Feedback for February 2006

Many naturalists have especially blamed the diagrammatic figures given in the Athropogeny. Certain technical embryologists have brought most severe accusations against me on this account, and have advised me to substitute a larger number of the elaborated figures, as accurate as possible. I, however, consider that diagrams are much more instructive than such figures, especially in popular scientific works. For each simple diagrammatic figure gives only those essential form-features which it is intended to explain, and omits all those unessential details which in finished, exact figures, generally rather disturbed and confuse than instruct and explain. The more complex are the form-features, the more do simple diagrams help to make them intelligible. For this reason, the few diagrammatic figures, simple and rough as they were, with which Baer half a century ago accompanied his well-known-known "History of the Evolution of Animals," have been more serviceable in rendering the matter intelligible than all the numerous and very careful figures, elaborated with the aid of camera lucida, which now adorn the splendid and costly atlases of His, Goette, and others. If it is said it that my diagrammatic figures are "Inaccurate," and a charge of "falsifying science" is brought against me, this is equally true of all the very numerous diagrams which are daily used in teaching. All diagrammatic figures are “inaccurate.” - Ernst Haeckel, The Evolution of Man Vol. 1 (1876), in the preface to the third edition

I would go even further and say that even a lot of biologists are uninformed about Haeckel relying too much on second hand accounts of his views rather than reading Haeckel directly.

Although I believe that Haeckel deserved criticism in several instances, much of what has been heaped upon him has been either exaggerated or unwarranted. To be clear, I am talking here about instances of sloppiness or impropriety, not simply being mistaken as with his "biogenetic law". Too often the views of scientists of the past are criticized as if they were hypotheses being put forward today, with our greatly expanded knowledge base, rather that being viewed in historical context. Yes recapitulation is not the super wonderful end-all and be-all law of biology that Haeckel may have thought it was but this was not as obvious then as it might be now.

Nor does the reader mention my page on information increase due to evolutionary change.

Nor does the reader mention the entry in the Index to Creationist Claims on this site that deals with the issue.

One may reasonably wonder why these lacunae in the reader's argument exist. I think it could be fairly said that the reader's own message represents an "information decrease" of sorts, where one is less well-informed after reading it than one was before.

The errors you are make are the same. First, DNA is not formed "randomly", any more than new human individuals are formed randomly. There is some small amount of random variation in people and in DNA, but the form of new human individuals is strongly related to the forms of their parents. Same for DNA. Second, DNA molecules don't last intact for millions of years. Evolution works by copying DNA, not by persisting any one molecule; just as people are formed by reproduction from their ancestors, not persistence of ancestors as individuals.

We have bacteria now that live without needing molecular oxygen. The atoms of oxygen in organic molecules have been around since the before the Earth was formed; you are confusing the element (which exists in many molecules) with the gas (that consists of O2 molecules) used by some living creatures and not others.

The stuff about crime and punishment is not relevant to biology. Any person of integrity is free to evaluate the evidence and use that as a basis for drawing conclusions about biology, without being swayed by fear. That is the best way to truth; not trying to frighten people. Many followers of Jesus do understand evolutionary biology, without mixing up that with the distinct question of salvation.

Appealing to the supernatural means eliminating science -- not just naturalistic science, but all science, because no answers can be found where all answers are possible and inherently undecideable. Hosea may see no problem with eliminating science, but it does not look like a good idea to me.

And yes, ID in particular is a threat. Its anti-evolutionism and general uselessness can get in the way of productive investigations, and the anti-science attitude that goes with it carries over to other areas where good science is essential to saving lives. I was thinking in particular of HIV denial and denial of climate change, but anti-science interferes in other areas, too. In the Kitzmiller v. Dover trial, Eric Rothchild, in his closing arguments, eloquently contrasted the ID and evolutionary approaches to studying the human immune system:

I showed Professor Behe more than 50 articles, as well as books, on the evolution of the immune system. He had not read most of them, but he confidently, contemptuously dismissed them as inadequate. He testified that it's a waste of time to look for answers about how the immune system evolved.

