Politicizing Science Redux
As I feel the thread became stale on “Politicizing Science: A Plague On Both Your Houses,” but as I’d promised a rebuttal, I’ve decided to continue with a new post instead. The link above will allow you to read the earlier comments.
Obviously I don’t agree with you Zazu. I would like to consider your assertions point-by-point. None of this is coming from some creationist or I.D. book. It’s just my thinking based on my personal training in science, mathematics and philosophy at Michigan State University, the University of California at Santa Cruz, and Colorado State University.
First, you said, “There is no debate about evolution.” As a teacher, I consider myself part of the scientific community. I know Ph.D. scientists who agree that evolutionary theory is a weak and limited model merely masquerading as a strong theory for political and ideological reasons and not in testament to the quality of its science. I am also very aware that those folks know better than to blow any whistles.
You asserted that the idea of teaching both sides of the issue is a creationist tactic for “shoving religion into public schools.” I believe that good education allows and even encourages dissent. Teach ALL sides of an issue if you really want to challenge your students. Indoctrination—the very thing you’ve accusing the creationists of—being the exact opposite: teach everything controversial as if it’s undisputed. The certainty with which you present your position exceeds that of the 19th century physicists advocating Newton’s laws—as well it should only were your suppositions actual facts—facts being among the rarest of commodities in science. If those 19th century physicists weren’t open to new evidence, they would certainly have dismissed Planck, Einstein, Bohr, Heisenberg Schrödinger and Dirac out of hand. Their observations didn’t fit Newton’s model.
You said, “It’s like saying that there is a debate about the Holocaust happening, and we need to teach both sides of the issue to make sure we are fair.” Which is a poignant and ironic choice of examples because historical revisionism is a well documented phenomenon: academic history has become a matter of perspective. Inconvenient facts are unsuitable for general consumption. In much the same way, doctrinaire establishment science has categorically closed the door on what I believe are thousands of dissenters. If they don’t agree they’d do well to keep their mouths shut (at least if they value their careers and reputations).
Moving forward to this, “Creationism and evolution are un-provable? Nonsense. Evolution is the founding theory of biology, hundreds of thousands of scientific papers have been published exploring various aspects of evolution and no other theory has emerged so far.” This is not proof; it is a model. By way of example, it’s useful to visualize electricity in wires as water in pipes—useful, mathematically provocative, and even predictive—it’s also a wrong paradigm.
Next you say, “Creationism on the other hand has been proven false centuries ago.” Really? By whom? How?
I have never advocated the idea that the earth is 6,000 years old, that the Adam rode a dinosaur or any such thing. It’s intellectually disingenuous to suggest I did. Please don’t bring this up again–though I will because it’s funny!
You said yourself that stuff about Adam riding a dinosaur six thousand years ago is silly. I agree. That’s not the issue. My point is that while science is observations, it most certainly involves speculation. I’ll go further to say that nothing is out-of-bounds (including faster-than-light particles, the spontaneous generation of life, and spooky action at a distance—which could include the influence of alien or supernatural beings).
I’m not debating the existence of God. My question is: Given the structural and informational nature of our universe—and of life in particular—is it more or less probable that something other than the random and chaotic forces of nature created life (not to mention the universe and everything)? Can randomness truly account for everything? I just don’t buy it.
I could reply to your comment, “You seem to not understand how science works,” with the same comment. So let’s agree to be civil. Would you rather post CVs? Mine is good-sized, how about yours? 
Next you say, “Evolution is being attacked all the time, scientists love nothing more than to demolish a popular theory.” To which I can only reply: Really? By whom? Are they actually receiving grants? Are their careers intact? To what experiments, exactly, are you referring? You continue, “New mechanisms of evolution are constantly proposed and shut down, every aspect of the theory is being tested against experimental evidence, and a lot of modifications have been made since Darwin.” What I’m hearing you really saying is that all sorts of experiments are going on WITHIN THE PARADIGM. While the model is being refined, its deep, underlying assumptions really are off-the-table. I don’t think for one second that the broad scientific community actively lobbies for or otherwise consciously guards evolution. I do believe this is exactly what is being done by apex people who are fundamentally political and ideological, and less often of a scientific bent. Most work within government. Many are media or academic leaders, though seldom in purely scientific fields. They are far more concerned with opposing the Bible (and only by extension creationism) than in fairly adjudicating the evidence. They control the purse strings, courts, public opinion (through the broadcast media), and tenure tracks. They also frame every debate, placing subjects such as the actual origin of life out-of-bounds. When any “scientist” insists on going there, they are systematically ostracized and marginalized. This happened to Linus Pauling (awarded the Nobel prizes in Chemistry (1954) and Peace (1962)). When he uncovered the amazing healing properties of large doses of vitamin C, the pharmaceutical establishment succeeded in making him out to be nuts.
