Feedback for December 2003

You should also see the following:

• Index to Creationist Claims: Claim CE001
• The Age of the Earth FAQ

For example: Humphreys' helium paper revisited

Hmm. Perhaps the reader just isn't reading the right bits of the other side.

Fortunately, I can help with that. Have a look at the thread on invidious comparisons used by "intelligent design" advocates.

Invidious comparisons are not the only forms of rhetoric used by antievolutionists that are less than civil. Right here in this feedback facility I have seen antievolutionists call us liars, frauds, pagans, atheists, and other, less printable, things. It should be expected that that sort of provocation will raise the temperature of discussion.

Perhaps the reader should consider determining what to take seriously based upon concilience of the argument with the empirical data rather than upon the perceived prosodic content of the message expressing the argument. I think in that case, the reader will be forced to side with the biologists.

Wesley

Chimps are perfectly well suited for their environments (or rather they were until we cut down the forests and hunted them). We did compete to some degree with other hominid species, and where our ancestors and they met, ours won out (and had one of their ancestors won out, they could say the same thing, so don't get the idea that humans are somehow evolution's favored sons and daughters), but the winners are only ever better in a certain environment.

You asked me whether or not evolution, defined as allele frequency change, is a fact (incidentally, I am not the author of the Evolution is a Fact FAQ). You said it is not in the ordinary sense of fact, as used in evolution-creation debates. I said that it is, and anyway we don't revise scientific terms like "evolution" to suit those who are anti-science. I stand by that. Evolution, whether defined as the diversity of life arriving over time, or as the change in the frequency of alleles, is a fact. It has been observed, and there is no impediment to induction from known cases to unknown cases.

To be sure, we do not know everything about the past - this is true in any discipline, from forensic science to astronomy - but what we do know we do know, and we are entirely justified in calling it a fact, or else all the rest of science is equally not based on facts.

You might think that the ordinary usage of the word "fact" has some stronger connotation in ordinary talk than "theory", and that we ought not to call something a fact unless it has a notarised affidavit attesting to its truth, or whatever, but we are talking science here, and to give any ground on the use of scientific terms is to allow the ignorant to determined what we know.

We do all know what we mean by evolution as a fact. We mean the appearance of new adaptations and the appearance of new species. These are facts. We have, so far as is possible, verified these things happen. And that remains true whether some think we should hedge our bets or not, on either side. We discuss whether it happens because of this or that process (all of which, I have to add, we have also verified happen - the debate is over when and how much), but nobody, I repeat, nobody in science disputes that evolution happens.

As to definitions of evolution - so what if there are competing definitions in science for any term - try reading up on what "gene" means sometime? Science is supposed to test terminology for accuracy and unambiguity. But that does not change the fact that what is being defined, is real. Words do not drive the way the world operates. They are reality's slaves, not its masters.

Evolutionary biology has always speculated on the origins of life, but at no point has it ever been a justifiable scientific claim that it began with one single origin of life event. Darwin never said that, nor has any other scientist, at least in the past 50 years, asserted that evolution must posit a single original organism. A few have, in fact, asserted the contrary. So no matter what the laity might think, the implicit definitions are just plain wrong, and the FAQ is in fact correct about "fact". And we should have the different definitions on this archive, to reflect the diversity of opinion in the scientific community.

There are constraints on change - but they are not absolute, and they are no more than temporary. The idea that phylogeny is controlled by ontogeny, for example, is long abandoned. What we do know is that phylogenetic branches become less broadly plastic over time, but not that there are any set limits to change. It is just playing wordgames to insist that we don't know this is so. We can equally say that other people don't have minds either, but it would still be sophomoric wordgames. Other people do have minds, life did evolve and there are no set limits to change. And these are facts. And we should teach no "alternatives" in science classrooms unless they are scientific alternatives.

The evidence is sketched (and I mean sketched, despite its size) in the excellent 29+ Evidences for Macroevolution FAQ by Dr Theobald. He has gone to the primary literature and so can you if you doubt the veracity of the data. To withhold assent is to deny there is such a thing as science.

Yeah. Been there, done that.

Or was there something specific that the reader had in mind?

Wesley

Maybe when we go to other planets and settle there, after a few thousand or hundred thousand years. I wouldn't make investments on that basis, though, if I were you...

The National Center for Science Education has resources for teachers, including moral support. Check them out.

"The discovery of Mt. Sinai in Arabia that even seculars are saying is the most remarkable geological find in history. And how did the universe come into being?"

