Why do we need to make a decision about common descent anyway?

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August 5, 2014

Human evolution, Intelligent Design

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Human evolution
Intelligent Design}

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To “Why, exactly, should we believe that humans are descended from simpler forms of life?”, Mark Frank responds,

This is really very simple. Either:

1. We descended from a simpler form of life.

2. We descended from an equally complicated form of life which has left no trace.

3. We didn’t descend from any form of life but somehow sprang into existence (as adults I guess as human babies can’t survive by themselves).

Be honest – which seems the most plausible?

Actually, it is even simpler than Mark Frank makes out. Nothing is at issue if I just decline to offer an opinion.

His 1. would seem plausible except for the people shouting that we are 98 percent chimpanzee. And they’re the strongest supporters of common descent. They want it rammed down everyone’s throat from kindergarten to the retirement home.

Yet not only is their claim implausible on its face (anyone can tell the difference between a human and a chimpanzee), it is unsatisfactory. It leaves unaccounted for everything of which we would like an account.

His 2. is hardly implausible. It would be a familiar situation to any adopted child who can’t trace birth parents. As an account, is it unsatisfactory principally because it amounts to saying that there is no information available? That might be true, but I don’t know that it is.

His 3. is really not much different from 2., in that no further information about origins is likely to be available.

So the actual choice, assuming Frank’s list is exhaustive, is between an account offered by people whose judgement can be seriously questioned and accounts that point to the futility of seeking further information.

It’s a good thing Thomas Huxley coined the term agnostic (“it is wrong for a man to say he is certain of the objective truth of any proposition unless he can produce evidence which logically justifies that certainty”). That just about characterizes what I consider the wisest position just now on common descent.

See also: What can we responsibly believe about human evolution?