The fact that you would leave the origins of life off the table perhaps gives some room for reconciliation. If the underlying nature of living systems was, in fact, a designed one, and if the design agent were sufficiently subtle to include the need for genetic flexibility allowing a degree of change over time, then selective adaptation may be nothing more than a design element. On the other hand, as of the AP biology class I taught in 1996, there was no evidence of any adaptation, irradiation, mutation, trigger or macroscopic manipulation successfully succeeding in cleaving one species to the point that new species (two or more, former sub-species) could only breed true within their new species, but not interbreed within the context of the larger genus or super-species (i.e. the “former species”) population. Long before I was teaching, Gould proposed such divergence with punctuated equilibrium as his alternative to gradualism. If substantive support for these ideas has been discovered in the past 15 years I’d be very interested to know.
I do not consider a “we don’t know” position to be a pet theory—and that’s where I am with regard to how life came to the point we now see it. I don’t believe things are settled with speciation or that we know it happens—but I’m open to solid evidence (as opposed to words: refined theories, debates, studies, “the fact that it does occur not being questioned by anyone but creationists”. Etc.)
You said, “Micro evolution v. macro evolution exists mostly in school text books.” As far as being in the textbooks, you’re right. That’s exactly what the textbooks taught: micro-evolution equals adaptation while macro-evolution is another name for speciation. The AP Biology text from which I last taught clearly made that distinction. We adopted the textbook used to teach Biology at Harvard, Yale, Stanford and Princeton at the time. If scientists “understand” that the two cannot really be separated and that “you really cannot have one without the other,” they’ve perhaps oddly chosen to show us lots of the first case and none of the latter. Of course I understand the principle of mathematical induction. However, induction firmly requires an absolutely consistent system. In such a case it is obviously misapplied. We can’t reason using one case to the next case to every subsequent case with anything messy—even just as much as particle physics—much less icky, gooey, irrevocably embedded world of biology. Lawyers and writers are taught to avoid hasty generalizations, and that’s how I classify the illusion that is speciation. Another logical fallacy, the Genetic Fallacy, argues that a perceived flaw in the history of something extends to invalidate any claims involving that thing. This one is subtle because there are times when flaws mustn’t be ignored; however, dismissing everyone opposed to evolution out-of-hand as a bunch of religious and/or creationist nut jobs without a debate vastly oversimplifies the issue.
Within a given genome are genes for all sorts of variations within that organism. When a sub-population of flies mates out-of-sync with another with which they could, conceivably, continue to interbreed, I would argue they are not distinct species. They remain physiologically compatible. Behavioral incompatibility MAY be a possible pre-condition of speciation. However, to my mind, it’s neither a necessary nor a sufficient condition to claim speciation. Behavioral compatibility alone—as in the case of donkeys and horses which will breed, but can’t produce fertile offspring—does not necessitate classification within a single species. On the other hand, behavioral incompatibility—as seen when white supremacists are unwilling to interbreed with other races—will never be sufficient to establish distinct species. The last point is better shown by the continued external population fertility of human sub-populations (of which aboriginal Australians may be the best example) who endured long periods of genetic isolation.
The idea of a single enzyme on the surface of the sperm or the egg becoming slightly changed and making mating impossible between the mutant and original form is interesting but strikes me as contrived. Would a single male and a single female of some organism simultaneously and compatibly mutate? Then they must meet each other and breed! Has such a thing ever been observed? I doubt it.