What the anonymous author of this feedback is refering to in his comments is the claim by Cornuke and Halbrook (2000) that a mountain in Saudia Arabia, called "Jabal al Lawz" is Mt. Sinai of the Bible. This claimed is based on, among other dubious "evidence," their interpretation that the top of Jabal al Lawz is "melted" and "charred" as the result of events described in the Bible.

Unfortunately, geologists, who are familiar with the geology of the area, in which Cornuke and Halbrook (2000) claimed to have found Mt. Sinai, would certainly not regard their ideas about Jabal al Lawz being Mt. Sinai a "remarkable geological find." Rather, they would regard their interpretation that the top of Jabal al Lawz had been both melted and charred by any event during the last few thousand years to be a remarkable geological blunder on the part of Cornuke and Halbrook (2000).

Any geologist looking at the pictures of Jabal al Lawz readily recognizes that the dark-colored rocks shown in the pictures of Jabal al Lawz shown at Bob Cornuke's web page are quite clearly roof pendants of darker-colored rocks intruded by younger, light-colored rocks. In fact if a person examines the published geological maps of the Jabal al Lawz, i.e. Bramkamp et al. (1963) and Trent and Johnson (1967), they would find that these geological maps confirm this interpretation. These maps shows that bulk of Jabal al Lawz to be composed of light-colored granite and red or salmon granite. The dark-colored rocks comprising the summits are small areas mapped as (older) greenstone. These greenstone outcrops are roof pedants of older rocks that have been intruded by the red or salmon granite. North of this mountain are additional outcrops of older gabbro into which the granites have intruded.

A roof pendant is: "A body of country rock surrounded by intrusive rock."

An example of a roof pendant can found in "Figure 3: Close-up view of the roof pendant displaying granitic dikes intruding into the dark country rock." at:

http://homepages.mohave.edu/science/fieldtrip/pic/marblemtns03.html

and in "Figure 2: Distant view of the roof pendant showing the lighter colored granite overlain by dark country rock into which the granite intruded." at:

http://homepages.mohave.edu/science/fieldtrip/pic/marblemtns02.html

These figures are part of a field trip to the Marble Mountains within the Mojave Desert of southeastern California at:

http://homepages.mohave.edu/science/fieldtrip/marblemtns.html

(NOTE: The mountain containing the roof pendant in the above figures lies north of Interstate Highway 40 at a point just west of South Pass and Needles, California and due south of the community of Goff, California.)

The descriptions of the units from youngest to oldest in the stratigraphic column within the in the Jabal al Lawz area as given by Bramkamp et al. (1963) are:

"gm = Granite. Massive, light-colored calc- alkaline granite, mostly without large dikes, in large discordant stocks and batholiths on the flanks of Jabal al Lawz, Jabal Rawa, and Jabal ash Shati.

gr = Granite. red or salmon, coarse-grained, commonly highly altered espcially in the mountains on the eastern shore of the Gulf of Aqaba; widely scattered throught the Underlying granite and granodiorite and cut by many dikes of basalt, rhyolite, and diabase. (This unit intrudes an older granite and granodiorite, unit gg in places).

gb = Gabbro. In stocks and sills associated with the greenstone. Some basic intrusives may be younger than the granite and granodiorite unit, gg.

gd = Greenstone. Diabase, andesite, and basalt; mostly flows, somewhat metamorphosed to greenschist facies, locally to amphibolite."

The greenstone (gd) overlies older folded calcareous and siliceous schist and slate Silasia formation elsewhere in the area. Bramkamp et al. (1963) regards these rock units to be Pre-Cambrian age. It is intruded by the red or salmon (gr) and preserved as roof pendants as observed by both Bramkamp et al. (1963) and Trent and Johnson (1967).

Even some Young Earth creationists dispute the claim that the rocks exposed at the top of Jabal al Lawz are either charred or melted. Their brief comments can be found in "PROBLEM NO. 11: Melted or Burned Rocks From Jebel al-Lawz are Volcanic" at:

http://www.ldolphin.org/sinai.html

Essentially, direct oservations by both "secular" and religious geologists of the Jabal al Lawz region readily refute argument by Cornuke and Halbrook (2000) that the top of Jabal al Lawz has been either charred or recently melted. If the rocks on the summit of Jabal al Lawz look "melted" it is because they consist of metamorphosed lava and other extrusive igneous rocks called "greenstone", formed from the cooling of once molten rocks billions of years before the Israelites even existed. This "remarkable find" is actually a remarkable blunder on the part of people, who obviously didn't understand anything about the geology of the area that they were studying. There is nothing about the geology of Jabal al Lawz that indicates it was either melted or charred by any event reported to have occurred by the Bible.

