-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.
Gene H:
science and religion are mans way of understanding the world/universe. Without man there is no science nor is their religion. As you rightly state those are constructs from the mind of man.
Is Dredd really saying they existed prior to man or is he saying the universe existed prior to man with all of the unknowns which science would eventually make known? Which is of course true, matter exists outside of consciousness.
*Time is not actually a thief any more than a molecular machine is actually a machine absent a designer.*
Pardon. It’s about time for a drug induced nap.
“Engineers design chemical process plants that can mimic what happens in nature to produce a certain product. Fruit ferments on trees and creates alcohol, man makes single malt scotch. One is naturally occurring, the other is controlled.”
And only single malt scotch is made by a machine.
By arguing for removing the design component of the definition of machine, you are destroying the meaning of the word. “Is” versus “ought”. Dredd’s predicate is based on “is” when the definition of machine has a design component to the definition. Metaphorical and literal meaning are not the same thing. One is “representative” and the other is “actual”. This is the same thing as making up a definition to suit an argument. Time is not actually a thief any more than a molecular machine is actually a machine.
Even if the meaning of the word were to be changed to include abiogenic naturally occurring mechanistic compounds, that would not change the part of Dredd’s assertion that science came before humans (which is predicated in large part on the existence of “molecular machines”) is prime facie false just as his similar assertion about the history of religion is false.
Gene H:
I think Dredd has a point and I also think you have a point. I further think the definition of machine should be expanded to include natural processes such as photosynthesis.
Engineers design chemical process plants that can mimic what happens in nature to produce a certain product. Fruit ferments on trees and creates alcohol, man makes single malt scotch. One is naturally occurring, the other is controlled.
You can’t have your cake and eat it too, Bron. Doing work is not the sole defining characteristics of a machine. You even stipulate intelligent design is part of the definition. The use of the term “molecular machine” is still metaphor unless that compound is made by human intelligence.
“The team has also developed more of the fundamental DNA components, called “promoters,” which are needed for re-programming yeast to perform different tasks. Scientists currently have a very limited catalogue of components from which to engineer biological machines. By enlarging the components pool and making it freely available to the scientific community via rapid Open Access publication, the team in this new study aims to spur on development in the field of synthetic biology.”
Key word: engineered – from engineer; to lay out, construct, or manage as an engineer, to contrive or plan out usually with more or less subtle skill and craft, to guide the course of or to modify or produce by genetic engineering.
The kind of naturally occurring mechanistic chemical compounds Dredd refers to arising from abiogenesis are not actually machines. No one engineered them. They are pseudo-machines at best. Again, “molecular machine” is a metaphorical shorthand term.
Gene H:
Yes I understand that. I am just saying the definition of the word has expanded over the last 200 years to include biological machines.
A large rock balanced at the edge of a cliff has the potential to become a “machine”. If it falls it can do work by crushing rocks it lands on. There is no intelligence, it is quite all by chance but it is a “machine” as surely as a rock crusher used by Vulcan Materials to produce aggregate for the building industry.
Not at all efficient but effective.
Bron,
What do all of those definitions have in common?
Deliberate intelligent design.
Newts don’t practice science, Dredd. A natural process that can be described by science – a human endeavor – is not science. It is the object of study, delineation and eventual understanding of by humans applying the scientific method to interrogate the reality of the process.
Only a crazy person thinks newts practice science, medical or otherwise. Newts lack the neural complexity to understand a concept like science much less practice it. Thinking a newt practices science is about as rational as thinking a brick practices masonry.
Try again.
Dredd:
from Webster’s 1828 edition:
MACHINE, n. [L. machina.] An artificial work, simple or complicated, that serves to apply or regulate moving power, or to produce motion, so as to save time or force. The simple machines are the six mechanical powers, viz.; the lever, the pulley, the axis and wheel,the wedge, the screw, and the inclined plane. Complicated machines are such as combine two or more of these powers for the production of motion or force.