Sure, it COULD be caused by the tiniest micro evolution event, maybe a single point mutation of a single base pair in your DNA (out of billions), but why would such a change be retained. In general, something like that leads to infertility, end of story. As for grander changes, has anyone ever seen an organism (even a microorganism) change its number of chromosomes and pass along that trait over even a few generations?
Obviously adaptation is a valuable quality within organisms. The genes in organisms may be triggered to be expressed or suppressed in all sorts of ways. Sometimes such triggered / suppressed genes are retained across many generations. 20 years ago it was believed the genome contains unreasonably more information than we saw a need for. But as far as I’ve seen, it does not contain or even tolerate information contrary to sustained propagation. Thus, I would never be so bold as to extend the concept adaptation to one of speciation. They are apples and oranges to me (or maybe fruit flies and peas).
Posted on August 31, 2010, in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink. 10 Comments.
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“As a teacher, I consider myself part of the scientific community. I know Ph.D. scientists who agree that evolutionary theory is a weak and limited model merely masquerading as a strong theory for political and ideological reasons and not in testament to the quality of its science. I am also very aware that those folks know better than to blow any whistles.”
I have worked and interacted with dozens probably hundreds of biologists, never heard anyone state doubt about evolution. Again it is the foundational theory of biology, in terms of settled science it is about as settled as a spherical earth. Your implication that voicing opposition to evolution can have repercussions is entirely unfounded, any scientist that disproves evolution will instantly become the most celebrated living biologist on earth, he will get a Nobel prize and have universities named after him. The idea that there is some kind of political need to protect evolution is completely fictional.
“I believe that good education allows and even encourages dissent.”
Yes. But in a science class the dissent must be science based, creationism (or its pseudoscientific twin intelligent design) is religious dissent and belong in theology class, not biology class. I may believe strongly that the earth was created when Thor used his mighty hammer to slaughter a giant cow, but that belief does not constitute scientific opposition to the prevailing theory, and therefore does not belong in a geology class. I AM in favor of teaching ALL sides of the issue, but religious mythology does not qualify as a legitimate alternative theory.
“This is not proof; it is a model.”
Evolution is a scientific theory that is proven in literally hundreds of thousands of research papers, and has survived over a century of debate and attack from the scientific community. It is not just some model, like gravity it is an established scientific theory.
“You said yourself that stuff about Adam riding a dinosaur six thousand years ago is silly. I agree.”
Why is it silly? This is what 99% of creationists believe. The entire political opposition to evolution is based on a religious doctrine that teaches Adam rode a dinosaur six thousands years ago. Having visited the creation museum (out of a morbid fascination with ignorance) I can assure you that is what creationists believe. This is where all the opposition to evolution comes from.
“I’m not debating the existence of God. My question is: Given the structural and informational nature of our universe—and of life in particular—is it more or less probable that something other than the random and chaotic forces of nature created life (not to mention the universe and everything)? Can randomness truly account for everything? I just don’t buy it.”
An interesting philosophical musing, I would say that yes, though I am not equipped to defend this belief. Science is about little experiments and facts, not grand philosophical questions like this. All I can say is that water freezes. Random water particles spontaneously arrange themselves into a very complex crystal latice, hence order and complexity can appear naturally from disorder without a directing intelligence. If water can freeze, a bacteria can conceivably evolve into a man.
“I don’t think for one second that the broad scientific community actively lobbies for or otherwise consciously guards evolution. I do believe this is exactly what is being done by apex people who are fundamentally political and ideological, and less often of a scientific bent…”
This is the one paragraph you wrote that is simply false. There is no giant conspiracy to guard evolution or suppress its criticism, there is no vast cabal of evolutionists who work day and night to guard it. Evolution is no better guarded as a scientific theory than gravity, its only defense is the fact that it is a pretty good theory that nobody managed to debunk as of yet.
“I don’t believe things are settled with speciation or that we know it happens—but I’m open to solid evidence.”
Speciation is a long term process hence hard to show, but it is documented and experimentally proven in numerous scientific papers.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
By all means check out the actual papers they refer two (I read one of the fruit fly ones in college). Speciation is a proven and documented occurrence.
“When a sub-population of flies mates out-of-sync with another with which they could, conceivably, continue to interbreed, I would argue they are not distinct species.”