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Comments

Moose Dr. Finally an intelligent comment from an IDist, even though I disagree with it. You are absolutely correct. But only if your fundamental assumption, that humans are superior, is correct. I agree that we are dominant. But that does not mean superior. For most of earth's history, anaerobes were dominant. Based on that record, maybe they should be superior. Bacteria still make up the vast majority of living organisms on earth. By most accounts, that would make them superior. Insects are far more resilient to environmental changes than humans. In short, I don't see how you can consider that we are the superior life form on the planet. But what do I know?Acartia_bogart_{August 5, 2014
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Jerry, actually A_B is a biologist and a statistician, but what are a couple credentials between friends? BA77, unfortunately, I don't perceive YouTube videos as qualified rebuttal. Call me old fashioned. BA77: "Exactly what is the mathematical basis of Darwin?" Darwin never proposed a mathematical basis for his theory. But you know this. In fact, you will be hard pressed to find any evolutionary biologist who would call themselves a Darwinist, so I don't understand why you and the other creationists insist on labelling all evolutionary biologists as such (actually, we all understand the strategy. Childish as it is). But, if you want to talk about modern evolutionary biology, there is a very good mathematical basis to it (if, by mathematical, you mean probabilistic, which is not the same, but you know this as well). The difference between the statistics behind evolutionary theory, and Behe's voodoo magic pseudostatistics is that one is defensible and testable. And the other one is creationism.Acartia_bogart_{August 5, 2014
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This is a funny debate. For the most part its the neo-Darwinists screaming that common descent has an evidentiary base. The IDers mostly are saying that common descent doesn't have a great evidentiary base. As an IDer, I say, what if common descent is correct? Does it weaken our position one iota? There is something fundamentally superior about humanity. How a process that has no direction could produce such strategic superiority is puzzling to me. If we were designed by someone twiddling with the DNA of existing creatures, then mating them to produce something superior, or if we are designed by someone running a master DNA compiler and producing a new organism makes very little difference to the ID case. ID is not in any way diminished by common descent. Descent with intelligent modification remains to be intelligently designed.Moose Dr_{August 5, 2014
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Gordon Davisson,
my objection isn’t that common ancestry refutes ID (it clearly doesn’t), it’s that the ID movement’s unwilling to look at the evidence for common ancestry clearly indicates that science, and following the evidence, simply is not a priority for the ID movement.
I have no position to defend on common ancestry, but I certainly understand your sentiment. I feel exactly the same way about ID critics who throw their arms in the air and refuse to engage the physical conditions required for the translation of an informational medium into a functional physical effect – i.e. the very thing that organizes the living cell as know it. For instance, on this website right now we have an ID critic, who like a child with an untied shoe, does not seem to be able to take another step without knowing the ID antecedent to the modern human form. But in reality, he is not actually interested in rational antecedents. If he was interested in such things, he would take his appeal to “the best explanation” and apply it to what we already know to be a fundamental observed truth about life on earth – that is, that living systems are locally organized by the translation of recorded information. The simple fact of the matter is that the physical conditions required of translation are anathema to his ideology, and he simply wants to know nothing about it. So, like you, I see a wall erected between the explanations and the physical evidence. The distinction between us is that common descent, as you’ve already pointed out, is not even a problem for ID, whereas, the physical requirements of organizing the living cell (via translated information) is a virtually intractable deal-stopper for the unguided organization of life on earth. Certainly, if one does actually address and acknowledge in earnest the physical conditions required to organize the living cell, then the oft-made claim of ID critics that “no evidence of design exist” is nothing less than a bold-faced lie told by intellectuals for public consumption. As you suggest, such a statement “clearly indicates that science, and following the evidence, simply is not a priority” to those who make such statements.Upright BiPed_{August 5, 2014
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Did we know that Acartia_bogart was a biologist?jerry_{August 5, 2014
