point the offer evidently no longer exists, if it ever existed at all. DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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bFast, "One must also recognize that the neo-Darwinan theory of evolution is a rather time-tested theory." How does the evidence show that stochastic processes stemming from basic elements brought the system of life into existence, and is responsible for novel body plans, cell types and tissues? The idea of "evolution", change over time, and common descent, looks rather solid to a casual observer, but that's a far cry from a solid hit with regards to an understanding of the processes. It's the nature of the processes that's at issue here.mike1962_{December 5, 2006
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dopderbeck: "Anyway, evolutionary theory does make predictions about the future. It predicts, for example, that organisms will continue to change as they adapt to their environments." An ID friendly model can make the same prediction. I'll do it right now: ID predicts that organism will change as they adapt to their environments. There, I did it. ID friendly persons, such as myself, do not reject the idea of evolution, i.e, change over time, or common descent. It's not the evolution that at issue, it's the mechanism and process involved. The fact is, there is NO physical evidence whatsoever that shows that NDE is more plausible than an ID based system. The only reason NDE ideologues prefer it is because of their a priori commitment to naturalism. An ID friendly view is a more rational approach since it can embrace both design and stochasm. NDE limits itself arbitrarily for no reason whatsoever except an arbitrary bias against an intelligent agency anywhere in the mix. If it turns out that an intelligent agency was involved, ID can accomodate it to whatever degree it is a fact. NDE can never accomodate it and remain NDE.mike1962_{December 5, 2006
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I didn't call you a liar, dopderbeck. If you put words in my mouth one more time it will be the last time.DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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Here: http://www.nytimes.com/2005/12/04/weekinreview/04good.html?ex=1291352400&en=feb5138e425b9001&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rssKL_{December 5, 2006
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[...] Predictability of Evolution. The point is well-taken that evolution gives no predictions, keeping in mind, however, that this is certainly true of an observer embedded in his own evolution, but may not be true for an ‘outside observer’, the latter notion being undefined… This issue is faced squarely in the eonic model which starts with Popper/Berlin’s critiques of historical determinism (and Popper on historicism), and proceeds to construct a new approach to (human) evolution in which the question of the agent/observer’s interaction with his own theories is taken into account We often hear the ridiculous assertion that the theory of evolution is as well tested as the theory of gravity. [...]Darwiniana » Evolution, historicism, and observers_{December 5, 2006
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If the answer is yes then you were dishonest in mentioning them. Yes, I knew that some people -- YEC, OEC, and ID -- try to disinguish "micro" and "macro" evolution. But how does that make my point dishonest? You said evolution makes no predictions at all. I cited pest and antibiotic resistance. If your response is that this isn't "evolution," I disagree -- the distinction between "micro" and "macro" evolution doesn't seem terribly compelling to me. Not all ID people make such a hard and fast distinction on this, of course. It's difficult to understand how anyone (e.g. Mike Behe) can accept common descent and yet disavow macroevolution altogether. Of course, then we could get into another tendentious discussion about what "macroevolution" means vis-a-vis common descent. But this all seems like more of the same game to me. You use the general term "evolution," I respond, and then you call me a liar because you really had some special meaning of the term in mind. Why not just clarify your meaning and restate the question in a civil way?dopderbeck_{December 5, 2006
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KL I've never been able to verify that rumor. Templeton goes to great pains here to disown ID. http://www.templeton.org/newsroom/Intelligent_Design/Official_Statement.html However, if you have anything from the Templeton Foundation saying they were soliciting proposals for ID research feel free to provide it here.DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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"ThereÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s all sorts of testable research going on in ID. The simple fact of the matter is that none declares itÃ¢â‚¬â„¢s ID research because it wouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t be funded." Didn't the Templeton Foundation ask for proposals? They have the ability to fund such work. I understand that nothing was submitted.KL_{December 5, 2006