Thankfully, there are scientists who do search for answers to the question of the origin of the immune system. It's the immune system. It's our defense against debilitating and fatal diseases. The scientists who wrote those books and articles toil in obscurity, without book royalties or speaking engagements. Their efforts help us combat and cure serious medical conditions. By contrast, Professor Behe and the entire intelligent design movement are doing nothing to advance scientific or medical knowledge and are telling future generations of scientists, don't bother.

Consider... a growth rate of half a percent per year would have a population of around 300,000 at the time of Jesus, and a total world population of less than 300 at the time of the Exodus. Yet actually, world population at around 1 AD is considered to be about 150 million.

Clearly, "average" population growths are far smaller over long periods of time, and nothing whatsoever about evolution suggests any different.

Indeed, the truth is exactly the opposite of Morris' nonsense. Darwin recognized that all organisms in good conditions have a capacity for exponential population growth, at rates far greater than half a percent per year; and this is impossible to sustain. It follows inevitably that population is limited by circumstances; and this is one of the insights that lead to development of his evolutionary model. That is, limits to growth have been a part of evolutionary theory from the very beginning; and for Morris to propose some kind of continuous growth rate as a consequence of evolution demonstrates that he is grossly ignorant of the model he claims to critique.

Populations grow, and crash. Growth rates are never continuous for any great length of time. Morris is simply not a reliable or trustworthy source for this topic. See also Creationist Claim CB620.

The wording used does not speak of "graveyards", but it is the same argument. Some of the errors in this argument are explained in the response linked above.

1. When Behe describes the flagellum as "irreducibly complex", he decomposes it into just three parts: paddle, rotor and motor. (Page 72 of Darwin's Black Box.) But when it comes to the 40 proteins, two paragraphs further on, Behe notes that he does not know what they all do. So he certainly cannot claim it is IC at that level of description. In fact, it is not. The flagellum can still function without all 40 proteins. But evolution does not work by just adding proteins one by one. It mostly modifies proteins, by adding or changing amino acids. This makes the concept of IC, in terms of proteins, pretty much irrelevant. I have no idea why you think "replicating it by DNA" is a problem, or what this has to do with co-option. See also Creationist Claim CB200.
2. In fact there are now so many transitionals known for Hominids that some of the "gaps" are getting hard to see. For example, the "gap" from Homo erectus to modern humans, or from Homo habilis to Homo erectus, have sufficient intermediates known that it is hard to know where one form ends and the other begins. There are other larger gaps; but the explanations are straightforward. Not every living thing fossilizes, and there are bound to be some gaps. But new finds are being made all the time; replacing gaps with new smaller gaps. See also Creationist Claim CC200.
3. You are wrong about no change in DNA. There is lots of change in DNA, in every generation. Each of us probably carries over 100 new changes since our parents. This is directly measured; and occurs at rates that are more than sufficient to account for the rates of evolutionary change indicated by paleontology. See also Creationist Claim CB100.
4. We don't know that Neanderthals and Humans were infertile together. My guess is that they were biologically interfertile; but that in practice they did not interbreed. This is a legitimate point for divergent opinions. But the examples you give are weird, not even living at the same time and place. Lucy was not H. erectus, but Australopithecus afarensis, a radically different form living more than a million years before erectus and even longer before Neanderthals. For her to be interfertile with Neanderthals would getting a bit like us interbreeding with a chimpanzee. Creationists invariably recognize Neanderthal as human, and Lucy as an ape. Homo floresiensis is still being sorted out; but if the different features are indicative of the species, as seems very likely, then they again are radically different. This question does not match any one particular creationist claim; but check out Hominid Species.
5. In fact, it is well known that carbon-14 levels vary over time, and calibration curves are used to account for this. See Creationist Claim CD011.1

I do not know any specific references to recommend, but any textbook on ecology should be a good place to start. Concentrate in particular on areas that deal with the concept of niche.

