-Submitted by David Drumm (Nal), Guest Blogger
One common tactic in the creationist’s war against evolution is to falsify evolution by demonstrating a counterexample. If such a counterexample existed, it would indeed spell the demise of evolution. The Precambrian Rabbit would be such a counterexample. After failing to find even one counterexample, some creationists have given up trying to falsify evolution and now seek to disabuse evolution by claiming it is not falsifiable. Other creationists, unable to falsify evolution, get all metaphysical and point out that the principle of falsifiability is not falsifiable.A recent paper in the journal Nature, Insights into hominid evolution from the gorilla genome sequence, after sequencing the western lowland gorilla genome, it was found that “in 30% of the genome, gorilla is closer to human or chimpanzee than the latter are to each other.”
Creationists pounced, noting that depending on which DNA fragment is used for analysis, humans are more closely related to gorillas than to chimpanzees. Although this was termed “Bad News” for evolution, it would have been worse news for probability theory. While the genomes of humans and chimpanzees show a mean genetic difference of 1.37%, and a 1.75% difference between humans and gorillas, the key word is “mean.” These probabilities do not imply that there is a uniform genetic difference across all genes. Of the tens of thousands of genes, some are more similar and some are less similar. On average, humans are more closely related to chimpanzees than to gorillas.
On the genetic path from our Most Common Recent Ancestor (MCRA) to humans and gorillas, different genes mutated at different times. Although cladograms, like the one below for Humans, Chimpanzees, Gorillas, and Orangutans, show a single branch to each species, this does not imply that all the genetics differences occurred simultaneously. One would have to be a creationist to believe that all the mutations occurred simultaneously.
One would also expect to find that certain DNA fragments would more similar between humans and orangutans. This is exactly what was found in this report, based on a complete orangutan genome, published in Genome Research, in which the authors said that “in about 0.5% of our genome, we are closer related to orangutans than we are to chimpanzees.”
Even the well-funded BioLogos, a group dedicated to trying to accommodate Christianity and science, sees the errancy of these arguments:
This is exactly what one expects from the species tree: humans and chimps are much more likely to have gene trees in common, since they more recently shared a common ancestral population (around 4-5 million years ago). Humans and orangutans, on the other hand, haven’t shared a common ancestral population in about 10 million years or more, meaning that it is much less likely for any given human allele to more closely match an orangutan allele.
Creationists are engaged in a desperate, but lucrative, attempt to pull a Precambrian Rabbit out of their hat. This attempt is particularly pathetic.
H/T: Pharyngula, John Wakeley (pdf), Pharyngula.
Dredd,
I think you’re talking about the Gaia Theory.
http://www.gaiatheory.org/
Margulis was one of Carl Sagan’s wives.
Dredd,
By insisting the pre-organic molecules are literal machines, you are either insisting they have been intelligently designed, not understanding machine as metaphor or you are making up your own definition for what machines are. Either way, you’re as full of crap now as you were about the history of science and the history of religion.
Your ability to not understand metaphor and the definition of machine is entirely your failing, Dredd. Machines are complex/compound tools built by intelligences. End of story. Every other mechanistic process arises from spontaneous generation in abiogenesis and isn’t a machine because it isn’t designed – it’s built through chemical trial and error and based on proclivity in bonding due to innate chemistry but it not directed by an intelligence. Your entire (mis)understanding is in thinking that molecular machinery are literally machines when they are machine like compounds.
What you are doing is spouting misinformed pseudo-intellectualisms just like you were when you said science came before religion.
Dude.
Get back to me when bacteria design a real machine, like a space shuttle.
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Again, you are mis-characterizing intelligence into a process where none exists
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Your absence of being able to point to any use of your phrase “intelligently driven process” anywhere in this thread, except in your comments to yourself, explains a lot.
But not in this thread.
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 6:58 pm
Again, you are mis-characterizing intelligence into a process where none exists. Bacterial symbiosis adds another input into the mutations that drive evolution, but it doesn’t mean that bacteria are intelligent. The commonality between creation religion and creation science is that neither are science as they rely upon a mystical supervening intelligence.
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That is exactly what Dr. Margulis proved was hokum religion, not science:
(link up-thread).
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 5:13 pm
…
If you think Lithgow is describing an intelligently driven process, I think you’re misreading him. If you (or he) thinks that naturally occurring molecular “machines” are a result of an intelligently driven process, then you are both simply fools.
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What you think is quite clear.
That is not the issue.
The issue is how wrong are you going to get?
You bring up these canards and straw men like “intelligently driven process”, which only appears in your comment.
It does not appear in any comment I made or any quote of Professor Lithgow.
It must have been your genie what did it pilgrim.
It is like you are getting all scared inside again gene h, and your amygdala is talking through genie again, instead of your gene h.
I wanna talk with gene h please, so sit down genie, we don’t need no stinkin random mutatin round heah.
The word abiotic simply means “not organic.”
Machines are not organic, they are abiotic.
No doubt, in intelligent circles like electron orbits, that organic things are composed of atoms and molecules (abiotic things).
Organic things are composed of molecular machines … that is abiotic atoms and molecules … but there is more on top of that … that something that bridges non-life (abiotic) with life (biotic cell).
You know, not the stuff Black & Decker made dude.