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dopberbeck If you think the markets are predictable then accept my challenge and get your boys to make those predictions. I was a student of the markets for many years with millions of dollars riding on what I could learn. What I learned is that no one can predict them, I counted myself lucky, and bailed out just in the nick of time. On the matter of ignorance or dishonesty. Did you know that ID proponents accept the assertion that random variation can result in antibiotic resistance, disease resistance, pesticide resistance, and the like? Yes or no. If the answer is yes then you were dishonest in mentioning them. If not then you were ignorant of the ID position on it. Which is it? I didn't accuse you of being an ignoramus, only ignorant of ID's position on microevolutionary changes. Instead of answering my question you attempted to obfuscate it by saying micro vs. macro is tendentious. I'm forced to conclude you knew ID's position and your answer was intellectually dishonest. This is not ad hominem. It's a simple observation. DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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Pav re comment 42 Got link?DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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By the way, ask your market predictive geniuses what the Dow Jones Industrial average will be next week, next month, next year, and each succeeding year for the next 20 years. I'd think that from the perpective of design and information theory, you wouldn't be so dismissive of the rationality of markets. Markets, after all, are designed by intelligent agents specifically to foster controlled competition. Though they seem random to outsiders, they really aren't truly random. Maybe there's a useful metaphor here for understanding creation.dopderbeck_{December 5, 2006
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CJYMAN: Our two options are either random mutations plus natural selection or intelligent design plus natural selection. The problem I have with this is, what do you mean by "intelligent design?" Do you mean design in which the designer's activity is evident as contrasted with the ordinary operation of natural laws? Or do you mean design in which the designer's work was accomplished solely by using natural laws? This is where the discussion between ID and TE always seems to break down. TE says that God uses the seemingly "random" process of evolution to create life just as He intends. I call that "intelligent design." I don't see why it's then necessary to insist that the designer's / God's actions should be visible by way of contrast to the ordinary operation of natural laws. At the very least, there are more than the two options of materialism vs. "strong" ID. Dave, I thought you had to go to work? Classes are over. I should be writing, but oh well. Of course micro vs. macro is tendentious. NDE dogma asserts that accumulation of the micro results in the macro. Right -- but then why call me an ignoramous or a liar? See, this kind of argument bothers me, and it's one of the reasons I lean towards TE now rather than ID as I used to. I made a fair point. If your response depends on a contested distinction between micro- and macro-evolution, that's fine, but lets talk about the merits of that response and not just fling around insults.dopderbeck_{December 5, 2006
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dopberbeck I thought you had to go to work? Of course micro vs. macro is tendentious. NDE dogma asserts that accumulation of the micro results in the macro. To make a clear distinction I have long proposed that macro-evolution is the creation of novel cell types, tissue types, organs, and body plans. These are required novelties in getting from bacteria to babboons. As such it shouldn't be tendentious at all. By the way, ask your market predictive geniuses what the Dow Jones Industrial average will be next week, next month, next year, and each succeeding year for the next 20 years. That would constitute a market prediction. Then ask them how much of their own money they're willing to bet on it. The homepage I keep my browser on for the last 10 years is 25 stock tickers including the market indexes. No one can predict it. Sometimes you can successfully predict that individual companies will prosper and their stock will hopefully reflect that but still there are too many variables. On 9/11/01 all bets were cancelled. Fortunately I'd already taken most of my bets on Dell off the table. Those who didn't are still trying to become whole again. DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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cjwyman Our two options are either random mutations plus natural selection or intelligent design plus natural selection. That works for me. I can't speak for my colleagues of course. However, neither of the proposed driving forces, be it ID or RM allow any predictions Well, I may have to rethink that one and I blogged about it in the more recent Harvard OOL project article. Chance evolution pundits are certainly welcome to drive a stake in the ground with a firm prediction if they dare. Harvard *seems* to be doing that in declaring that if chance evolution is true they can find a way for organic life to have self-assembled from inanimate chemicals. If ID is true then it predicts Harvard will fail. I'm willing to live with the ID prediction. I'm betting the loyal opposition will wimp out and say it's such a difficult project that failure proves nothing. In other words, they won't drive a stake in the ground.DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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Michael The prediction you outlined is based on common descent. I have no argument with common descent. The question is what mechanism drives the changes. All the fossils in the world won't prove it was chance mutations.DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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Ok, so this appears to be the issue as I understand it: Our two options are either random mutations plus natural selection or intelligent design plus natural selection. In both of