Many fossils are permineralized or petrified, meaning that over time minerals deposit around the remains or actually replace the material of the remains. It should be obvious that dating such material tells you only about when the permineralization or petrification took place, not when the remains were laid down. Dating the strata is much better for that job. But recent (usually less than 50kA) terrestrial (non-aquatic, non-marine) remains that have not had their material replaced can be directly dated using C14.

Most forums comply with this law by simply refusing to permit children under 13 to participate except via a process that includes clear parental permission. For example, your under-13 child cannot register for Yahoo Groups.

See: http://www.ftc.gov/bcp/conline/pubs/buspubs/coppa.htm

However, it is a theory-based conjecture that the original cell would be simple. First of all, we know that simple cell-like structures can spontaneously form under the right conditions. Moreover, we know the following things:

• All life is cellular.
• All living things are from 50 to over 90% water, the source of protons, hydrogen and oxygen in photosynthesis and the solvent of biomolecules.
• The major elements of covalently bound biomolecules are carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen, phosphorus and sulfur.
• There is a universal set of small molecules: (i.e. sugars, amino acids, nucleotides, fatty acids, phospholipids, vitamins and coenzymes.)
• The principle macromolecules are proteins, lipids, carbohydrates and nucleic acids.
• There is a universal type of membrane structure (i.e. the lipid bilayer).
• The flow of energy in living things involves formation and hydrolysis of phosphate bonds, usually ATP.
• The metabolic reactions of any living species is a subset of a universal network of intermediary metabolism (i.e. glycolysis; the Krebs cycle, the electron transport chain)
• Every replicating cell has a genome made of DNA that stores the genetic information of the cell which is read out in sequences of RNA and translated into protein.
• All growing cells have ribosomes, which are the sites of protein synthesis.
• All living things translate information from nucleotide language through specific activating enzymes and transfer RNAs.
• All replicating biological systems give rise to altered phenotype due to mutated genotypes.
• Reactions that proceed at appreciable rates in all living cells are catalyzed by enzymes.

Any early cell had to have either all of these, or be a reasonable precursor to these. This sort of cell however, which is effectively a prokaryote cell (one that has no isolated nucleus) is itself likely to have been much later than the original cell.

The reigning hypothesis is that before there was DNA there was an RNA or similar sort of genetic machinery. One reason for this is that RNA can self-catalyse - that is, it can act as its own template without the complex machinery that DNA needs to do anything interesting. Moreover, some hypotheses propose that life originally didn't have cells, but occurred in compartments in clays or iron sulfide deposits.

You can read more about the origins of life research here:

• Wikipedia
• NASA
• SpaceRef.com
• What is a Cell? [NCBI]
• Abiogenesis--Origins of Life Research

Evolution is indeed a fact, as the word is used in science, and it is recognized as such by most scientists: especially those who are working in biology. It is also a theory that explains a body of related facts and phenomena.

See also Evolution on the Front Line (by the AAAS; one of the world's leading science bodies and publisher of the journal Science) which explains the way in which evolution stands as fact:

The theory of biological evolution is more than "just a theory." It is as factual an explanation of the universe as the atomic theory of matter or the germ theory of disease. Our understanding of gravity is still a work in progress. But the phenomenon of gravity, like evolution, is an accepted fact.

A good indicator of just how many reputable scientists recognize that "there is no serious scientific doubt that evolution occurred or that natural selection is a major mechanism in its occurrence" is that this phrase appears in a statement signed by over 700 Scientists named Steve.

Baumgardner is a competent scientist in his specific technical area of geophysical modeling. His perspective on the age of the earth and on a world wide flood, however, is ludicrous. John has his own web page on this matter: GlobalFlood.org. His notion for how a global flood occurred is not a consequence of his genuine scientific work, and has no credibility at all with working geologists. The debate is between John's views, as he presents freely on his own site; and the scientific community, as expressed in websites like this one.

PS. I have corrected your reference from CH450 to CH430, and made it a link.

