Uncommon Descent Contest 20: Why should human evolution be taught in school?

_{Denyse O'Leary

January 16, 2010

Contests}

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I just came across this fact in the journal Nature: Little is known about human evolution other than basic outline.

Note: This contest has been judged. Go here for announcement.

So, contrary to widely heard huffing, there are huge gaps in our understanding of early humans. In Nature’s 2020 Visions (7 January 2010) Scroll down to Leslie C. Aiello, and we learn

Most of the recent effort in hominin palaeontology has been focused on Africa and Europe. But the announcement in 2004 of the small hominin Homo floresiensis in Indonesia was a warning that we are naive to assume we know more than the basic outline of human evolutionary history. If H. floresiensis is indeed a surviving remnant of early Homo that left Africa around 2 million years ago, we have to reject the long-standing idea that Homo erectus was the first African emigrant. We also must reject many hypotheses concerning the prerequisites for this emigration, such as a relatively large brain size, large body size and human-like limb proportions. Importantly, we must confront our relative ignorance about human evolution outside Europe and Africa.- “Hominin paleontology”

Now, I don’t believe for a moment that 2020 is going to yield a whole lot more information, as Mr. Aiello* hopes – more likely a whole lot more grant applications, as more people graduate and need a focus for their work.

That doesn’t mean the work isn’t worth doing. It does, however, raise a key question: Why are people expected to learn in school whatever evolution story is currently taken seriously – by whomever and for whatever reason?

When I was in school fifty years ago, we struggled through polynomials, the life cycle of the common toad, and how to behave on stage when putting on a fragment of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar – facts that were not under dispute and unlikely to change in the lifetime of anyone present.

Anyway, courtesy of the Discovery Institute, I have a copy of David Berlinski’s The Deniable Darwin, for the best answer to the question: Why is human evolution, in its actual present state, compulsorily taught in schools? Why are people going to court in order to force the teaching?

Here are the contest rules. Winners get a certificate as well as the prize. You do not need to give me your actual address, just an address I can send the prize to, and we never save addresses for a mailing list.