these cases, natural selection is the only scientific aspect, since you can predict the extent to which nature will select specific organisms within specific environments. However, neither of the proposed driving forces, be it ID or RM allow any predictions, since neither act in accordance with repeatable natural laws. ID affects changes within the boundaries of natural laws in accordance to a pattern that is only predictable once the psychology of the intelligent agent is understood. Random mutations are just that -- random. "Supposed randomness," (ie: the factors which affect weather) on a large enough scale may be quantified, but unless there is an underlying natural law true randomness is not predictable. To say that RM is not trully random would be to admit that there is a a natural law within our universe which causes specific mutations in accordance with a pre-determined outcome. However, since natural laws do not pre-determine anything, yet intelligent agents do, that natural law itself would most likely be the result of intelligent design. So, unless a natural law is found to drive (macro)evolution, (macro)evolution will remain unpredictable and as such should be labelled "unscientific," if by "unscientific" we mean the ability to cause predictions.CJYman_{December 5, 2006
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If you donÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t know that no virtually no ID proponents contest minor adaptations, commonly termed microevolutionary changes, the your response is born of ignorance. If you did know then it was dishonest. Pick one. It amazes me that people get so angry when discussing this stuff. Why do you have to resort to ad hominems? I'm sure you know that the distinction between "micro-" and "macro-" evolution is a tendentious one. Anyway, call it "micro-" or "macro-" or whatever -- it's the sort of thing evolutionary theory predicts. Lots of them lose their shirts too. Some people win in Vegas and some people lose. That doesnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t make any of it predictable. If the market was predictable it wouldnÃ¢â‚¬â„¢t be a market. I'm sorry, but then you don't understand markets. Either that, or your defintion of"predictable" requires a level of certainty that almost no human predictions about anything can achieve.dopderbeck_{December 5, 2006
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Tims There's all sorts of testable research going on in ID. The simple fact of the matter is that none declares it's ID research because it wouldn't be funded. Take the Harvard Origin of Life Project. They are setting out to find out how life might have first arisen. They've declared for evolution in that the goal is to find a "natural" mechanism (like intelligence isn't natural but that's another argument). However, their research directly impinges on ID because if they do discover a way it's going to falsify a major tenet of ID in that ID proposes there are no unintelligent ways for DNA-based life to arise. If Harvard had declared their goal was to disprove all current undirected theories of life origins do you think they'd have gotten funding for it? If ID is true, it predicts the Harvard project will fail. That's a simple, straightforward prediction isn't it? Obviously ID "researchers" couldn't take on this project because no one would believe they seriously tried to falsify their own hypothesis. No one questions that Harvard will try to falsify ID. It's all the same in the end. Experimental data is experimental data. What it supports is what it supports. It doesn't always support the ideas of those who undertake its collection. The simple truth is that ID uses the same experimental data that other theories of evolution use. It interprets the data differently.DaveScot_{December 5, 2006
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Well, the ToE did make a prediction--until it was forced to retract it. Eighteen months ago, a conference was held wherein the presenter told the attendees of the experiment he had performed, in which he had eliminated one million highly-converved nucleotides from mice DNA. When he told them that the mice were perfectly formed and healthy--almost indistinct from the parent line, an audible 'gasp' sounded in the room. Why did they gasp? Because the reigning ToE held that any DNA sequence that was highly-conserved indicated that the sequence was so vital to the organism that NS kept the sequence the same--or else. What the presenter reported was completely at odds with a fundamental prediction of the ToE--in its modern guise. So much for what the ToE predicts!PaV_{December 5, 2006
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Tims -- How can you test for a designer? It's done all the time. Is the pile of stones part of an old wall or the remains of a rockslide? Are the marks on a paper a coffee stain or directions to a meeting? Now, how can you assume there isn't a designer?tribune7_{December 5, 2006
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Ahoy, Dave! Certainly, your assertion that evolution makes no predictions is indended to either 1) give us all a good chuckle or 2) serve as a springboard for a potentially edifying discussion about the tremendous predictive value of evolution by making a bold counterfactual statement (cheeky devil). Assuming your goal is 2), let's begin by with a recent high-profile example: The team responsible for the discovery of the sarcopterygian fossil Tiktaalic used evolutionary theory to predict precisely (geographically and stratigraphically) where they would find this tetrapod ancestor (see Nature 440-6).Michael "Tutu" Tuite_{December 5, 2006
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