Feedback for December 1999

Unfortunately, I honestly expect it won't, and that you can't come up with a better definition. One of those awkward problems of which better scientists than you are well aware is that science must describe and conform to reality, not dictate it. As it turns out, species are an incredibly diffuse and difficult to capture reality, not just in concept. The controversies that you chuckle over as examples of badly done 'pseudoscience' are representative of what is seen in nature; I'm afraid that the best examples of shoddy science in this field are the attempts by ignorant, simple-minded reductionists who try to shoehorn complex phenomena into rigidly defined pigeonholes.

You are, of course, welcome to do just that. Please do go ahead. Many of us will find it very entertaining.

All scientific theoretical definitions are in some degree of flux. It has to do with sensitivity to new knowledge about those entities named. If we learn that species are, perhaps, not reproductively isolated, then we must amend the definition accordingly. This is not only good science, it is common to every and all sciences, and only someone whose knowledge is textbook level would think otherwise.

It is a matter of systematic semantics whether Neandertals are considered human or not. If our ancestors Homo erectus are human, then so are Neandertals. If "human" applies to all and only Homo sapiens, then they are not, but that's just a matter of definitions.

Here are those refs:

Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A 1999 May 11;96(10):5581-5
DNA sequence of the mitochondrial hypervariable region II from the neandertal type specimen.
Krings M, Geisert H, Schmitz RW, Krainitzki H, Paabo S.
Max Planck Institute for Evolutionary Anthropology, Inselstrasse 22, D-04103 Leipzig, Germany.

The DNA sequence of the second hypervariable region of the mitochondrial control region of the Neandertal type specimen, found in 1856 in central Europe, has been determined from 92 clones derived from eight overlapping amplifications performed from four independent extracts. When the reconstructed sequence is analyzed together with the previously determined DNA sequence from the first hypervariable region, the Neandertal mtDNA is found to fall outside a phylogenetic tree relating the mtDNAs of contemporary humans. The date of divergence between the mtDNAs of the Neandertal and contemporary humans is estimated to 465,000 years before the present, with confidence limits of 317,000 and 741,000 years. Taken together, the results support the concept that the Neandertal mtDNA evolved separately from that of modern humans for a substantial amount of time and lends no support to the idea that they contributed mtDNA to contemporary modern humans.

See also

• Clark GA. Neandertal genetics. Science. 1997 Aug 22;277(5329):1024-5.
• Cooper A, et al. Neandertal genetics. Science. 1997 Aug 22;277(5329):1021-4.
• Krings M, et al. Neandertal DNA sequences and the origin of modern humans. Cell. 1997 Jul 11;90(1):19-30.

We most certainly are exploring the creation/evolution controversy; but we make no claim that this is a balanced exploration. On the contrary, we emphasize throughout that we work from the perspective of mainstream science.

This is, unambiguously, a creation/evolution site. Both of these ideas are addressed at length and in detail. That we come down unambiguously on the side of science does not prevent this from being a creation/evolution site.

If you just want to read about evolution without reference to creationism, there are plenty of text books on the subject. If you just want to read about creationism without reference to evolution, then you are out of luck, to the best of my knowledge.

If you want to read about both evolution and creationism, then we present the mainstream science view on that matter. We explain what is entailed in evolution and why it is the explanation for living diversity used by mainstream science. We explain the nature of the creationist criticisms and alternatives, and why they are nonsense.

If you want to read about both evolution and creationism from a source which takes the view that it is creationism that is sensible but evolution which is nonsense, you will find here plenty of links to suitable sources; but you will not find that notion argued here as some kind of balance, as if we felt that this was a choice between two credible alternatives.

I do not think you will find anywhere on the site any hint that we are attemping to present some kind of balanced amalgamation of these two incompatible viewpoints.