Are lions and tigers different species? Lions and tigers can be bred in a zoo to produce fertile offspring, but they will never do so in the wild (also their habitats are different). If two populations inhabit the same area but do not interbreed (regardless of if it is a physiological or behavioral barrier), they have become different species.
“The idea of a single enzyme on the surface of the sperm or the egg becoming slightly changed and making mating impossible between the mutant and original form is interesting but strikes me as contrived. Would a single male and a single female of some organism simultaneously and compatibly mutate? Then they must meet each other and breed! Has such a thing ever been observed? I doubt it.”
It is actually a likely path of speciation. Many primitive organisms like yeast only occasionally reproduce sexually, and can reproduce asexually when conditions favor that kind of reproduction. These organisms don’t have sperm and egg or male and female, both gametes are identical. So a single mutation in a gamete surface protein can be cloned a million times through asexual reproduction, and the offspring can mate sexually with each other but not with original species, all it would take is one negligible base pair change.
“As for grander changes, has anyone ever seen an organism (even a microorganism) change its number of chromosomes and pass along that trait over even a few generations?”
Plant do it all the time. There are examples of this type of speciation at the link I provided. Humans and chimps have very similar chromosomes except that our second chromosome exists as two short one in a chimp (carrying almost the exact same info but in two parts), so maybe that is how we diverged.
As for speciation in general, it is not as a big of a deal as we make it to be. Biology could care less if two fly populations can or cannot breed. You can have individuals in one species be more different than two individuals in different species. Like I said, a single point mutation can differentiate otherwise identical organism into different species, likewise a hundred thousand mutation may not prevent two organism from breeding. What about asexual organism? Here the whole concept of species collapses since they do not mate, yet two bacteria can be as different as a lion and a potato.
The blind faith here in Darwinsim is striking. There are thousands of PhD’s and scientists who don’t buy the hype that we are some great cosmic accident and arose from slime by mere chance and billions of lucky coincidences. The concept that one type of animal can warp into another has not only not been proven it has never been observed, recorded, or otherwise shown to be anything other than a speculative theory. It takes far more faith to believe that my descendants could develop into cowlike creatures if they spent more time on their hands and knees eating vegetables than it does to believe than a Creator created creation and the “kinds” of animals, plants, and biological and natural systems that we observe all around us. The more we learn about the complexities of nature the more far-fetched the theory that it all “magically” arose by accident and chance.
And:
“If water can freeze, a bacteria can conceivably evolve into a man.”
Ha!
And by the way I’ve been around creationists my whole life and I never heard anyone ever say Adam rode a dinosaur. In fact, I’ve never heard anyone ever say Adam rode anything. By the way ever heard of a coelacanth? How laughable that a creature that “disappeared” from the fossil timeline and lived at the time of the dinosaurs would be around at the same time as people. Outrageous! Inconceivable! Oops…
DtS, I’m glad to hear you’re not a Bible literalist who takes kooky things seriously like Adam riding dinosaurs or having conversations with Hebrew speaking snakes! That would be silly!!
Your post made me laugh so hard I spilled apple juice on my keyboard.
“There are thousands of PhD’s and scientists who don’t buy the hype that we are some great cosmic accident and arose from slime by mere chance and billions of lucky coincidences.”
“Doctors” of theology maybe and creation “scientists”, but not real biologists. I am sure there is one somewhere, but there are just as many astronomers who thing the sun revolves around the earth, and geologists who think the earth is flat. I like how you call over a century of experimentation and gathering of knowledge by brilliant minds “hype”, like it is freaken Pokemon.
“The concept that one type of animal can warp into another has not only not been proven it has never been observed, recorded, or otherwise shown to be anything other than a speculative theory.”
That is a blatant lie, something the Bible speaks ill of.
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/faq-speciation.html
Speciation is a proven, documented phenomenon, I anxiously await your published scientific research debunking these studies.
“It takes far more faith to believe that my descendants could develop into cowlike creatures if they spent more time on their hands and knees eating vegetables than it does to believe than a Creator created creation and the “kinds” of animals, plants, and biological and natural systems that we observe all around us.”