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Gordon Davisson- You are sadly mistaken if you think that the "evidence" for universal common descent is strong, never mind "overwhelmingly strong". We don't even know what makes an organism what it is and all evidence for this alleged common ancestry can easily support a common design. As for nested hierarchies- LoL! Common ancestry would predict many transitional forms. That means we should, at best, be able to create an overlapping Venn diagram, not a nested hierarchy. Denton goes over this in "Evolution: A Theory in Crisis". Linnean taxonomy, ie the observed nested hierarchy, was based on a common design and has nothing to do with common ancestry. The US Army, another observed nested hierarchy, has nothing to do with common ancestry. Nested hierarchies are purely a man-made construct and have nothing to do with natural processes, let alone natural selection. That said, the genes responsible for micro-evolution will never produce the type of change common ancestry requires. And the genes that may be able to make those changes cannot be changed. Don't you think that is a problem? So what mechanism brought about all of this change and how can we test it? You do want common ancestry to be scientific, right? How can we measure it- how many mutations to go from fish to amphibian?Joe_{August 5, 2014
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Acartia_bogart- What happens in your dreams and/ or imagination- someone refuting Meyer- does not count in the real world. ;) Saying that the Cambrian explosion wasn't an explosion does not help natural selection. Saying that there were many pre-Cambrian organisms doesn't help natural selection. The only thing natural selection has going for it is the story evolutionary biologists have spun.Joe_{August 5, 2014
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Dr. Giem has a new lecture up: "The Edge of Evolution" Strikes Again 8-2-2014 by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HnO-xa3nBE4&list=UUaBAwmf0uZeTYejbXpXV7VQbornagain77_{August 5, 2014
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AB, not missing a beat, bluffs and blusters this statement:
Meyer’s ‘Darwin’s Doubt’ has been refuted by “real biologists” so many times that the book ranks up there with “Chariots of the God” as good science.
Hmmm, interesting claim. Perhaps you can point me to the critical review that adequately addressed the information problem instead of dodged it?
Stephen Meyer - The Biggest Failure of Critics (In Addressing Darwin's Doubt) - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ljy1yfGdC5Y "Conversations with Stephen Meyer," short videos in which Dr. Meyer reflects on the past year's controversy over his book, what the criticisms of Darwin's Doubt reveal about the weakness of his critics and what that suggests about the future of the discussion as a whole. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL7Wwl5TzliiESzJlMgqCo6ogMIZWL7gmj
Here is a more detailed look at the major flaws in all the critical reviews of 'Darwin's Doubt':
Darwin's Doubt - Reviews - Part 1 - by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YW8SLKoSZqM Darwin's Doubt - Reviews - Part 2 - by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPqN0-YiJgg Darwin's Doubt - Reviews - Part 3 - by Paul Giem - video https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Mj1thPrSgc Darwin's Doubt - Reviews - Part 4 - by Paul Giem - video http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IfEfa6KaEXU
And AB, since you fancy yourself an expert on 'good science', perhaps you could tell us the demarcation criteria that separates Darwinian evolution from pseudoscience? i.e. Exactly what is the mathematical basis of Darwin?bornagain77_{August 5, 2014
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A-B sourly noted,
He completely ignores the reams of evidence of life before the “Cambrian explosion”. But who am I (a biologist) to question Meyers (a non-biologist)?
No, it's not "reams or evidence," it's Mountains of Evidence (tm) that's waiting to be discovered. As to the question of credibility, you're right. It's far more important whether a person has a degree, in what, and where it's from than the silly things that come out of their mouth. It's sort of like playing cards. My 4 of spades trumps your jack of clubs, but her 9 of spades beats both of our cards. Think of how much time we would save in peer reviews if we just rank the universities, the degrees, how many papers published and where, and finally the date of the degree as a tie-breaker. -QQuerius_{August 5, 2014
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Meyer’s ‘Darwin’s Doubt’ has been refuted by “real biologists” so many times that the book ranks up there with “Chariots of the God” as good science. He completely ignores the reams of evidence of life before the “Cambrian explosion”. But who am I (a biologist) to question Meyers (a non-biologist)?
Of course this is nonsense.jerry_{August 5, 2014
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"A then there is that whole monkey wrench of the Cambrian explosion, as was illustrated in Meyer’s ‘Darwin’s Doubt’, that was thrown into the whole theory of common descent." Meyer's 'Darwin's Doubt' has been refuted by "real biologists" so many times that the book ranks up there with "Chariots of the God" as good science. He completely ignores the reams of evidence of life before the "Cambrian explosion". But who am I (a biologist) to question Meyers (a non-biologist)?Acartia_bogart_{August 5, 2014
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But alas Querius, I have the fatal flaw of preferring honest inquiry to bluff and bluster, thus I'm forever condemned to be not taken seriously by the likes of Coyne, Dawkins, Myers, Moran, Davisson, etc... and for that 'I am a man of constant sorrows' :) But then again, perhaps I'm blessed and favored to earn their scorn ,, Music Phillips, Craig and Dean - Man Who's Blessed and Favored - live https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KKaBM7BAxKEbornagain77_{August 5, 2014
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But bornagain77, Don't you want to be taken seriously? Just because there's a few tiny questions and trivial inconsistencies left open by the Cambrian explosion doesn't mean that there isn't an Enormous Mountain of Evidence just waiting to be discovered! LOL -QQuerius_{August 5, 2014
