Scientists and evolution

by gringojj 21 Replies latest watchtower beliefs

• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  with no alternate interpretations of the same data besides the evolutionary ones.

  because there are none of substance. none of those "alternate interpretations" survive what evolutionary theory has survived. they do not explain, they preach, ...usually christian fundamentalism. and the euphemism of Intelligent Design is no better. perhaps because it was founded by Phillip Johnson (not a biologist, nor a scientist of any kind but a mid life born-again christian who became a lawyer).

  gringo,

  regarding this argument from authority, you may want to use this quote from a letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review, that Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould had been working on before professor Gould's death:

  Like any flourishing science, the study of evolution has its internal controversies, as we (Dawkins and Gould) both know. But no qualified scientist doubts that evolution is a fact, in the ordinarily accepted sense in which it is a fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. It is a fact that human beings are cousins to monkeys, kangaroos, jellyfish and bacteria. No reputable biologist doubts this. Nor do reputable theologians, from the Pope on. Unfortunately, many lay Americans do, including some frighteningly influential, powerful and, above all, well-financed ones.
• 

  hooberus

  because there are none of substance. none of those "alternate interpretations" survive what evolutionary theory has survived. they do not explain, they preach, ...usually christian fundamentalism.

  Publications such as "The Biotic Message" by Walter ReMine are evidence against your assertions.

  http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b084.htm

  and the euphemism of Intelligent Design is no better. perhaps because it was founded by Phillip Johnson (not a biologist, nor a scientist of any kind but a mid life born-again christian who became a lawyer).

  Intelligent designn theory was around long before Johnson came on the scene. (for example William Paley - 1802), see also also books such as "The Creation-Evolution Controversy" Wyson 1976.
• 

  hooberus

  gringo,

  regarding this argument from authority, you may want to use this quote from a letter to the editor of the New York Times Book Review, that Richard Dawkins and Stephen Jay Gould had been working on before professor Gould's death:

  Like any flourishing science, the study of evolution has its internal controversies, as we (Dawkins and Gould) both know. But no qualified scientist doubts that evolution is a fact, in the ordinarily accepted sense in which it is a fact that the Earth orbits the Sun. It is a fact that human beings are cousins to monkeys, kangaroos, jellyfish and bacteria. No reputable biologist doubts this. Nor do reputable theologians, from the Pope on. Unfortunately, many lay Americans do, including some frighteningly influential, powerful and, above all, well-financed ones.

  This is simply a bunch of (false) dogmatic propaganda. Though a definite minority there are numerous "qualified scientists" (including biologists) who believe that fish to philosopher evolution is not true.
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  by Walter ReMine are evidence against your assertions.

  singular? of course there are some out there who are not christians! there's a well known one who is a Moonie. maybe that's why i said "usually".

  Intelligent designn theory was around long before Johnson came on the scene. (for example William Paley - 1802), see also also books such as "The Creation-Evolution Controversy" Wyson 1976.

  call it what you want. it's ALL creationism. William Paley is still considered creationism. Johnson gave creationism a new name. big deal.

  at least Paley was honest! if you read his stuff, you cannot help but be impressed with how honest he was. his arguments turned out to be false (father of the argument from design), but hey, that was the early 1800's wasn't it? he impresses me as someone who would have chosen to be a biologist today. and still, and honest one.
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  This is simply a bunch of (false) dogmatic propaganda.

  well, if you say so, then it must be!
• 

  hooberus

  singular? ; of course there are some out there who are not christians! ; there's a well known one who is a Moonie. ; maybe that's why i said "usually". ;

  My bringing us ReMine's book was not merely to respond to your claim of "usually christain fundamentalism" but also to your other points such as:

  "because there are none of substance. none of those "alternate interpretations" survive what evolutionary theory has survived. they do not explain, they preach, ...usually christian fundamentalism."
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  hooberus,

  i posted this in another thread, but remebered this thread, and felt it fits.

  Publications such as "The Biotic Message" by Walter ReMine are evidence against your assertions.

  http://www.arn.org/arnproducts/books/b084.htm

  My bringing us ReMine's book was not merely to respond to your claim of "usually christain fundamentalism" but also to your other points such as:

  "because there are none of substance. ; none of those "alternate interpretations" survive what evolutionary theory has survived. ; they do not explain, they preach, ...usually christian fundamentalism." ;

  the self-published biotic message by ReMine, and the subsequent argument regarding Haldane's so-called dilemma, has been shown to be based upon erroneous assumptions. i don't think it's a good idea to post links to ReMines book the Biotic Message, if the Biotic Message, via Haldane's Dilemma has been shown to be erroneous.

  here is some material that may help in showing that The Biotic Message by ReMine should not be regarded as authoritative. ReMine himself, an electrical engineer, will only debate evolutionists when the moderators are creationists, and willing to modify and delete posts at will. here is an example: http://home.austarnet.com.au/stear/encounter_with_remine_rr.htm

  here is the material i mentioned:

  http://www.talkorigins.org/indexcc/CB/CB121.html

  also. the following papers do serious damage to the various claims of creationists who say that because of Haldane's Dilemma, we cannot have shared a common ancestor with apes:

  J. C. Fay, G. J. Wyckoff and C.-I. Wu: Positive and Negative Selection on the Human Genome,Genetics 158, 1227-1234. 2001.

  and

  Sexual Recombination and the Power of Natural Selection

  William R. Rice* and Adam K. Chippindale 2001 Science 294:555-559

  again. the lurkers on this board may not be aware that a website like ReMines Biotic Message, has been refuted. They may take his fallacious assertions at face value. I thought you would want to know this.