1. An engine; an instrument of force.
With inward arms the dire machine they load.
2. Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced into a poem to perform some exploit.
From the 1913 edition:
Ma*chine” (?), n. [F., fr. L. machina machine, engine, device, trick, Gr. , from means, expedient. Cf. Mechanic.]
1. In general, any combination of bodies so connected that their relative motions are constrained, and by means of which force and motion may be transmitted and modified, as a screw and its nut, or a lever arranged to turn about a fulcrum or a pulley about its pivot, etc.; especially, a construction, more or less complex, consisting of a combination of moving parts, or simple mechanical elements, as wheels, levers, cams, etc., with their supports and connecting framework, calculated to constitute a prime mover, or to receive force and motion from a prime mover or from another machine, and transmit, modify, and apply them to the production of some desired mechanical effect or work, as weaving by a loom, or the excitation of electricity by an electrical machine. &hand; The term machine is most commonly applied to such pieces of mechanism as are used in the industrial arts, for mechanically shaping, dressing, and combining materials for various purposes, as in the manufacture of cloth, etc. Where the effect is chemical, or other than mechanical, the contrivance is usually denominated an apparatus, not a machine; as, a bleaching apparatus. Many large, powerful, or specially important pieces of mechanism are called engines; as, a steam engine, fire engine, graduating engine, etc. Although there is no well-settled distinction between the terms engine and machine among practical men, there is a tendency to restrict the application of the former to contrivances in which the operating part is not distinct from the motor.
2. Any mechanical contrivance, as the wooden horse with which the Greeks entered Troy; a coach; a bicycle. Dryden. Southey. Thackeray.
3. A person who acts mechanically or at will of another.
4. A combination of persons acting together for a common purpose, with the agencies which they use; as, the social machine.
The whole machine of government ought not to bear upon the people with a weight so heavy and oppressive. Landor.
5. A political organization arranged and controlled by one or more leaders for selfish, private or partisan ends. [Political Cant]
6. Supernatural agency in a poem, or a superhuman being introduced to perform some exploit. Addison. Elementary machine, a name sometimes given to one of the simple mechanical powers. See under Mechanical. — Infernal machine. See under Infernal. — Machine gun.See under Gun. — Machine screw, a screw or bolt adapted for screwing into metal, in distinction from one which is designed especially to be screwed into wood. — Machine shop, a workshop where machines are made, or where metal is shaped by cutting, filing, turning, etc. — Machine tool, a machine for cutting or shaping wood, metal, etc., by means of a tool; especially, a machine, as a lathe, planer, drilling machine, etc., designed for a more or less general use in a machine shop, in distinction from a machine for producing a special article as in manufacturing. — Machine twist, silken thread especially adapted for use in a sewing machine. — Machine work, work done by a machine, in contradistinction to that done by hand labor.
From the March 19, 2012 issue of Science Daily:
The researchers, from Imperial College London, have demonstrated a way of creating a new type of biological “wire,” using proteins that interact with DNA and behave like wires in electronic circuitry. The scientists say the advantage of their new biological wire is that it can be re-engineered over and over again to create potentially billions of connections between DNA components. Previously, scientists have had a limited number of “wires” available with which to link DNA components in biological machines, restricting the complexity that could be achieved.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2012/03/120319194313.htm
Rather interesting evolution of the word.
Is self-medication an act constituting the practice of medicine, or of the practice of medical science?
If so, it evolved long before The Anthropocene Epoch:
(Maxi-Morphs & The Copy Katz). Humans are trying to guide stemcells to reproduce damaged organs, flesh, etc. in a similar pursuit.
We are a bit late getting into medical science of this sort, as are a lot of other species.
The newt has been doing it for who knows how long. Go Newt!
Awww. Calling you on incorrect predicates in your arguments is unfair. Boo hoo.
Answer the questions, Dredd.
Or perhaps you’d care explain how science and religion – which are by definition human social constructs – existed before humans.