I do not know what you mean by being lured to the site; and I think the implication is unjust. We don't advertise in any formal sense; but we are widely cited. Hopefully people who cite us will be clear on our content: I certainly never pretend the site is balanced when recommending it to friends. People who happen across the site after a web search will hopefully read our home page and introductory pages to learn what we are about. If they are searching for a creationist view they'll find it through our links easily enough. If they want to know what we think on the subject, it is hard to see how this could be more clear.

Irreducible Complexity and Michael Behe

The Feb. '97 post of the month

Darwin's Black Box: Irreducible Complexity or Irreproducible Irreducibility?

And many more. Behe's ideas have been discussed extensively, both on the talk.origins newsgroup, and in the FAQ archive.

Please do try to learn to use the Search facility on this website. Your questions have been addressed before, except perhaps for those that are rather idiosyncratically founded in your own peculiar errors (such as that DNA is made of protein...I haven't heard that one before from anyone).

The "yes" comes from an exceptional mode of speciation, known as polyploidy, which happens mostly in plants, and particularly in ferns. This is where the entire genome of a plant, or of a hybridisation between two plant species, is copied more than once and then split into symmetric "haploid" sex cells which can breed true. It has happened that, particularly in hybridisation polyploidy (called allopolypoidy) that the same changes have occurred more than once. In fact, identical speciation events can be replicated in the laboratory.

The reason for this is simple: genes segregate in sex cells in a process known as meiosis to form half genomes. This is a physical process and like many such processes it can happen the same way more than once. If the crossing is between plants that live locally, then it's highly likely that the same event will happen in at least a couple of instances out of the millions of fertilisation events that take place when spore or pollen is released into the air in an area.

Except for such likely events, it is a prediction of evolutionary theory that a species once gone is never to return. David Hull, a philosopher of biology who argues that species are not kinds but historical individuals, has said that species can never return, but I think this is a bit harsh. It depends on a bit of semantics that says that a species is a segment of the phylogenetic tree. Since a later "same" species is a different segment of the tree, the later version is not the "same". There are arguments for and against.

Consider this hypothetical scenario: clumps of the solar system's source material became isolated and chemically differentiated at one point in time (T1), and each clump coalesced into an individual meteorite at some later date (T2). An isochron of whole-rock measurements of different meteorites is likely to yield T1, because that is when those particular samples were separated. However, an isochron of mineral measurements of a single meteorite would have to tell us T2, because the minerals had to form when the meteorite did. The former result might predate the formation age of the meteorites, but the latter cannot possibly do so.

When such procedures are attempted on meteorites, we find that both patterns of sampling yield exactly the same age, with matching Y-intercepts on the isochrons as well (indicating further reliability of the results). In addition, data points for the Earth and lunar materials fall on the same isochrons, strongly indicating a common source and a common age. If there were a spread of values from the different sample selections, a more complex history would be indicated and there would be some room to argue over exactly what the results meant. But the precise agreement of all the different sample selections (over multiple isotopes with different chemical properties) strongly implies a fairly simple history. The data leaves one with very little room for "interpreting away" the results as anything other than the time of formation of everything in the Solar System.

There are several further problems in proposing a much more recent formation time for the Solar System. Many such problems involve features which must post-date the formation of the planets themselves, and at the same time are much too old to permit your suggested Solar System formation date of about one billion years ago. For example, lava flows which fill basins on the lunar surface must be younger than the Moon itself, and some of them exceed four billion years in age.

Ray Hyman is a fellow who has made quite a few studies of why people believe in crazy things like psychic powers and ghosts and fortune tellers. Here's one of his reviews on the topic:
Hyman, R. (1989). The psychology of deception. Annual Review of Psychology, 40, 133-145.

This one might be a bit difficult to find, but it's a classic study of the psychology of a millennial cult that saw the date of a predicted apocalypse come and go...as you might guess, their beliefs were unshaken despite the failure of the world to end.
Festinger, L., Riecken, H., and Shachter, S. (1956) When prophecy fails. Minneapolis: University of Minneapolis Press.