  TS
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  also, the conclusion that evolution from an ape-like ancestor is not possible, made by ReMine via Haldane's Dilemma, is founded on mostly personal opinions. the fact of the matter is that there is no evidence at all regarding fixed and beneficial mutation, and the number of them required to explain the features and traits in existing fauna (animals like us).
  
  anyroad , the argument basically goes like this:
  
  it's an interpolation, or extrapolation, based on Haldane's 1957 paper. basically that there could not be more than 1667 fixed and beneficial mutations from the common ancestor that we share with pan troglodytes, aka chimps. however, the argument continues, that 1667 is too few to account for modern humans. this is a completely unsupported assertion. one that neither Haldane or ReMine has offered any evidence for.
  
  but according to the Genetics 158, 1227-1234. 2001 paper mentioned in my previous post, that number is really not accurate at ALL. and don't point the finger at Haldane. he was working a decade before any sequence data was available to him. that's right people. this whole Biotic Message malarkey regarding humans and chimps is entirely based on assumptions made ten years before we even started sequencing genomes. the paper shows that there has actually been 150,000 *beneficial* allele substitutions (mutations) over the last 30 million years since the split between Old World (us) and New World primates.
  
  chimps and humans split 5-6 million years ago. so lets do the math. even at 5 million years ago, there would be 25 000 *beneficial* mutations. about 14 times the amount allowed for in Haldane's so-called dilemma.
  
  the human genome project analysis puts the number of of genes in our homo sapien genome between about 30 000 and 60 000. 25 000 mutations is more than enough to account for the differences between between humans and chimps, considering that we share 97% of our genomes, as per the recent sequencing of the chimp genome. even 25 000 mutations on the upper 60 000 genes is much larger than 3%.
  
  so, if your a creationist, like the electrical engineer ReMine , you would simply ignore the current up to date data on the subject, and go with the results from pre -sequence era 1957. sound like the watchtower to anyone?
  
  from Science 294:555-559:

  Our results experimentally verify a counteracting advantage of recombining compared to clonal lineages: reduced accumulation of harmful mutations and increased accumulation of beneficial mutations. The magnitude of this benefit will accrue over geological time and promote the superior persistence of recombining lineages at both the level of species within communities (clonal versus sexual species) and genes within chromosomes (non recombining Y-linked versus recombining X-linked genes).

  so hooberus , The biotic Message is flawed on one of it's key points. Please do not use a book that has been written by someone who has been hiding from the facts, and from the debates, to say that creationism or intelligent design has done any real work towards workable hypotheses.
  
  Thank you,
  
  tetragod
• 

  tetrapod.sapien

  also, regarding the percentage of scientists that subscribe to evolution, the esteemed seattleniceguy has asked me to post the following (he can't because he's behind a Japanese proxy server):

  ---

  It is difficult to find statistics on how many scientists accept evolution because it would be asking how many scientists accept gravity. It is simply not in question any longer. But I did find this interesting set of stats from an article in Nature (http://www.nature.com/cgi-taf/DynaPage.taf?file=/nature/journal/v394/n6691/full/394313b0_fs.html&content_filetype=pdf):
  
  Table 1 Comparison of survey answers among "greater" scientists
  [SNG: "greater" scientists in this study are those in the National Academy of Sciences]
  Belief in personal God 1914 1933 1998
  Personal belief 27.7 15 7.0
  Personal disbelief 52.7 68 72.2
  Doubt or agnosticism 20.9 17 20.8
  
  Belief in human immortality 1914 1933 1998
  Personal belief 35.2 18 7.9
  Personal disbelief 25.4 53 76.7
  Doubt or agnosticism 43.7 29 23.3
  
  So 93% (72.2% + 20.8%) of scientists disbelieve in God or are agnostic on the issue. I think it is safe to say that these accept evolution. Additionally, the few times I have read of scientists who do believe in God, these usually accept evolution as well but simply think that God got things rolling somehow. I would actually be quite surprised if any of the scientists in this survey rejected evolution.
  
  Of course, evolution has nothing to do with whether or not God exists, but I thought this was probably a fairly accurate way of extrapolating data on the issue. So without having hard numbers, I think it is safe to say that at least 95% of professional scientists accept evolution.
• 

  Cygnus

  My goodness, there is so much information to process in the study of evolution, but the basics are easy enough to grasp. I have a theory, based on a movie of all things, that the most important thing in life is Necessity. As in, any human being in any given circumstance will do whatever is considered necessary at a given moment. Including relieving pressure in one's bladder, getting a sex fix, chowing down on a meal, or doing what it takes for self-preservation. Very few people are immune to this. If a scientist can legitmately and morally find justification for a god or an intelligent designer to be responsible for the diversity of life, he'll likely do what's in his power to promote the hypothesis. So few do, though, even though (contrary to fundy and WT assertions) it would be to their benefit - it would be great, in fact the greatest science experiement ever, to study a god, where it came from, how one works, etc. The evidence is just too scant or non-falsifiable and thus a neat idea but not one to be taken terribly seriously. And in the 7 or so years I've read countless essays and studies, I find those who support a non-theistic explanation for the diversit of life to do so with much more honesty than their creationist counterparts. That makes all the difference in the world to me, as they're the ones I have to go by. God hasn't talked to me except the almost non-audible message that he gave up caring when he allowed Fred Franz to wither away and die without seeing his ultimate dream realized.