It is true that (Young Earth) creationist and so-called "evolutionists" have different ways of interpreting the same evidence. In my experience as a geologist, the typical interpretation presented by (Young Earth) creationists is as badly and fatally flawed, as many of the FAQs on the Talk.Origins Archive demonstrate, as the interpretations discussed above by Cornuke, and Halbrook (2001) concerning Jabal al Lawz in respect to having been charred and melted in Biblical time and, thus, being Mt. Sinai. These FAQs also demonstrate that the boast that "that (Young Earth) creationists "have never been proven wrong" is as empty and as wrong as the above interpretations made by Cornuke and Halbrook (2001) concerning the geology of Jabal al Lawz.

References Cited

Bramkamp, R. A., Brown, G. F., Holm, D. A., and Layne, N. M., Jr., 1963, Geologic Map of the Wadi As Sirhan Quadrangle Kingdom of Suadi Arabia. U.S. Geological Survey Miscellaneous Geologic Investigations Map I-200A. U.S. Geological Survey, Reston, Virginia. Scale: 1:250,000.

Cornuke, B., and Halbrook, D., 2000, In Search of The Mountain of God. Broadman & Holman Publishers, Nashville, Tennessee.

Shelton, John S., 1966, Geology Illustrated. Freeman Press. San Francisco, California.

Trent, Virgil A., and Johnson, Robert F., 1967, Geologic map of the Jabal al Lawz Quadrangle, Kingdom of Saudi Arabia; U.S. Geol. Survey, Mineral Investigation Map MI-13, 1:100,000.

Kent Hovind is an active foe of good science education. Until such time as Hovind is not a threat to good science education, it is important to provide the evidence that shows that Hovind is not a reliable source of information.

We already do conduct ourselves better than Hovind, to boot.

Wesley

The quality of the school one attends matters to some degree, but it is not decisive on any issue. Some fine scientific contributors in many fields — paleontology and astronomy in particular — have no formal training at all. But those individuals have proven their work and insights worthy because they have spent the time and effort necessary to educate themselves in the field, to talk with others in the field, and to engage in the difficult, tedious, and unglamorous tasks of data collection, verification, and analysis. They've pored through dusty volumes at the library and spent hours craned over workbenchs or out in the field.

People like Hovind haven't done that. Instead, they want the quick fix of respectibility. So they slap the term "Dr." in front of their name and proceed to bloviate on any and every topic under the sun.

It's your choice whether you want to give their words any weight. We're just providing you with some relevant data on the subject.

These systems failed, and in some cases were quite absurd - for example, Swainson felt there was a design affinity between tigers and zebras, because they were both striped and impossible to tame.

Darwin's solution to the nature of classification was in fact proposed after considering these options and seeing how they did not work, and it was accepted so rapidly because it was so much more successful than these "equally valid" possibilities. Science may entertain ideas for a short while with no progress being made, but several centuries is enough to try any scientist's patience.

Given that your "refutation" of common descent is historically inaccurate, we might also think that so too is your refutation of transmutation. In fact, the idea of "special creation" of each species is very late - the earliest I can find in a historical review of static species is Caspar Bauhin's (1560-1634) view. In this, he was followed by Linnaeus, but even he had to allow for some transmutation towards the end of his life, because he saw it happen.

Christian writers typically allowed that species might arise by hybridisation from very early on - Augustine somewhere makes that comment, and at least one of the translators of the King James, or Authorised, 1611 edition of the Bible still thought just that.

Science needs to be able to both explain in detail and to make predictions. Darwin's theories of common descent and transmutation explained a lot, while the creationist view failed to explain or predict anything at all. This is not proof of the truth of Darwin's hypothesis, of course, but if science can learn anything at all about the universe, it has learned that Darwin was pretty well correct on nearly everything (he got a few things quite wrong, of course; after all, he was only human).

The biggest problem with the book is that it is highly selective about what facts it reports, and its conclusions crumble if you consider all the evidence. Common sense requires accurate information to work with.

You should probably read Richard Dawkins' The Selfish Gene to help you understand this perspective. I would also recommend Robert Axelrod's The Evolution of Cooperation for a nice introduction into the way cooperation can evolve in competitive systems. And check out the Wikipedia for more information on bees and ants.