Otherwise, though, just open up any introductory psychology text and look for the chapters on social cognition. If you see words like "cognitive dissonance" and "schemas" coming up a lot, you are in the right place.

Your feedback question is posed on the assumption of a different view: the view that there are two credible sides to the story, and that the evidence is inconclusive. I don't agree, and neither do most practicing scientists; always excepting a tiny minority way outside the mainstream.

It is hard when you are starting out to make sense of these two incompatible notions. I would suggest as a start having a look at the history of the science of geology. Some famous figures in that story were believers in a literal flood of Noah, but over time were forced by their own honest evaluation of the evidence to the conclusion that there was no global flood, and that life was very ancient, and that it has changed over time. There is a good potted History of Geology available on-line; with plenty of references which you can check further.

The fossil evidence is also obvious. Life has been around for a very long time, and in forms quite different from those existing today. You know of the dinosaurs, of course. The problem for creationists is not just that these other life forms existed in the past. The real problem is that at the time when dinosaurs lived, most other modern forms of life did not exist. There was no grass, no dogs, no monkeys, no cats, no whales, and so on. This is a fact, as solid as a fact can be in science.

Good luck with your investigations of these matters. Please feel welcome to get in touch with me directly if you have any specific questions about anything arising from this very general response.

There are two ways to show this is false. First, let us assume there is no creator. How does evolution follow from this? Plenty of people were atheists before the theory of evolution was developed. Bear in mind that evolution is quite specific on the processes by which living diversity arises.

Second. Let us assume that evolution is true. How does the lack of creator follow from this? Many evolutionists believe in a creator, and many people believe in the divine inspiration of Genesis, without reading it as an opaque description of the bare events surrounding the origins of the Earth and of life.

Evolution is tested, extensively and all the time, and that is how knowledge is being improved. I think what turns people off is the resolute refusal of many believers to come to grips with the real evidence and testing and knowledge that does exist, incomplete though it may be. That is the real refusal to face up to truth.

You may like to read the following article by Professor Kenneth Miller, on Finding Darwin's God. I don't agree with everything he says, and neither will you. However, you need to explain people like Professor Miller if you are going to confuse evolution with rejection of a creator.

(1) I am not aware of any sensible theory of origins which corresponds to nobody and nothing = everything. Before you can hope to get a better appreciation of the real theories you need to lose the assumption that cosmology is founded on atheism. I suggest you read some books by physicist and priest John Polkinghorne; not because you have to agree with him; but because you need to be aware that modern cosmology is compatible with Christian faith. Only then will you be able to look at the theories without fear, and consider them on their real merits.

(2) There is nothing mathematically impossible about formation of a living cell. See Lies, Damned Lies, Statistics and Probability of Abiogenesis Calculations. We don't know exactly how it occurred, but claims of mathematical impossibility are nonsense.

(3) There are no new Lincolns rolling out of junkyards because Lincolns do not reproduce. Living creatures, on the other hand, do reproduce. Furthermore, children do not look exactly like their parents, and so new living creatures are not exact copies of their ancestors (unlike cars mass produced in a factory). This means that populations of living creatures can also evolve.

(4) You have been misinformed on what Darwin concluded about the eye. See Quote: Charles Darwin About The Eye (offsite).

(Your following statements are not numbered, so my responses are not numbered either.) You are quite obviously incorrect in the sentence beginning "If you believe in evolution, you also...". Evolution proposes quite specific mechanisms, which are nothing like the chaotic generation of submarines, dictionaries, or watches.

On bringing the dead to life, we can in some cases do remarkable feats of resuscitation beyond what was possible before the age of science; but of course we don't claim science knows everything and can do anything. That is no excuse for ignoring what science has discovered.

On being scared: there are two obvious kinds of people who are not in the least threatened by God: those believe and trust in him as a loving father, and also those who don't believe he exists. Both kinds of person are represented in the contributors to this archive. It is exactly a lack of fear which frees people to consider the evidence on its merits, rather than be constrained to hold one particular view for fear of punishment for wrong beliefs.

