Feedback for July 1997

Thermodynamics is a mathematical science. How else could you calculate the efficiency of a compressor or the power of a steam turbine?

For all its pompous rhetoric, the Institute for Creation Research provides no mathematics to back its voodoo thermodynamics claims. You will find a fairly complete description of the actual relationship between thermodynamics and probability in my web page: The Second Law of Thermodynamics, Evolution, and Probability and Probability and the Second Law of Thermodynamics.

In the meantime, you can check Wesley Elsberry's talk.origins bibliographica file, which contains some brief biographical information about many of the authors represented in the archive.

You say that It is also obvious that the red shift does not indicate an expanding universe with all the anomalies now known. But you don't tell us what these anomalies are. I will tell you that there are in fact only a few anomalies, and they are not very serious. The evidence in favor of the redshift being cosmological in origin, and therefore indicative of both distance and an expanding universe, is overwhelming. Ned Wright again shows us a number of errors in popular alternatives to expanding universe or big bang cosmologies. He also gives a nice cosmology tutorial. There is also a nice explanation of the big bang theory in the web pages of the Microwave Anisotropy Probe (MAP) mission.

Finally, inflationary theory is an integral part of the expanding universe cosmology. It is also, in fact, exactly the opposite of what creationists have been saying that God did in the beginning. If you are going to try to produce an anti-big-bang or anti-expanding-universe cosmology, you will have to do better than this.

This archive, on the other hand, is not a place for debate. This archive is provided by individuals who saw a need for a collection of responses to common questions and misconceptions that arise within the free debate of the newsgroup.

The information presented is intended to be correct and useful; it is not a random collection of views from anyone with an opinion. The maintainers of the archive are confident that the best available information is from the perspective of mainstream science; and that is explicit on the archive home page and the welcome FAQ.

This archive has no official standing with respect to the newsgroup. If this archive stands out, it is because of the quality of information available, and the hard work of many people in putting it all together. You can also find here extensive links to other sites with alternative and/or supporting views.

Ronald Number's book, The Creationists is listed in the recommended reading file, with two lines of (positive) commentary. Speaking for myself, I believe that the archive could really benefit from a review of this book, or (even better) a file on the history and variety of creationism with suitable references. You may like to consider writing such a contribution! The archive submission guidelines suggests how you could do this.

The juvenile hoatzin - the "South American jungle fowl" has two claws on each wing (Archaeopteryx has three). This has been used by some to claim that the presence of claws in the ADULT Archaeopteryx cannot be used as a reptile character. Basically the person is very confuse, and wrong.

Basically, however, your question is a bit like asking what evidence is necessary to disprove the atomic theory of matter. It makes an interesting speculation; but the question fails to take account of the fact that many independent lines of evidence have already been investigated over a long period of time, with the result that evolution is confirmed to such a degree that any conceivable alternative theory would extend or generalise evolutionary theory as it stands at present.

You are also mistaken about Einstein. He completed all his schooling in a fairly straightforward progression. You may be thinking of the occasion in 1885 when he failed an entrance exam to Zurich Polytechnic; but after a further year of secondary schooling in Aarau he gained entrance in 1886, and duely graduated in 1890 as a secondary school teacher of mathematics and physics. He gained his doctorate from the University of Zurich in 1905, and his habilitation thesis was accepted in 1908. (This is a European post-doctoral qualification for becoming a professor). You can check the evidence for this in any encyclopedia, or on the web at Albert Einstein Online.

Note that isochron and equivalent methods tend to avoid such problems automatically. They are not prone to yielding incorrect ages as a result of contamination or other unsuitability. (This is discussed in much more detail in the Isochron Dating FAQ.)

When the creationists obtain an obviously incorrect date on their own, the reason is usually a deliberate violation of the requirements of the dating method. (This is a bit like smashing a wristwatch with a hammer, complaining about the fact that the crushed watch does not keep time properly... and then suggesting that all wristwatches must therefore be incapable of keeping time.) For example, see my Critique of ICR's Grand Canyon Dating Project -- or my note on carbon dating in The May 1997 Feedback.

If you have a different specific example in mind, give me a reference (or at least a description), and I will put together a more specific response for you.

Eugenie Scott, Ph.D. 925 Kearney St. El Cerrito, CA 94530-2810 510-526-1674 FAX 510-526-1675 800-290-6006 [Archive maintainance note: this contact information is out-of-date. Use the link above for current information -- February 21, 2004]

I do not know what the common ancestor was. According to Jim Foley, in the Fossil Hominids FAQ file, the oldest known Homind species is the Ardipithecus ramidus, which dates from about 4.4 million years ago. On the presumption that apes are primates, but not Hominds, then I would presume that the common ancestor in question predates Ardipithecus ramidus by some unknown period of time. Of course, it may also be possible that modern apes are descendent from one of the earlier Hominid species, I really do not know.

Of course, nobody can recreate the scenario of natural selection on genes, to reconstruct human evolution, but I do not find this embarrassing. The story is a morphological one, and that which you dismiss as telling stories is in fact a powerful weapon in the demonstration of human evolution. The details are well described in the Fossil Hominids FAQ file, and in other locations around the web, such as The Institute for Human Origins, or the Origins of Humankind Website.

Not knowing all of the answers is neither a crime, nor a weakness. There is a lot that I do not know about human evolution, and a lot that the community of scientists studying the problem do not know. But that human evolution has occurred, and that such a common ancestor does in fact exist, seems to me a perfectly obvious fact of nature.

