-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.
Bron,
No. If I’m going to take a jab at you it’s going to be for being an Objectivist and/or a binary thinker – which are both at the root of your most grievous and recurring errors. Being literalistic is a totally different kind of error and to your credit not one I’ve seen you make often (if at all).
If you agree that machines are created by design, then a machine and a naturally occurring process are not the same thing even if that process is mechanistic. Pseudo-machines would be a more accurate term for these kind of mechanistic chemical compounds, but absent intelligent design, they are not actual machines. To insist that they are literal machines is to abuse the metaphor or be proposing some form of Intelligent Design. Any explanation that resorts to either mystical or unproven intelligent guidance in the process isn’t science. It’s wishful thinking.
Dredd 1, April 5, 2012 at 4:40 pm
Elaine M. 1, April 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Dredd,
I think you’re talking about the Gaia Theory.
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If you want to hear her concepts of it, in contrast to dumb, dumber, and dumbest, concepts of Gaia, then it is in Part III of the videos of an interview of her by a Rutgers University Professor here, beginning at 3:50.
Prior to that, on Part III, she describes the corporatist takeover of biological sciences from 0.00 to ~3:50.
In videos Part I and Part II she shows what her concept of science is about: war with the status quo establishment, like Dr. Semmelweis, whom they murdered.
Gene H:
“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.”
Actually I would agree with you on those facts or any other observations which are true.
I thought you were making a jab at me with your litteralist comment.
I think both you and Dredd have points, if you classify a machine as something which carries out a process, I think Dredd has a valid point about biological “machines”. And you are of course correct that they were not created by any intelligence and are not machines in the sense of a car or bulldozer.
When you get down to it though, all life could be classified as self-replicating organic machines.
Lynn Margulis: “Definitely a Darwinist”
In Endosymbiosis, cell evolution, and speciation Kutschera et al argue that:
A visionary scientist with a blind spot
The really controversial claim of Margulis & Sagan is that symbiosis is the main mechanism for creating new species in evolution. This is an unjustified extrapolation from a number of well-documented cases to all domains of life. Ernst Mayr mentions that there is no indication that any of the 10,000 species of birds or the 4,500 species of mammals (including humans) originated by symbiogenesis (1). In my view symbiosis is important in evolution; her new book brings new cases; textbooks must be updated in that respect, but the authors exaggerate the role of symbiosis in the creation of new species. The reason is that symbiosis does not create new genes. That is her blind spot.
Tring it without the hyperlink.
test – my comments aren’t showing up
Can you answer these two questions Dredd? Or is it simply that you won’t?
1) Is science older than religion in human civilization?
2) Are machines complex/compound tools designed to specific work?
As an aside, Margulis’ notion that competition is overplayed by some Darwinists I think is correct, however, that doesn’t mean that symbiosis isn’t overplayed by the strong Gaia contingent or those who persist in the idea that conscious integration (which would be required for molecular machines to be actual rather than metaphorical machines) is a real phenomena when there is absolutely no evidence for conscious integration.
While [Dr. Lynn Margulis’] organelle genesis ideas are widely accepted, symbiotic relationships as a current method of introducing genetic variation is something of a fringe idea.
The Cretaceous–Tertiary biotic transition (pdf)
… while others (diatoms, radiolaria, benthic foraminifera, brachiopods, gastropods, fish, amphibians, lepidosaurs, terrestrial plants) passed through the K–T event horizon with only minor taxonomic richness and/or diversity changes.
Lepidosaurs are the common ancestors of snakes, lizards, and amphisbaenia.
Mammalian clades passed through the boundary with few extinctions.
Elaine M. 1, April 4, 2012 at 7:57 pm
Dredd,
I think you’re talking about the Gaia Theory.
…
Margulis was one of Carl Sagan’s wives.
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Are you saying Carl was a Mormon? 😉
No, I am not talking about Gaia Theory, which is not generally accepted.
I am talking about Dr. Margulis’ theories contra Darwinian evolution that are now generally accepted by science, but not laypersons, such as in this thread.
Her theories which were slandered, castigated, maligned, and rejected by dogmatic establishment scientists for many, many years, became main stream science.
Some folks think Sagan ditched Margulis because of her theories, while they were not accepted, so as to advance his own career.
One wonders how Sagan felt when her theories became generally accepted, and he was only a pop-science star?
After Carl she married a chemist.
Nal,
I will leave it to the know-it-alls to answer the rabbit question posed by you about any Precambrian Rabbits that are not in Kansas anymore.
So, let’s consider rabbits at the time of the KT boundary extinction (65 m yrs ago), since rabbits seem to be a post KT species.
Establishment science was as dogmatic as the gene H limb of a barroom cladogram, when it came to theory of the KT extinction event, up until just a couple of years ago that is:
(SCAD). How that ties into rabbits is two-fold: one way is that the oldest rabbit skeleton yet found originated about the time of the KT extinction, and two is that rabbits are not in the same viral lineage of the gorilla, monkey, orangutan, or humans, rather the viral symbiosis in them is likely only about 30 m yrs old, as mentioned up-thread.