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A then there is that whole monkey wrench of the Cambrian explosion, as was illustrated in Meyer's 'Darwin's Doubt', that was thrown into the whole theory of common descent. A Graduate Student (Nick Matzke) Writes - David Berlinski July 9, 2013 Excerpt: Representatives of twenty-three of the roughly twenty-seven fossilized animal phyla, and the roughly thirty-six animal phyla overall, are present in the Cambrian fossil record. Twenty of these twenty-three major groups make their appearance with no discernible ancestral forms in either earlier Cambrian or Precambrian strata. Representatives of the remaining three or so animal phyla originate in the late Precambrian, but they do so as abruptly as the animals that appeared first in Cambrian. Moreover, these late Precambrian animals lack clear affinities with the representatives of the twenty or so phyla that first appear in the Cambrian. http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_graduate_stud074221.html But not to worry, Matzke was there to save the day for the Darwinian faithful, give are take a few setbacks from Berlinski :) A One-Man Clade – David Berlinski – July 18, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/07/a_one_man_clade074601.html Hopeless Matzke -David Berlinski & Tyler Hampton August 18, 2013 http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/08/hopeless_matzke075631.htmlbornagain77_{August 5, 2014
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GD: "Box: I agree completely; my objection isn’t that common ancestry refutes ID (it clearly doesn’t), it’s that the ID movement’s unwilling to look at the evidence for common ancestry clearly indicates that science, and following the evidence, simply is not a priority for the ID movement."</I Gord, I am afraid that the name of this website (Uncommon Descent) displays the bias inherent in the conversation.Acartia_bogart_{August 5, 2014
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"And I wound’t say they’re unwilling to look at it..." -> "And I shouldn’t say they’re unwilling to look at it..." Sorry, my proofreading sucks.Gordon Davisson_{August 5, 2014
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Box: the nested hierarchy of similarity, and its agreement with the fossil record (and biogeography and...). And I wound't say they're unwilling to look at it, just unwilling to seriously look at its implications Cornelius Hunter has probably done the best job I've seen in trying to refute the evidence from a nested hierarchy, and while he's the best I've seen ... he's not made much of a case IMO. In fact, he's the one I had in mind when I mentioned ignorance of how science evaluates evidence. His objections generally consist of noting various anomalies, pointing out that they don't fit in a nice clean nested hierarchy, and claiming this refutes the argument for common ancestry. This is a lot like pointing out that some objects fall slower than others (feathers vs. rocks), some don't fall at all (helium balloons), and claiming that since the theory of gravity implies everything should fall at the same speed, gravity is clearly wrong. The basic problem with this argument is that gravity isn't the only force acting on these objects, and if you take into account all of the forces (including gravity), their behavior fits the theory. In the case of common ancestry, if it were the only thing influencing the similarities of different organisms, we'd get a nice clean anomaly-free nested hierarchy of similarities. The fact that we don't get a nice clean hierarchy just shows that CA isn't the only thing going on. Since CA isn't the only thing influencing similarities, we expect the real picture to be much messier. This sort of thing is entirely normal in science. Experiemtal data is never nice and simple and clean and only influenced by the effect you're trying to measure (and if it is nice and clean, that probably means something's wrong). You pretty much always have to deal with confounding effects, even in an experiment you designed to minimize those. Without controlled conditions, it's generally even messier. That doesn't mean you throw up your hands and conclude that there's no way to tell what's going on; it means that you dig in and try to figure out as much as you can. You squeeze the data any way you can think of to wring as much useful information as you can out of it. In the case of the similarity hierarchy, it actually isn't very hard to get the basic picture out. The basic overview of the nested hierarchy of similarity is pretty obvious once it's pointed out. (Picking out fine details is harder, and subject to constant adjustment based on new information/better analysis.) Anomalies? You bet! But we're now able to look at thousands of traits across millions of species, so even if we find millions of anomalies that's a very small fraction of the overall data. You really need to look at the weight of the evidence, and that's not where Cornelius looks; he only ever looks at the anomalies, and acts like that's all that exists. He's wrong. ...And it't actually even worse than that for the anti-CA side, because most of the anomalies that appear are the sorts of anomalies that are explicable under CA and/or evolution. Horizontal transfer comes to mind as an example. If you use a more complex & complete model of evolution (rather than plain branching ancestry), you get a better fit to the data. What that means is that any competing theory that might hope to replace CA as the explanation of the nested hierarchy has to explain not only the hierarchy but also the anomalies at least as well as CA+evolution. VJTorley, for example, has proposed an alternate explanation for the hierarchy of similarity (I can't seem to find the articles right now, sorry) but I don't think his explanation had any way of explaining the anomalies. So, I'll throw it open for anyone in the anti-CA crowd: do you have a better explanation for the nested hierarchy of similarity? Does it explain the consistency with the fossil record? Does it explain the anomalies from both of the above at least as well as CA+evolution? Is your explanation at anywhere close to as well worked-out and studied as CA+evolution? If not... don't expect your objections to CA to be taken seriously in scientific circles.Gordon Davisson_{August 5, 2014