I bet a lot of Black & Decker “sophisticated machine” making is not an “intelligently driven process”, at least in some states.
What we are doing is Putting A Face On Machine Mutation.
Again, you are mis-characterizing intelligence into a process where none exists. Bacterial symbiosis adds another input into the mutations that drive evolution, but it doesn’t mean that bacteria are intelligent. The commonality between creation religion and creation science is that neither are science as they rely upon a mystical supervening intelligence.
Elaine M. 1, April 4, 2012 at 3:39 pm
“Creation Science 101″
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Creation religion and creation science are two different ideologies:
(link up-thread). Her theories are generally accepted science now.
Some religionists are of creation science, but not of creation religion.
If one does not understand the samenesses and the differences, one waxes.
I see that your aural comprehension is as inadequate and your reading comprehension, Dredd.
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 4:50 pm
And nothing displays their ignorance like an anonymous literalist.
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I hear that “gene h” was the ancestor of Black & Decker “gene i”, often misunderestimated as “genie.”
Bron,
You’d disagree with me if I said sugar is sweet or water is wet, so pardon me if I don’t get too upset that you don’t accept abiogenesis isn’t an intelligently driven process like tool making.
Anti-Evolution ‘Monkey Bill’ Poised To Become Law In Tennessee
By Ian Millhiser on Apr 4, 2012
http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2012/04/04/457312/anti-evolution-monkey-bill-poised-to-become-law-in-tennessee/
Tennessee Gov. Bill Haslam (R) announced yesterday that he will “probably” sign a bill that attacks the teaching of “biological evolution, the chemical origins of life, global warming, and human cloning” by giving broad new legal immunities to teachers who question evolution and other widely accepted scientific theories. Under the bill, which passed the state legislature last month:
“Neither the state board of education, nor any public elementary or secondary school governing authority, director of schools, school system administrator, or any public elementary or secondary school principal or administrator shall prohibit any teacher in a public school system of this state from helping students understand, analyze, critique, and review in an objective manner the scientific strengths and scientific weaknesses of existing scientific theories covered in the course being taught.”
Although the bill is written to seem benign, as it neither specifically authorizes the teaching of creationism nor permits teachers to do more than criticize scientific theories “in an objective matter,” the practical impact of this bill will be to intimidate all but the heartiest of school administrators against disciplining teachers who preach the most outlandish junk science in their classrooms. Because the bill provides little guidance as to what constitutes an “objective” criticism of a scientific theory, any principal who reigns in teachers who force creationism or Pastafarianism upon their students risks finding themselves on the wrong side of the law.
In reality, of course, there are few, if any, “objectively” valid objections to the theory of evolution (or, for that matter, to global warming). Rather, as Travis Waldron explained when this bill passed a legislative committee nearly a year ago, “Scientists have reached a consensus that evolution is ‘one of the most robust and widely accepted principles of modern science,’ and as such, it is ‘a core element in science education.’”
Gene H:
“And nothing displays their ignorance like an anonymous literalist.”
Good try but I am not buying.
Also, what I expect is that you’d read ‘[h]ow such sophisticated, multi-component machines could evolve has been somewhat mysterious, and highly controversial’ as a statement that applies only if you don’t understand abiogenesis and how spontaneous generation plays into that process (which you clearly don’t). A mechanistic spontaneously generated chemical compound is not a machine even though it is like a machine in operation because unlike a literal machine (again, a fabricated compound/complex tool) it was not created by complex intelligent life. If you think Lithgow is describing an intelligently driven process, I think you’re misreading him. If you (or he) thinks that naturally occurring molecular “machines” are a result of an intelligently driven process, then you are both simply fools. I don’t think Lithgow is a fool. I think he understands metaphor. You on the other hand . . . clearly don’t.
And nothing displays their ignorance like an anonymous literalist.
metaphor \ˈme-tə-ˌfȯr also -fər\, n.,
1: a figure of speech in which a word or phrase literally denoting one kind of object or idea is used in place of another to suggest a likeness or analogy between them (as in drowning in money); broadly : figurative language — compare simile
2: an object, activity, or idea treated as a metaphor
Again, if you want to say you believe in ID, just say so Dredd.
Bron 1, April 4, 2012 at 4:44 pm
Dredd:
Gene is only into John Deere.
Bron 1, April 4, 2012 at 4:46 pm
Dredd:
Nothing runs (its mouth) like a Howington.
You need to put some definitions up so he can understand what you are saying.
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You decide what you want me to define, then consider it done (soon as I read your request).
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 3:00 pm
…
It’s really funny in a sad and pathetic kind of way.
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Professor Ltthgow’s words:
(quote up-thread). What is pathetic is that your concept of machine is something did not evolve, it is made only by sophisticated beings that evolved.
And what is more pathetic is that you can’t read a quote about machines then understand that it has nothing to do with what you say it means.
Do you want me not to laugh when you say Professor Lithgow is talking about Black & Decker saws when he says “Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of molecular machines”?
You are hilarious to think he means “Our cells, and the cells of all organisms, are composed of [Black & Decker] machines”.
I have to laugh. Sorry.
Dredd:
Nothing runs (its mouth) like a Howington.
You need to put some definitions up so he can understand what you are saying.
Dredd:
Gene is only into John Deere.