Keep digging that hole.
My understanding of the history and nature of both science and religion are just fine despite your weak attempts to avoid the legitimate questioning of your predicates. However, there is someone here definitely and clearly limited by dogma and appealing to the unknown. It sure as Hell isn’t me.
1) Is science older than religion in human civilization?
2) Are machines complex/compound tools designed to specific work?
They’re easy questions to answer if you know the answers. They aren’t so easy to answer if you don’t know what you’re talking about or are pushing an agenda that perhaps you don’t want to explicitly state. Say one that requires some sort of supervening intelligence to have played a role in evolution.
The scope, in terms of time, of Nal’s post is astonishing:
(Nal). How fair is it to require a rabbit fossil from the Precambrian era to be shown before a person would change their beliefs? Not very:
(Wikipedia). Not much is known about 7/8 ths (~88%) of all Earth history.
As I said up-thread, the oldest rabbit fossil dates back (~55 million years) to a time following the KT mass extinction boundary ~65 million years ago.
It is also unfair to limit discussion of origins of species, science, and religion to The Anthropocene, as Gene H is want to do, because it is a small percentage of the already small 1/8 percentage (~13%) of all Earth’s history (meaning as little as 1% of the evolutionary time frame of the Earth’s history).
Dogma based on reliance and reference to the unknown, or limiting one’s understanding to the era of human science and human religion can lead to the kind of myopia that can then lead to narrow mindedness.
lol
Sorry, Nal. I should have checked for the best sound quality. 😀
Not STEREO!
“I already answered that it is off topic, off evolution, and will not determine where science began or where religion began, because they both developed prior to humans.”
Really. Science and religion cannot have developed prior to humans by definition. Both are human social constructs. You have presented no evidence to the contrary.
All I can hope is that you realize you cannot or will not answer the questions without exposing that you were factually wrong in assertion of predicates, Dredd. The questions are neither embedded in polemic nor are they off topic. They are directly related to predicates of your arguments and founded in logic and evidence (for which I have plenty and you so far have none).
Answer the questions.
Gene H. 1, April 5, 2012 at 6:20 pm
Literal use of metaphor isn’t semantics. It’s language abuse.
You should have no problem answering the questions presented, Dredd.
1) Is science older than religion in human civilization?
2) Are machines complex/compound tools designed to specific work?
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I already answered that it is off topic, off evolution, and will not determine where science began or where religion began, because they both developed prior to humans.
Anwer it for yourself since it is a rhetorical question embedded in a polemic.
All I can hope is that while they are embedded they both don’t get pregnant with glory.
Nal 1, April 5, 2012 at 5:33 pm
A visionary scientist with a blind spot
==============================
The establishment scientists had a blind spot the size of the red spot on Jupiter compared to hers, the size of a spot on a lady bug:
(Lynn Margulis, Evolution Theorist). She was right and they were wrong, and still are.
Literal use of metaphor isn’t semantics. It’s language abuse.
You should have no problem answering the questions presented, Dredd.
1) Is science older than religion in human civilization?
2) Are machines complex/compound tools designed to specific work?
Bron 1, April 5, 2012 at 6:01 pm
Gene H:
…
When you get down to it though, all life could be classified as self-replicating organic machines.
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I take your point.
When we use dictionaries to sharpen our fangs and make them bigger than the next sophisticated debater, we run up against semantics.
Not only that, we run afoul of new discoveries that change the meanings of words.
Dictionaries become spaghetti in that sense, so we need to use our dictionaries, but we need to use them in real time.
Our sciences that teach us The Big Bang theory.
That teaches us that “The Big Pop” made a cosmos of energy that condensed into quanta, then into protons, neutrons, and electrons which formed atoms.
Later those atoms combined somehow to become molecules. Even later those molecules somehow combined in a way to form organics.
Life.
All that is an area which is primarily full of bullshit, propaganda, ignorance, because of a dearth of experimental and data based science.