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Gordon Davisson #24, exactly which evidence for common ancestry is the ID movement unwilling to look at? BTW you may be interested in this article by Denyse O'Leary.Box_{August 5, 2014
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As for me, I am still waiting on Nick Matzke's book on Macroevoluton. I'm sure he's working on it.Mung_{August 5, 2014
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Box: I agree completely; my objection isn't that common ancestry refutes ID (it clearly doesn't), it's that the ID movement's unwilling to look at the evidence for common ancestry clearly indicates that science, and following the evidence, simply is not a priority for the ID movement.Gordon Davisson_{August 5, 2014
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I should probably expand on my comment that "#5 is also the most relevant for supporting common ancestry, not because it’s so high — that doesn’t actually matter than much...". The 98% figure gets waved around a lot because it looks simple and easy to understand. It's the sort of argument that can fit on a bumper sticker. But it's also too oversimplified and glib to really mean much ("any argument that fits on a bumper sticker belongs there"). The real important evidence isn't any specific bit of similarity between any two organisms, it's the pattern of similarities and differences across all organisms. It's not that we're some specific genetic distance from chimps, it's that we're just a hair closer to chimps than gorillas, and a little further from orangs and siamangs, and a little further from baboons and macaques and vervets, and ... It's the nested hierarchy of similarity, and its congruence with the fossil record, that really matters. But that's a huge pattern involving a huge amount of data, and knowing enough about the subject (and understanding the theory well enough to evaluate the match between it and the data) is well beyond the effort most people are willing to invest. But if you haven't put in the time & effort to get to that point, you cannot expect your opinion on the subject to be given any real weight. The 98% figure is the tip of a very very very large iceberg. If you don't deal with the iceberg, mocking the tip will only get you into trouble.Gordon Davisson_{August 5, 2014
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Gordon Davidson #21,
ID is a theory about the cause of complex biological information. Common descent (CD) is a theory about the modalities of implementation of that information. They are two separate theories about two different aspects of the problem, totally independent and totally compatible. In other words, one can affirm CD and ID, CD and Darwinian Evolution, or ID and not CD. However, if one believes in Darwinian Evolution, CD is a necessary implication. [source: section f.a.q. #10]
Box_{August 5, 2014
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Let me ask a counter-question for those on the ID side here: do you want ID to be taken seriously as science? The reason this is relevant is because the scientific evidence for common ancestry is overwhelmingly strong, and all of the counterarguments I've ever seen from the antievolution side are overwhelmingly weak (and generally based on ignorance of either the evidence or how science evaluates evidence or both). Basically, if you can't figure out common ancestry, you've immediately marked yourself as clueless on the subject, and even if you have good points on other aspects of the origins question, nobody in the scientific community is going to bother listening to them. In other words, I'm agreeing with Denyse here:
BUT claimed 98% similarity due to a common ancestor (a claim that hundreds of science writers regularly make, in support of common descent) *undermines anything else they have to say on the subject.* I do not know how to put the matter more simply than this: A person who does not see the problem is not a credible source of information.
...just disagreeing about which side is not credible. Take the 98% similarity figure as an example: one of the basic principles of science is that you must follow the evidence. If the evidence supports the 98% figure, and that conflicts with your intuition, then you either have to throw that intuition into the trash bin, or stop claiming to be doing science. Mind you, it's entirely reasonable to dispute measurements, theories, etc. But if you want your disputes to be taken seriously, they must be based on understanding the subject. If your response to the 98% figure is just "I don't understand that, it doesn't make sense to me, it must be wrong", you just proved you're really not even trying to do science. Now, let me take a look at the primary counterargument I've seen against the 98% figure: many variants of "here's another measurement, and it got a completely different figure". Which would be reasonable if they were measuring the same thing, but I haven't seen any that were. Let me give you an analogy: Suppose you hear that the liner Queen Mary 2 is more than twice the size of her predecessor, the