There's an interesting history to the term. Darwin himself moved away from the all-sufficiency of natural selection in successive editions of the Origin, but his co-discoverer Alfred Russel Wallace was what is now called a panselectionist - that is, he thought selection was all the mechanism needed to explain evolution.

Those who followed Wallace were sneeringly called "neo-Darwinians" by one Prof. Remanes, who was more pluralistic in his views, as Darwin came to be. The term stuck for anyone who makes selection the main mechanism of evolution. It is also applied to anyone who accepts the model of germ-line heredity developed by Weismann, because the opponents of this theory were called neo-Lamarckians. So, neo-Darwinians differed from their supposed hero, and it turns out that neo-Lamarckians were agreeing with Darwin, and that very little of their views were derived from those of Lamarck.

In the period from 1930 to 1947 or so, when the current views were being thrashed out after a period of eclipse by Mendelism, the term was carried over to cover the followers of RA Fisher, who wrote the first major fully Darwinian analysis of evolution, The Genetical Theory of Natural Selection in 1930. Fisher was also a panselectionist. His views were adopted by the so-called "Oxford School" of evolutionists, of which Maynard Smith and Dawkins are modern representatives. However, those who accept the theories of the modern evolutionary community are called "modern synthesists", because their views synthesised Mendelian genetics with Darwinian evolution, which were very much held to be opposed before that.

Because terms like "modern" date quickly, most refer now to the Synthetic View of Evolution, which has been developing since about 1950, and which has since incorporated the neutral theory of molecular evolution, the endosymbiont theory of cell structures, and the punctuated evolutionary theory of Gould and Eldredge et al, all of which were first presented as challenges to the "neo-Darwinian" or "synthetic" theories.

So, to answer your simple question simply, "neo-Darwinian" mainly refers to modern Darwinian views after the synthesis, but this is historically incorrect.

A good history of Darwinism is Peter Bowler's 1984? Evolution - the History of an Idea.

Indeed, there is some evidence that even Mr. Hovind knows this. Jim Lippard confronted him when he repeated a false claim regarding Lucy's knee joint. In an audio tape dated 11/5/1993, Mr. Hovind agreed to stop using the claim. More than a year later, he was caught repeating it -- a claim which he then knew to be false -- in a public lecture. (This is documented in the Lucy's Knee Joint FAQ.)

Elsewhere in this archive, there is an extensive evaluation of many of Mr. Hovind's claims, by Dave Matson. If you really want to know who has the "TRUE and COMPLETE" facts, you are welcome to follow the references in that file and find out for yourself. (Unfortunately, it isn't possible to obtain an informed opinion on the topic merely by watching television and trustingly accepting all of the claims presented.)

Incidentally, I think you have a good point about Chris Colby's Introduction to evolutionary biology FAQ, which is where the "100% crap" phrase is found. Readers who are really seekers of the truth shouldn't resort to complaining about overly blunt wording as a rationalization for ignoring the data presented... but writers of the FAQs can easily take away that lame excuse simply by choosing words carefully.

One last thing: if you think evolution is about denying God, you have been misled. Several of the contributors to this archive are Christians. See Warren Kurt VonRoeschlaub's excellent God and Evolution FAQ for more information.

Based on surveys that I have seen (for example those referenced in Harrold and Eve's book, The Creationist Movement in Modern America), there would probably be relatively few people in either of your first two categories. You have merely identified the two extremes of a wide spectrum of belief.

In science, the word proof does not refer to a formal deductive argument as in mathematics, but to confirmation by an overwhelming weight of evidence. The mainstream scientific consensus on the status of evolution (including its macro and micro aspects) is discussed in the Evolution is a Fact and a Theory file.

This is again emphasized at the start of the Welcome FAQ.

I am not sure how this could be expressed more clearly or emphatically; nor is it inconsistent with describing this collection as an archive.

We do provide an extensive collection of links to creationist pages, and you will also find many of the files provide prominent links to alternative pages which discuss the relevant topic from a creationist perspective.

We do strongly encourage people to investigate and compare the information available on the internet and elsewhere.

From the flag bridge of the USS Belleau Wood, during a tiger cruise from Pearl Harbor, Hawaii to San Diego, California, I was able to duplicate the "columbus" observation. Using the large binoculars mounted on the ship, I observed two destroyers 100 miles out ahead of the convoy. The ship hulls were below the horizon and invisible, but the ship masts were not. And the visible masts included parts far smaller than the ship hull, so the old "it was just too far away" line won't work here. I saw the curvature of the earth with my own eyes.

One of the reasons given by flat-earthers for this belief is the claim that they can survey large distances and prove the surveyed ground was flat, that they found no sign of the earth's curvature. But this does not work as an excuse either. See the paper Measure the earth's radius while boating on one of its lakes, Frank O. Goodman, American Journal of Physics, 61(4), April 1993, pp. 378-379.

Evolution does not address the origin of life from inanimate matter: though many general concepts of evolutionary theory (such as selection) are of importance in this area as well. A useful term for origins of life itself is abiogenesis. Howewer, there is no one generally accepted theory for how it occurred. That life at some point arose from inanimate matter is accepted by everyone: even those who hold that the step from dust to vitality involved the deliberate intervention of an already existing intelligent creative entity.