*Aiello is President, Wenner-Gren Foundation for Anthropological Research

Comments

Tom MH, What is your problem? Try to focus on the following and actually answer the questions: As I said a computer consists of matter, energy and information yet it is not alive. IOW there is a difference between computers and living organisms. Do you agree with that? Do you have ANY evidence that living organisms can be reduced to matter, energy and information? ANY evidence at all? And when you say:
There is nothing there to justify the assumption that something else exists and has been detected.
That means you think there isn't any difference between a computer and a living organism. IOW Tom you are a waste of bandwidth.Joseph_{January 26, 2010
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IOW Tom all you have is to talk out of your arse.*
(*my emphasis) Do you have English roots, Joseph?Zach Bailey_{January 25, 2010
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joseph: Tom MH:
There is no evidence of such an entity, nor is there any need of it.
There is evidence for it. I told you what it is.
Are you referring to this?
joseph: Per my argument the same information, chemicals, matter and energy are in a dead person that are in a living person- yet there is a huge difference between someone who is alive and soneone who is dead. And yes that has been observed- ie detected. Also it has been detected that living organisms are different than inanimate objects. Computers have matter, energy and information yet are not alive. That alone says there is something else- so it has been detected.
(Emphasis added.) Is this your evidence? There is nothing there to justify the assumption that something else exists and has been detected. You should have paid some attention to Nakashima's comment:
Nakashima: You could look at each molecule of the body in succession and say it is not alive, even DNA. But put those molecules in specific arrangements and energy states, and the body is alive. Change the arrangements and energy states, and the body is dead.
This is called parsimony. There is no need to invoke additional entities to explain why some things are alive and others are not when we are able to study biochemistry and medicine and arrive at an understanding of life within the existing models. When you try to add your fundamental entity of "life", you have added no increase in explanatory power, solved no riddle of biology, and offered no proof that such an entity even exists.Tom MH_{January 25, 2010
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Mr Joseph, You said: Per my argument the same information, chemicals, matter and energy are in a dead person that are in a living person- yet there is a huge difference between someone who is alive and soneone who is dead. So you do think there is something that makes an essential distinction between dead and alive. Can you give an example of two bodies, one dead and one alive, with the same arrangement of matter and energy and information?Nakashima_{January 25, 2010
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Mr Hayden, ...but change the matter, and you change the truth. This isn’t how truth works. On the basis of Lewis' essay, I have to disagree. Let's say i'm standing outside Bergen County Courthouse in Hackensack, NJ with this stroke injured man. A passerby asks us, "What kind of building is that?" I say, "A courthouse." He says, "Nothing special." Accepting the "looking along", inner perspective of both of us, we are both right. An inebriated guy sits in a bar and thinks the girl next to him is beautiful. When he sobers up, he changes his mind. The inner perspective was right both times. You are right that there is this idea called 'the truth' which is absolute and eternal. But when Lewis was saying both perspectives are true, or one is 'truer' than another, I don't think he was talking about this absolute concept. He was talking about a concept that could have multiple gradations. I'm certain there are systems of thought, based on certain choices of axioms, in which reductionism is self-contradictory. Lewis' main intellectual opponent in that essay was the dominance of Skinnerian psychology, which had gone beyond saying that mental states were unmeasurable and therefore not a subject for science to a harsher view that mental states were not measurable, and therefore did not exist. Lewis is right, Skinnerian psychology is self-contradictory. This was basically proved by Marvin Minsky in his critical paper on perceptrons and computing the exclusive or. But we are atill left with the existence of both valid perspectives of Lewis' essay.Nakashima_{January 25, 2010
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Tom MH:
What I was arguing against was joseph’s contention that a reductionist approach would reveal a third (or fourth, or fifth) essence called “life”, separate and distinct from matter and energy, irreducible and essential to the distinction between the living and the dead.
That is not what I am saying Tom. I never said anything about "essential to the distinction between the living and the dead".Joseph_{January 25, 2010
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Tom MH:
There is no evidence of such an entity, nor is there any need of it.
There is evidence for it. I told you what it is. That you choose to ignore that exposes your agenda Tom. And that you ignore the following proves my point: As I said a computer consists of matter, energy and information yet it is not alive. IOW there is a difference between computers and living organisms. Do you agree with that? Do you have ANY evidence that living organisms can be reduced to matter, energy and information? ANY evidence at all? IOW Tom all you have is to talk out of your arse. Do you really think that helps your case?Joseph_{January 25, 2010
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Nakashima,