Queen Elizabeth 2. This seems rather extreme, so you look around and find another figure that says the QM2 is only about 1.5x the size of the QE2. Then you find another that says it's only 1.2x, and another that says 1.3x, and even one that says 1.4x. Should you conclude that the claim that she's more than twice the size of the QEM is bogus? Of course not; all of the figures I just gave are correct (although rounded), but there's more than one way to measure size, and hence more than one way to measure difference in size (hint: tonnage, displacement, length, beam, and height). Suppose someone claimed, based on those figures, that the QM2 was clearly not twice the size of the QE2, or that we didn't know how to measure ships' sizes, or that we really needed more data to make a judgement, or... You'd probably dismiss them as clueless, wouldn't you? I certainly would. Essentially the same thing is going on with all the different figures you'll see for Human-chimp similarity: different ways of defining and measuring similarity will give different results, and this is completely normal and expected. There is no single "right" figure. (Mind you, some ways of comparing may be more useful for some specific purpose, but this'll depend on the purpose you have in mind.) Let me make a closer analogy: how similar are the two sentences: "It was a blue-grey camper van." "It was a gray-blue van." Answer 1: 71%, because 5 of the 7 words are identical between them. Answer 2: 85%, because 6 of the 7 words are essentially the same ("grey"="gray"). Answer 3: 39%, because 9 of the 23 letters match up between them. Answer 4: 69%, because 16 of the 23 letters match up between them (ignoring rearrangements). Answer 5: 82%, because there are only 3 changes (swap the order of "blue" and "grey", change "e" to "a", delete "camper") between them out of 17 characters (in the smaller one). The truly correct answer, of course, is answer 6: all of the above (and more), and which one(s) will be most useful depend on what you're trying to learn. #5 is probably closest to the way the standard 98% figure is calculated (although it was originally done in a very indirect form, by measuring annealing temperature). #5 is also the most relevant for supporting common ancestry, not because it's so high -- that doesn't actually matter than much -- but because it's the best measure of the number of genetic changes (base substitutions, sequence reordering, insertions and deletions), and therefore the best measure of evolutionary distance (note that it doesn't take any more generations for a 500-base section of DNA to be deleted than a 5-base section). Or all of these measures might all be pretty irrelevant, if (for instance) you're trying to figure out how similar the meanings of the two sentences are. That's more-or-less the problem you're running into when you compare the phenotype of Humans and chimps and think that must correspond to more than 2% of difference. To the extent we've examined the specific genetic differences between Humans and chimps, it's clear that the vast majority of the changes make little or no difference in the resulting phenotype, while a tiny minority cause huge differences in the phenotype. In my sentence above, you could change "was" to "wasn't", and completely reverse the meaning with only a very small change in letter sequence. Expecting the difference in meaning to correspond to the difference in letter sequence is completely unreasonable, and essentially the same is true of differences in genotype vs. differences in phenotype.Gordon Davisson_{August 5, 2014
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Notice – no mention of chimpanzees or even apes.
Notice - the conclusion which does not follow from the premises.
We have zero examples of living things appearing do novo.
Every human birth is a de novo appearance. We have numerous examples.Mung_{August 5, 2014
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4. Humans are a simplification of a more complex entity.Mung_{August 5, 2014
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Mark Frank:
Biological reproduction as observed millions of times.
Humans reproducing humans doesn't help you, Mark. All observed instances of reproduction support baraminology, not universal common descent.Joe_{August 5, 2014
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Acartia_bogart- what the alleged common ancestor (between humans and chimps) was is important for the reason Mark Frank provided- Biologists do not claim that people are descended from chimpanzees. It could very well be that the alleged common ancestor was a chimpanzee- Mark doesn't know and neither do any biologists.Joe_{August 5, 2014
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Sirius:
Please identify the common ancestor of humans and chimps. Have you ever seen this creature? What did it look like? What is its name? We are talking science here. Why should we believe in what we cannot see?
Nobody is making you believe in something that you can't see. But let me list a few other things that you can't see: Air, the atom, gravity, a thought. But I am fairly certain that they all exist.Acartia_bogart_{August 5, 2014
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To mark Frank and allies. We are told with dogmatic certainty that we had a common ancestor, "nothing more, nothing less." Please identify the common ancestor of humans and chimps. Have you ever seen this creature? What did it look like? What is its name? We are talking science here. Why should we believe in what we cannot see? More generally, why are common ancestors never identified? If your rule is, All life from other life, how did life originate?Sirius_{August 5, 2014
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