But why stop there? God might just as well have created you, me, and everything in the universe five minutes ago, implanting false memories into our brains to make us think we've been alive for longer. You might just be a brain floating in a tank or a giant computer, being fed sensory data to think you're experiencing the senses and emotions you are. There's no logical way to determine the difference.

Once you start believing your senses are deceiving you, any deception is possible.

You'll find lots more in Glen Kuban's FAQ on paluxy tracks.

Here also are some articles on the Paluxy controversy by a creationist. Not a reliable source by any means, but it confirms that even creationists are aware of the problems with this particular notion.

Don't let the "long time span" argument lead you astray. For one, confirming experiments can be made upon organisms with short reproductive times. But more importantly, evolutionary theory is confirmed by multiple independent lines of evidence -- genetic, paleontological, morphological, immunological, and embryological, just to name a few.

No one has created a star or a volcano in the lab, yet we understand their formation and history by carefully examining many, many examples of both. The same is true of evolution.

You may disagree with the mainstream perspective, of course, but on the subject of evolution there is no ambiguity on the nature of that mainstream perspective, which is as follows:

Evolution is indeed proven beyond any reasonable doubt, and it is indeed based on a wealth of observable facts.

There is plenty of debate within mainstream science on various details of evolutionary biology, such as rates of change, modes of speciation, specifics of individual lineages, and so on.

However, there is no serious debate at all on the basic facts which are of major concern to creationists. The Earth is very old. There has never been a global flood. Life has been around on the Earth for a long long long time. Over that time, the forms of life have changed drastically, but there is still a clear relationship between living and extinct forms of life. The processes by which change arises and accumulates in living populations are directly observed and used in the laboratory and the field. These are facts, in the usual scientific sense of the word, as solidly proven as anything can be in science.

This archive is not a peer-reviewed mainstream scientific publication, as I have described it above; though it does tend to conform with the mainstream perspective. There is one question in our Welcome FAQ which is directly relevant to your feedback, so I reproduce it here:

"How do I know the contents of this archive are reliable?"

Visitors to the archive should be aware that essays and FAQs appearing in the archive have generally not undergone a rigorous peer review procedure by scientific experts. Rather, they have been commented on and critiqued by the readership of the talk.origins newsgroup. While many of the participants in talk.origins are well regarded scientists, this informal procedure is not as demanding as the process a scientist goes through to publish a paper in a scientific journal. It is important to keep this fact in mind when reading the contents of this archive. Because most of the essays have not undergone rigorous peer review, some of them may contain errors or misstatements of fact. Any errors you identify should be reported to the authors or to the editor.

As a general rule, you should never rely too heavily on anything you read on the Internet. Read the primary, reviewed literature before making up your mind on any topic. Most of the archive's essays provide references to primary sources to make it easier for you to do this.

Your question about comets is answered in James Meritt's FAQ. It's usually a good idea to browse the FAQs before embarassing yourself with silly questions.

Every population of organisms varies from individual to individual. This variance is mostly genetically based, and random. Slight variations that permit the individual to make a living easier and to pass on that variation more than its fellows will end up "taking over" the population.

Fish had fins, and some of them used those fins to propel themselves in a fashion along the floor of their habitat. So far as we know, later variations allowed their ancestors to "walk" along the edge of the watercourse. Later variations still allowed them to leave the water for short times. This set up conditions in which variants that could use their gas sacs to infuse their blood with oxygen to stay out of the water for longer periods, and presumably to eat the insects then making a living out of the water. And so on.

Entire populations don't suddenly make a "jump" from one set of traits to another - individuals do, and they, when successful, pass on more of their genes. Each step is viable, and no step is so radical that the individuals that carry them will die. If they are, well, the individuals die, and their genes aren't passed on.