As much as a stroke could destroy the term “courthouse” in one person, a stroke could destroy the concept of “reductionism” in another.
That's right, and therein lies the problem with materialism. If the content was only in the matter, then the content could be excised with a knife, and it wouldn't be "true" in its own right. It would only be true as long as it was there in matter, but change the matter, and you change the truth. This isn't how truth works.Clive Hayden_{January 24, 2010
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tribune7: TomMH –If (life) did have an origin, then it somehow originated from non-life. Or a life not bound by the laws of nature. Why would you reject that possibility?
I would reject it for science because it requires that we pass beyond the borders of science and into the realm of religion and faith. Not that I am opposed to that, but I prefer to call a spade a spade. Of course, the claims of science are provisional by custom. Can you cite me a verifiable example of a life not bound by the laws of nature?Tom MH_{January 24, 2010
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Clive Hayden: I agree that there is no reason to consider any of these things reducible to its component parts.
Then neither you nor I are strict reductionists. But perhaps you have misread my position. I was not advocating that life is merely it's constituent matter and energy (quarks, leptons, vector bosons to mediate interactions, and the Higgs lurking behind the curtains to bestow mass). From a reductionist perspective, one could arrive at that viewpoint...and miss the whole show of life. What I was arguing against was joseph's contention that a reductionist approach would reveal a third (or fourth, or fifth) essence called "life", separate and distinct from matter and energy, irreducible and essential to the distinction between the living and the dead. There is no evidence of such an entity, nor is there any need of it. Is its hypothesis essential to the ID viewpoint?Tom MH_{January 24, 2010
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Mr Hayden, The philosophy of physical reductionism is not itself reducible to physics, that’s my point. In denying the reducibility of reductionism, you are going past the position of Lewis in the essay you referenced. He says of one physiologist thinking about reductionism: A second physiologist, looking at it, could pronounce it also to be only tiny physical movements in the first physiologist's skull. Where is the rot to end? The answer is that we must never allow the rot to begin. We must, on pain of idiocy, deny from the very outset the idea that looking at is, by its own nature, intrinsically truer or better than looking along. One must look both along and at everything. I admit that as I read the essay the first time, and came to "Where is the rot to end?", I thought Lewis was going to make an argument against some infinite regress, but instead "the rot" in the next paragraph simply resolves to be the single minded focus on one perspective. But when Lewis says "One must look both along and at everything." he is admitting that both perspectives exist and are valid, even for abstractions such as mathematics and the philosophy of reductionism. Now Lewis does follow this up with: Thus the inside vision of rational thinking must be truer than the outside vision which sees only movements of the grey matter; for if the outside vision were the correct one all thought (including this thought itself) would be valueless, and this is self-contradictory. Having just admitted that both perpectives are necessary ("One MUST look both along and at everything.") he begins his examination of the particular case of rational thought by saying the interior perspective is "truer". That is fine, his opinion, and I happen to agree with him, but "truer" admits there is a gradation of truth. For the purposes of this esay, or this sentence, Lewis is not speaking of true/false dichotomies between the internal and external perspectives. Given that there is a semantic overlap with the true of true/false, I would have prefered Lewis used another term, such as "more useful". The point is that Lewis is still seeing value in both perspectives even when he favors one over the other. In the next part of the sentence, he knocks down the absolute position on reductionism. This bit come close to supporting your position that reductionism is not reducible. Unfortunately, Lewis' argument is not very strong. He's trying to make a syllogism: Reductionism says all thoughts are valuless. Reductionism is a thought. Therefore reductionism is valuless. It all falls apart if we don't agree with the first statement. What does valuless mean, and how did it get attached to the position of reductionism? Given what Lewis had argued earlier, he can argue: Reductonism says all thoughts are brain movements. Reductionism is a thought. Therefore reductionism is a brain movement. I have no problem with that, though it seems to contradict your position. But it doesn't attach a judgement of value to the position. What is missing is: Reductionism holds that all thoughts are brain movements. Reductionism holds that all brain movements are valuless, Therefore reductionism holds that all thoughts are valuless. I don't think Lewis ever justifies that second statement, though he does seem to assume it. In particular, it isn't clear why this isn't preferable: Reductionism holds that all thoughts are brain movements. Reductionism says the value of a brain movement is temporary, local, and provisional. Therefore reductionism holds that all thoughts' values are temporary, local, and provsional. We would then come to Reductionism holds that all thoughts' values are temporary, local, and provsional. Reductionism is a thought. Therefore reductionism holds that reductionism's values are temporary, local, and