A totally fascinating book on symbiosis is

Sapp, Jan. 1994. Evolution by association: a history of symbiosis. New York: Oxford University Press.

The Margulian approach seems to be based on a good amount of evidence of symbiotic capture, or endosymbiosis as it is called, and a tendency to assume that this new idea explains almost everything. She has made a lot of inroads into the thinking of modern biologists, but the claim that symbiosis or hybridisation is the reason for most speciation is not widely accepted. On the other hand, it is not rejected as a significant mechanism, either.

Another form of speciation by relationships to other species is called "coevolution", which has been admirably discussed in

Thompson, John N. 1994. The coevolutionary process. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

See also the articles in

Nitecki, Matthew H., ed. 1983. Coevolution. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

In this process, species coadapt, and can become dependent upon other species, and reciprocally. Examples include the relationships between pollen bearing plants and insects, for example (which I am sure you are aware of, but this is for others).

More recently, there has been considerable work done on the influence in intracellular parasites (that's right - parasites that live inside cells - in this case in sex cells) in insects, on reproductive isolation of infected and uninfected organisms of the same species, possibly driving speciation. See

Buckling, A., and P. B. Rainey. 2002. The role of parasites in sympatric and allopatric host diversification. Nature 420 (6915):496-9.

Bordenstein, S. R., F. P. O'Hara, and J. H. Werren. 2001. Wolbachia-induced incompatibility precedes other hybrid incompatibilities in Nasonia. Nature 409 (6821):707-10.

Dedeine, Franck, Fabrice Vavre, Frédéric Fleury, Benjamin Loppin, Michael E. Hochberg, and Michel Boulétreau. 2001. Removing symbiotic Wolbachia bacteria specifically inhibits oogenesis in a parasitic wasp. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America 98 (1):6247-6252.

Is this "non-Darwinian"? Well, that's going to depend on whether you think everything has to be based on just those ideas Darwin proposed; Darwin himself would not have, and several times mentions hybridisation as a process in the Origin, for example, in Chapter 8, on hybrids. So far as I know, symbiotic relationships aren't mentioned by him as a cause of speciation.

I did not tout the scenario for bombardier beetle evolution as fact; I explicitly called it hypothetical. The "bold leaps" you refer to are also contradicted by the actual contents of the article.

A major reason why I oppose creationism is because I support freedom of religion. If creationists are successful in getting the political power they want, most people, including Christians, will not be free to practice their religion. Non-creationist Christians are Christians too, and I hope you will not bash Christianity in the future by excluding them.

Vegetarianism in animals is not part of Genesis (although it does get mentioned in some Jewish commentary). In fact, pre-Flood vegetarianism is a good example of how far from a literal reading of the Bible some people will stray in the name of literalism. For an investigation of various Flood interpretations, see When the Great Abyss Opened by J. David Pleins (Oxford, 2003).

The "seemingly sudden" appearance of life is as expected if the theory of biological evolution is correct, so you have no critique to make on that point.

The radiohaloes did not form with 20 minute halflives, see the Polonium Halo FAQs.

Added DNA information is quite common, the result of gene duplication & divergence, which constantly lengthrns the human genome (and all others). See, for instance, How long did it take for life to begin and evolve to Cyanobacteria?, A. Lazcano & S.L. Miller, Journal of Molecular Evolution 39(6): 546-554, December 1994. Based on simple chemistry, and known processes for lengthening genomes, they estimate the time it takes for abiogenesis plus evolution to cyanobacteria at no more than 10,000,000 years.

Not all mutations are harmful (see Are Mutations Harmful?). All that is required is a minimum rate of non-harmful mutations, and "evolution" is unavoidable ( The Modern Synthesis of Genetics and Evolution, Introduction to Evolutionary Biology, The Evolution of Improved Fitness, Random Genetic Drift ).

And what do one-winged birds have to do with anything? This is not much of a start.

Your second question appears to be based on the assumption that a species must disappear once a descendant species appears. That assumption is common, but wrong. A new species can develop through the transformation of an ancestral species, without a speciation event occurring (in which case you would not find the descendant and parent species living at the same time). This type of evolution is known as phyletic transformation, or anagenesis. A new species can also develop from an ancestral species, however, if one population becomes reproductively isolated from the main population for a long enough period of time. This can happen when a population becomes geographically separated, and is unable to physically come in contact with the rest of the population (allopatric speciation), or when both populations are in the same area, but are not interbreeding due to other factors (sympatric speciation). In these cases, both the ancestor and descendant species may be found at the same time, and sometimes in the same place.