By the way, Why Intelligent Design Fails is now available in paperback.

This is addressed as Common Creationist Claim CF011.1:

Organisms don't "program themselves"; and simple organisms have nothing that corresponds to what we might recognize as a "will". They are exceptionally complex chemical structures. Some respond to their environment in a way that is better suited to "survival" that others. This is not necessarily "will"; it's just variation in behaviour. And of course, those that are better suited to survival will tend to contribute to the next generation; whereas those that respond in ways ill-suited to survival tend not to contribute to the next generation. This is the basis of selection.

All you need is a replicating system. That is the huge problem for biogenesis; not "will" or "programming". How did replication get started? We don't really know. But once you get replication, the rest is by comparison quite straightforward.

The same arguments are used in intelligent design as were used in creation science, scientific creationism, creationism, and even Paley's Natural Theology. The first book to use the phrase "intelligent design" extensively and systematically used the same content and even defined "intelligent design" just as its drafts had defined "creation science".

About the only legitimate point of "divergence" between "intelligent design" and "creation science" is that "intelligent design" advocates ratcheted up the sneakiness factor.

However, daughter species can be produced "suddenly", even saltationally. Allopolyploidy, tetraploidy, and other changes in karyotype can produce a daughter species in one to a few generations time.

You see the aircraft were buried on the southern coast of Greenland which has a much greater average annual snowfall than the interior where the ice cores are taken from.

For more on the "Lost Squadron" see:

• CD410: Airplanes Buried in Ice
• Creationist Comedy by F. C. Kuechmann
• The GISP2 ice core: Ultimate proof that Noah's flood was not global. by Paul Seely
• The Lost Squadron Museum

See the following for more information on both (off-site): Where does the expression "jerry-rigged" come from?

I recall once hearing a comedian joking about having a fool-proof form of contraception, his personality.

The second reference recounts human-manipulated lines that produce chimeras. Human genetic engineering to produce chimeras, which do not happen without such intervention, hardly seems a point against evolution.

The third is a Wikipedia entry on chimerism, which is then discussed as having different senses. The chimerism that is due to anomalies in fetal development where two or more developing embryos are merged is an intra-specific phenomenon, not a disproof of evolution. The article also usefully illustrates "research chimerism", which is the sort of thing we've already discussed concerning the second reference.

It seems to me that the stance of CA211 holds to the extent that lateral gene transfer (LGT) is rare, and what we know of LGT operating today is that small amounts of genetic material may be transferred by viruses and a few other identified mechanisms, which does not get one the merger of the genetic complement of two or more widely separated lineages needed for a "true chimera". Mark Isaak has told me that he is clarifying CA211.

Still, nobody knows for sure.

The malign aspect lies in his ontology of form and substance. Trying to fit observation into form and substance has substantially retarded biology, and the doctrine, known as "hylomorphism" relies on substance being itself without form. But atomic theory shows that the stuff of which things are made has its own properties which cause the form it constitutes. In particular, in the context of biology, the properties of the molecular structure of living organisms generates, without any form being imposed on it, the nature of life. This is roughly equivalent to the school of thought known as Epicureanism, which Aristotle displaced for centuries. This was rational enough at the time - atomic theory couldnt explain how things got to be as they were then, because atoms were supposed to be all alike. Modern atomism was initially rejected by Thomists because it undercut the idea of form - there was no "form" of water, for example. Only later did it extend to reject some aspects of evolution.

In my opinion as a historian of science and philosophy, the modern Church would be well advised to abandon the hylomorphic metaphysics of Aristotle.

One equivocal influence of Aristotle on science is his notion of the "four causes" (aitia). It is often said that he held there were final causes; I prefer to think of him as holding that the aitia were explanations rather than causes, in which case an explanation in terms of what something is for makes good sense, but many people have taken finalism to be a substantive claim and invented teleology, which, as Bacon once noted, is a "barren virgin" except in the human sciences. Finalism in biology is, I think, entirely malign, and progress has been made only when it has been abandoned.