provsional. That isn't a self-contradiction, though it is an admission of limited scope. The bottom line is that reductionism does not entail valuelessness, and therefore this part of Lewis' argument fails. Setting aside Lewis' essay, do you have any evidence for your position? I remember vaguely that Oliver Sacks discusses a case in one of his books of a stroke victim, who after his injury could not remember the names of government buildings. "Post office" and "courthouse" had ceased to exist. I'll grant that "courthouse" is not in the same league as "reductionism" as abstractions go, but the point is that abstractions are localised to parts of the brain, learning abstractions involves physical changes to the brain. As much as a stroke could destroy the term "courthouse" in one person, a stroke could destroy the concept of "reductionism" in another.Nakashima_{January 24, 2010
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Aleta, Being a materialist means that you think everything can be reduced to materialistic processes- ie can be reduced to matter, energy, chance and necessity.Joseph_{January 24, 2010
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Tom MH:
It died because it was neither necessary nor demonstrable.
The strawman died. Not what I am saying.
But your position does say that organic life cannot arise from inorganic elements without the introduction of a fundamental entity called “life” that is independent from those elements. Is this accurate?
That is what the evidence supports. As I said a computer consists of matter, energy and information yet it is not alive. IOW there is a difference between computers and living organisms. Do you agree with that? Do you have ANY evidence that living organisms can be reduced to matter, energy and information? ANY evidence at all? So far all you have done is to argue against a strawman. So how about actually putting up? How about that measurement system for evolution? Or do you agree that the concept is not science?Joseph_{January 24, 2010
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Nakashima-san:
Death and life are determined by the arrangement of matter and energy,
That is what you say. Too bad you don't have any supporting evidence.Joseph_{January 24, 2010
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Ah, another topic I'm interested in. I like Cabal's list at 97, which makes the point that being a materialist (which I am) is not the same as being a reductionist (which I am not). I don't think the love I have for people, my appreciation for beauty, or my committment to serving others is lessened because at the lowest level it is all quantum interactions. I don't need to believe that love and beauty et al have to have some external non-material existence for them to be validated.Aleta_{January 24, 2010
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Clive Hayden @ 95
That’s all you got out of that essay?
What I got from that essay was that Lewis was defending the reality and value of subjective experience against materialist accounts which demean them as trivial and of no value to science. In my view, both are of interest to science and that constructing an explanation of how something works has no bearing on how much we might value it. In the example Lewis provides of the little girl crying over the broken doll, as he writes, a materialist account might explain it as an exercise of the nascent maternal instinct but that does not change in the slightest the real love, pain and sense of loss experienced by the little girl. Any materialist, however, who then goes on to dismiss the little girl's feelings as childish nonsense has stepped over the boundary of science and into the realm of moral judgement where he or she has no more authority than the rest of us. While I don't know of any materialists who would be that hard-hearted, human nature being what it is, there are likely to be some. My own impression is that Lewis's own feelings had been bruised in encounters with materialist science and that this essay was a counter-attack against the attitudes which, rightly or wrongly, he held responsible.Seversky_{January 24, 2010
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I have an opinion too: 1. Quantum Mechanics. 2. Atoms and molecules. 3. Physics. 4. Chemistry. 6. Matter. 6. Biology. 7. Psyche. 8. Spirit. The properties and laws at each level are emerging from the level below but is not defined by the lower level. Emergent properties at each level tells us that the whole always is more than just the sum of the parts. That means reductionism doesn't allow for understanding of the world.Cabal_{January 24, 2010
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TomMH --If (life) did have an origin, then it somehow originated from non-life. Or a life not bound by the laws of nature. Why would you reject that possibility?tribune7_{January 23, 2010
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Nakashima,
I’m willing to grant a reality to the inner experience of people, the “looking along the sunbeam”of Lewis’ essay. Do you similarly grant a reality to the “looking at”, external view of the same experiences? Lewis’ essay holds they both are real. The insights of a scientist such as Dr Ray fall within his argument.
That's all you got out of that essay?Clive Hayden_{January 23, 2010
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Tom MH,
Of course love and beauty exist, but there is no reason that they are the result of fundamental physical entities comparable to matter and energy. Do you contend otherwise?
I contend that love, life, beauty, philosophy, and the philosophy that things things should be reduced to physical parts to exist, are all not reducible to physical parts. I agree that there is no reason to consider any of these things reducible to its component parts. The philosophy of physical reductionism is not itself reducible to physics, that's my point.Clive Hayden_{January 23, 2010