At the moment, on average, the Earth's spin slows down because of tidal friction with the moon, at a rate of about 1.5 milliseconds (0.0015 seconds) per day per century. In 100 years, the days will be (on average) 0.0015 seconds longer, 100 years ago the days were 0.0015 seconds shorter. If we assume that this rate of change is constant over a billion years, then the days that long ago were a tad over 4 hours shorter, or about 20 hours long, in theory. In practice, tidal rhythmite data indicates that the day was about 22 hours long at 650 million years ago [Precambrian tidal and glacial elastic deposits: Implications for Precambrian Earth-Moon dynamics and paleoclimate, G.E. Williams, Sedimentary Geology 120(1-4): pp55-74, September 1998], and about 19 hours long at 900 million years ago [Neoproterozoic Earth-Moon dynamics - rework of the 900 Ma Big Cottonwood Canyon tidal laminae, C.P. Sonett & M.A. Chan, Geophysical Research Letters 25(4): pp539-542, February 15, 1998]. So even though the assumption of constancy for the 0.0015 second rate is not perfect, it's not all that bad either. These observations also show that there is no reason to be concerned over the Earth's rapid rotation in the distant past.

As for the recession of the moon from the Earth, your article says "two inches per year". It also says that if you work it backwards, the Earth and Moon would be touching 2 billion years ago. Well, it's not too hard to test that assertion. First, we know that the current rate of recession is 3.82±0.07 cm/year [Lunar laser Ranging: A Continuing Legacy of the Apollo Program, G.O. Dickey, Science 265: pp482-490, July 22, 1994]. At 2.54 cm/inch (exactly), 3.82 cm is 1.50 inches, so your creationist article rounds up by about a half inch. But let's use the right number, shall we? The current average Earth-moon distance is 384,400 km (38,440,000,000 cm). If we cover 3.82 cm for 2,000,000,000 years, we get 7,640,000,000 cm. That would put the Earth-moon separation, 2 billion years ago, at 38,400,000,000 - 7,640,000,000 = 30,760,000,000 cm. But the radius of the moon is about 1,738.2 km (173,820,000 cm), and the radius of the Earth is about 6371.0 km (637,100,000 cm). These radii only add up to 810,920,000 cm, a far cry from the 30,760,000,000 cm between the Earth and moon. So, I think it's fair to say that the Earth and moon would not be touching 2 billion years ago. In fact, at 3.82 cm per year, you would have to crank the creationist clock backwards over 10,000,000,000 years to make the Earth and moon touch, and that's a lot older than I have ever heard any evolutionist claim, for the age of the Earth-moon system.

Now, I will add that neither the rate of recession of the moon from the Earth, nor the rate of slow down in the spin of the Earth are constant. Theory says that the rate of recession of the moon from the Earth should have been rather slower than the current 3.82 cm, for at least a few billion years, and paleontological evidence supports that conclusion [Tidal Rhythmites - Key To the History of the Earth's Rotation and the Lunar Orbit, G.E. Williams, Journal of Physics of the Earth 38(6): pp475-491, 1990]. Creationists wrongly assume it must always have been faster in the past, because they ignore most of the real physics of the tidal interaction.

Detailed theoretical & observational studies reveal that there are no inconsistencies between the tidal physics of the Earth-moon system and an evolutionary age for the Earth-moon system. Creationists create bogus inconsistencies by ignoring most of the basic physics, and arriving at naive conclusions as a result. This is not a matter of some "creationist" view versus some "evolutionist" view, or even some "atheist" view. It is simply a matter of doing it right versus doing it wrong, and make no mistake about it, creationists definitely do it wrong.

Crick-Watson genetics applies equally well to asexual taxa as to sexual taxa, although there are some very interesting evolutionary dynamics among the protozoa. But Darwinian evolution can occur in proteins, as with CRD and kuru, which are arguably protein-based (prion-based). Cytoplasmic inheritance, the "epigenetic inheritance" of the title of Jablonka and Lamb may also evolve in a perfectly Darwinian manner.