WOW. Oh. My. God. I read that three times to make sure I interpreted it correctly. I see now, it is all clear. You simply do not have the vaguest idea of what the word evolution means. You believe that evolution is the theory that eating carrots turns you into rabbit. Personal question, have you attended a high school? This is 9th grade biology stuff, I mean you cannot criticize something you do not understand, even on a wikipedia article level. If you actually meant what you wrote, it shows functional scientific illiteracy.
For Gods sake, read the dictionary definition so you atleast have a distant idea of what the word means.
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/evolution
“How laughable that a creature that “disappeared” from the fossil timeline and lived at the time of the dinosaurs would be around at the same time as people. Outrageous! Inconceivable! Oops…”
I would point out that this in no way casts doubt on evolution, but we have already established that you do not know what that word means.
I recommend the following reading:
Zazu, you have the heart of a true zealot and it appears you have found your own particular religion.
Zazu, I give you a “A” for Effort. Really. I still think you’d find a happy home in the progressive tent. As for DtS, MoK, Upi, RC and some of the others…..this site has answered the question I’ve struggled with since August ’08. What educated, well-informed American would really vote for Sarah Palin? I have found the answer here.
You know you love us, Helpie or you’d have gone scat weeks ago.
I might use the word “fascinated” rather than “love” but figure providing a different viewpoint to the Fox mind-meld is a useful thing.
This cracked me up. Up until 40 yrs at MOST, geologists DID think the earth was a constant of flat and then this guy by the name of Alfred Wegener came up with this theory called “PLATE TECHTONICS” and then it was embraced BY the Liberal BIOLOGISTS for the “Theory of Evolution” BS.
FYI for those who don’t work in the scientific field. There are more tree hugging nanny twig eating hippies in the “easy” science fields then moderates or conservatives. What is concidered easy? Geology, Biology and Geo-mapping (aka Google Earth). Hmmmm
It troubles me how readily people throw terms like functional scientific illiteracy around. If the proponent of any idea refuses to argue upon the merits of evidence and sound logic, instead resorting to rhetorical and logical fallacies, then informed consumers would be wise and rightly persuaded to give more serious consideration to opposing positions (if not the direct converse of the original idea being posited)!
Zazu, you and I are both intelligent and well-informed. I am absolutely convinced that you have been indoctrinated into believing what you believe. You have every reason to believe the same things about me. HMU is little more than your cheerleader in this debate just as others here could be called mine.
Personally, I find the evidence for speciation lacking. I find the term species to be a modern contrivance tailored to discredit “Biblical kinds.” Kinds have thousands of years of documentary history being a very well observed and highly stable fundamental description of organisms.
I’ve included a link to thousands of ESTABLISHMENT SCIENTISTS who dissent regarding speciation. You deny their credibility and attack them ad hominem offering only the weakest sort of evidence: words. Like myself, they are thoughtful and intelligent people. I can’t say how many of them knew Jesus before they learned about science, but I did not. My issues with the overgeneralization of the evolutionary model actually motivated me to look elsewhere for answers and I found Jesus–and I am by no means the only one. If your own doctor is old (and courageously, and honest), you might find that he, too, came to the same conclusions. Med schools are filled with 11th-hour-christians precisely because the science is weak. The more you understand about the concurrency of living systems (which defies the chicken-or-egg question), the more farfetched evolution becomes.
I am not willing to argue this further because I think we’ve both done a fine job stating our positions. Feel free to comment 1000 times more.
For those interested in seeing the non-establishment side of real, factual, evidentiary debate I suggest they include Ben Stein’s movie, the True U and Truth Project videos (from Focus on the Family–start at http://www.mytruthproject.org/truthproject/trueu/home.html and browse about), or look at anything from the Discovery Institute. Seeing a semblance of the other side is easier–go to PBS, any public school or any university–but I can’t promise they’ll be more persuasive than Zazu has been. Like so many other issues such as fiscal restraint vs. largess, the right to life vs. women’s right to choose, chocolate vs. vanilla, etc., I think the bottom line is that we must:
1) accept that there will always be disagreement,
2) do our best to respect each other in the spirit of a free and self-determining society, and,
3) accept that our models, thoughts and opinions, (even as they shape our thinking, values and perceptions) in no way alter reality. In other words, we remain subject to the realities of the universe–we don’t dictate them–they are what they are!