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joseph: You keep saying elan vital- can you point me to that hypothesis- wikipedia’s entry doesn’t say that much and it doesn’t support your contention. And how could it die a century ago in the midst of biological ignorance?
It died because it was neither necessary nor demonstrable. Bergson, who coined the phrase, was a philosopher, not a scientist, and his ideas about evolution and life found no home in science. Or perhaps I've misjudged, and vitalism and not elan vital is the better description of your hypothesis? I wouldn't consider this an improvement.
My position does not say that organic molecules cannot arise from inorganic elements.
But your position does say that organic life cannot arise from inorganic elements without the introduction of a fundamental entity called "life" that is independent from those elements. Is this accurate?Tom MH_{January 23, 2010
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tribune7:The working biological assumption is that only life can create life.
In which case life had no origin. If it did have an origin, then it somehow originated from non-life. Which do you think it is? (This was my point in response to a post from EvilSnack.)Tom MH_{January 23, 2010
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Clive Hayden: And I suppose that love is only a biochemical action, and beauty some trick of nerves, and everything else reduced down to the movement of space dust that exploded after the Big Bang and came back together as you and me. You can’t physically quantify your philosophy, so by your criterion it doesn’t exist.
Of course love and beauty exist, but there is no reason that they are the result of fundamental physical entities comparable to matter and energy. Do you contend otherwise?Tom MH_{January 23, 2010
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Mr Joseph, Last I checked urea wasn’t alive. Which is sort of the point! You could look at each molecule of the body in succession and say it is not alive, even DNA. But put those molecules in specific arrangements and energy states, and the body is alive. Change the arrangements and energy states, and the body is dead. Death and life are determined by the arrangement of matter and energy, I don't think you can give an example where the same arrangement of matter and energy states is either dead or alive because of another fundamental quality being there or not there.Nakashima_{January 23, 2010
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Mr Hayden, Lewis says: We do not know in advance whether the lover or the psychologist is giving the more correct account of love, or whether both accounts are equally correct in different ways, or whether both are equally wrong. I'm willing to grant a reality to the inner experience of people, the "looking along the sunbeam"of Lewis' essay. Do you similarly grant a reality to the "looking at", external view of the same experiences? Lewis' essay holds they both are real. The insights of a scientist such as Dr Ray fall within his argument.Nakashima_{January 23, 2010
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Last I checked urea wasn't alive. My position does not say that organic molecules cannot arise from inorganic elements. IOW if that is what Tom MH is saying then he is attacking a strawman.Joseph_{January 23, 2010
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Nakashima,
Cherry blossoms are popular in Japan as a symbol for the brevity and impermanence of life, but fireworks is also good. Thank you.
Except my reference to a box of fireworks isn't a symbol, it's reality with a materialist. And I know you're not in Japan, so please don't use the charade of Japanese obfuscation with me.Clive Hayden_{January 23, 2010
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Nakashima,
But seriously, I think that if you look at research on the chemical architecture of the human mind by scientists such as Thomas Ray you would find support for those notions.
But seriously, I think if you look at just one argument against that philosophical position you would find that these notions cannot be supported.Clive Hayden_{January 23, 2010
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Mr Hayden, And I suppose that love is only a biochemical action, and beauty some trick of nerves, This can be answered in two words, "beer goggles"! ;) But seriously, I think that if you look at research on the chemical architecture of the human mind by scientists such as Thomas Ray you would find support for those notions.Nakashima_{January 23, 2010
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Mr Tribune7, What died a century or so ago was spontaneous generation or that matter and energy create “life”. I think Mr Tom MH was referring to the synthesis of urea, an organic material, from completely inorganic chemicals. This was taken as a refutation of the idea that living matter was somehow different than non-living matter. To Mr Joseph's position: Per my argument the same information, chemicals, matter and energy are in a dead person that are in a living person- yet there is a huge difference between someone who is alive and soneone who is dead. The answer is entropy. The dead object, an amoeba for example, does not have the same entropy as the living one. It was in a far from equilibrium state and maintaining itself there, now it is descending towards equilibrium with its environment. Since the amoeba was probably in thermal equilibrium (since it is so small) we have to look for chemical or informational entropy. All the ATP was used up, and not replaced, so the arrangement and enrgy levels of the molecules are different between living and dead.Nakashima_{January 23, 2010
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