The focus on DNA is due to the amazing success of that research program, but it has little enough to do with neo-Darwinism, conceptually. Indeed, at the time the modern synthesis was begun, RA Fisher showed how if Mendelian genetics were false, and use-inheritance true, Darwinian evolution could still occur.

Fisher, RA. 1930. The genetical theory of natural selection. Oxford UK: Clarendon Press, (rev. ed. Dover, New York, 1958).

Jablonka, Eva, and Marion J. Lamb. 1995. Epigenetic inheritance and evolution: the Lamarckian dimension. Oxford; New York: Oxford University Press.

Because it's long.

Why else?

It needs to be understood that at the time, the word "race" meant, in a biological context, some variety of a species. This could be raised to the "level" of a subspecies if it was permanent, and it could also mean a geographic variation.

Human races are variants, and are mostly geographic. But they are not subspecies as biologists then or now would understand the term. Homo sapiens is presently a single species with no subspecies, but with plenty of variety.

It should also be noted that the usual "races" (ie, Caucasian, Asian, Negro, Australian aboriginal, etc) do not have any biological reality as separate entities. With the exception of the aboriginal, there has been extensive gene flow between groups (and even the aboriginals show some evidence of multiple migrations and cross breeding), and as it happens there is more genetic variety in sub-Saharan African groups than between an aboriginal and a Scandanavian.

We all tend to make concrete things out of anything that has a noun as its name; Alfred North Whitehead called this the Fallacy of Misplaced Concreteness. The concrete thing is the process, and the rest are the ways in which we come to understand it.

Also, as Chris pointed out, the "moon-dust" argument is now understood even by strongly committed young-Earth creationists to be untenable (see "Moon-Dust Argument No Longer Useful" by Ken Ham, at the Answers in Genesis creationist website)

As for the Coelacanth, one might ask "So what?". Creationists very wrongly assume that evolution requires an entire population to evolve out of existence. But in fact, the process of speciation commonly allows for the coexistence of the parent and offspring species for an indefinite period of time. There is nothing about the existence of Coelacanths, or any other "living fossil" that is inconsistent with evolution, as scientists (not creationists) understand it.

When I tried it, it turned up the Abiogenesis FAQ, which has several useful offsite links and points out that the issue is a bit more complicated than you seem to think.

Matter is explained as a kind of frozen energy. Just as water freezes into ice when it gets cold enough, so does energy "freeze" into matter when it gets cold enough. The early universe after the Big Bang did not have any matter in it, only radiant energy. Once the universe had expanded enough, and cooled enough, matter condensed or froze out of the energy, just as liquid water would condense out of water vapor, or just as water ice would freeze out of cold water liquid or vapor.

I don't know that anyone has actually defined "life" in some strict sense, although I remember from my earlier education that "life" is supposed to meet a list of perhaps-defining criteria, such as movement, eating, & etc. Certainly life as we know it is carbon based, but "life", in some general sense of the word, might come in any number of surprising forms, we just don't know. But we only know how to look for life "as we know it", and not life "as we don't know it", so naturally, we look for carbon based life. Carbon based life in the solar system, outside of Earth, has not been ruled out, although it seems unlikely to me. Just as there are microbes living deep under the surface of Earth (as deep as 2 or 3 kilometers), so might there be living microbes deep under the surface of Mars. We really won't know until we look.

There are some unfortunate undercurrents to your words that you might want to consider. You seem to be taking for granted that there will indeed be some clearcut heritable factors in intelligence, that will support an implicit racism. This is not necessarily true, nor even likely. You also presume that "inner city" people (which is a common code phrase for "black") are aware of some genetic inferiority that they would prefer to hide...again, not true. My experience with "inner city" individuals (I work in North Philadelphia, which is about as "inner city" as you can get) so far is that they do not fear to have the truth exposed at all -- it's the false stereotypes that are best squashed as thoroughly as possible.

We welcome input from any of our readers on creation beliefs of other faiths. I would be particularly interested myself in learning the Islamic view of creationism.