Also as mentioned up-thread, those viral incursions focused on mothers, i.e. on females, so I am wondering if the focus on females was an adventure or experiment by their microbial symbionts (or were perhaps microbial communication problems):
(The Virgin MOMCOM). One can surmise that the KT extinction was traumatic, since 90% of land species, including dinosaurs, bit the extinction dust, and that perhaps 50% of ocean species did the same.
Since the utter destruction and catastrophe caused by the asteroid/meteorite impact was extreme, the microbes that survived would have been extremist types for the most part, able to exist in those extreme conditions, like those found in hot, boiling water deep in the ocean where volcanic venting takes place, or in northern extremes where 100 below zero F. temperatures can occur.
The extremist events of taking over female placenta success or failure, establishing the virgin lizard species, or perhaps the adaptability of newts, may be reactions to the extreme trauma of the KT extinction event.
Answer these two questions Dredd;
Is science older than religion in human civilization?
Are machines complex/compound tools designed to specific work?
All the rest of your evasiion is just that.
Wilson was a mediocre scientist who despite his claims to the contrary had a real problem in distinguishing “is” from “ought to be” in his theoretical constructs.
I could give a shit if you agree or not.
When people use slander or character assassination, ad hominem, in place of valid criticism, it shows a failure of culture:
(The Failure of Applied American Epistemology). When christians and athiests do that over evolutionary biology, they are acting out “truthiness”:
(Chris Mooney, HuffPo). The subject matter is far more involved than the primitive feelings of “truthiness” which bring out the biggest fangs.
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 2:43 pm
… Wilson was a mediocre scientist …
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“Dr. Edward O. Wilson is one of the greatest thinkers of the 20th century. His groundbreaking research, original thinking, and scientific and popular writing have changed the way humans think of nature, and our place in it. Currently he is a research professor and museum curator at Harvard University. He has received many of the world’s leading prizes for his research in science, his environmental activism, and his writing. Wilson has been a leader in the fields of entomology (the study of insects), animal behavior and evolutionary psychology, island biogeography, biodiversity, environmental ethics, and the philosophy of knowledge. He has written groundbreaking books and articles on all of these subjects. Two of his non-fiction books, The Ants (1990, with Bert Hölldobler) and On Human Nature (1978), have won Pulitzer Prizes. The Diversity of Life (1992) and Consilience: The Unity of Knowledge (1998), two of his more recent books, have been applauded for their graceful, creative and constructive approaches to challenging subjects. In The Diversity of Life and The Future of Life he conveys his deep concern for humanity’s bewildering degradation of our planet’s ecosystems. His commitment to protecting our natural heritage has brought him to the forefront of environmental activism.” (Save America’s Forests).
Gene H. 1, April 4, 2012 at 2:43 pm
… Wilson was a mediocre scientist who despite his claims to the contrary had a real problem in distinguishing “is” from “ought to be” in his theoretical constructs.
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Gene H,
Wilson is quoted by Kevin Foster in his book Social Behaviour, as I pointed out link up-thread, and has won many awards:
(Wikipedia). He was an active professor at Harvard from 1956 until 1996 when he retired, but as of 2007, he is Pellegrino University Research Professor in Entomology for the Department of Organismic and Evolutionary Biology at Harvard University and a Fellow of the Committee for Skeptical Inquiry. He is a Humanist Laureate of the International Academy of Humanism.
He wrote a plethora of books and papers published in science journals.
You should email him and offer him some mentoring on your theories. I am sure he would appreciate that.
Nal,
You posted:
I made a comment up-thread which shows symbiosis to be more of a factor at some points of evolution than random genetic mutation. We can thank Dr. Margulis for that science which is generally accepted now.
Another comment I made up-thread, points out that a virus became a symbiont to mammals sometime in the past, and that the impacted species could not, and still cannot, reproduce without that eventuality:
The research that has discovered that most of the genetic material within us is microbial (prion, phage, virus, and single celled species) is of recent vintage.
Also interesting, is that not all mammals have the genetic material produced by that virus:
The same can be said for microbial symbionts that make up most cells in humans (10-1 ratio) and most genetic material (99%), as I pointed out up-thread.
Note that the genetic material, from viruses of that ilk, only have relevance to mothers in those species.
Perhaps we can wonder if microbial genetic engineering is also the source of gender in the first instance?
Elaine,
And I was just commenting on your comment which referenced the Gaia theory which analogizes the biosphere of the Earth to a single organism.
Gene,
I didn’t say anything about the Gaia Theory or analogies. I was just responding to the comment Dredd addressed to me. It reminded me of what I had read about Margulis and the theory many years ago.
The problem with analogies Elaine is the same problem with metaphors. They are used when an accurate description of a thing or process is difficult to present and they are not exact. Even though there are some interesting components to the weak Gaia theory that are correct observation and interesting modeling of feedback mechanisms between life and the environment and it provides some interesting ideas on planetary management, but it does not change that molecular machines are not literally machines. That kind of conscious integration (which would be required for molecular machines to be actual rather than metaphorical machines) is a tenet of the strong Gaia theory which is as much wishful thinking as Creation Science.