Every so often it is important to update your opinions. Yesterday, I began to write a post about how Human evolution was very near to non-existent when I realized how wrong I was. I developed that opinion a long time ago when I realized that humans had pretty much cut out one of the most important components of evolution, natural selection. Human technology has ensured than most of us live to pass on our genes.
As I was writing that article I realized that that opinion was formed years ago and since then I've learned a lot more about the processes of evolution. So when I got all fired up to write after a reading an article where scientists expressed their "discovery" that human brains were evolving very slowly, I set off down the wrong path. Quite recently some scientist or other announced how we were actively in the process of bifurcating the human family tree into beautiful people and troglodytes. This is occurring through preferential selection. That is to say, beautiful people seek other beautiful people to be their mates and the rest are, well, the rest. This is similar to what happens when populations become split by geography and what was one becomes two over time.
That was just for completeness. The real story, here, is that there were two complete and contradictory opinions sitting in my little brain and only through happenstance did I discover that on my own. In other situations, I'd always have to have someone else point out how wrong I was. So the question I have now, is, how many more of these examples of cognitive dissonance lie undiscovered. It would be so nice to be able to press a button and automatically have all your opinions updated to reflect the best knowledge you have or, at least, flag your opinions for review.
I set about re-writing the post, but I ran out of time and the original premise turned out to be not so interesting after I figured out it was wrong. So I missed a day.
Showing posts with label Evolution. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Evolution. Show all posts
Monday, March 19, 2007
Monday, February 12, 2007
February 12 - Darwin Day
Today is Darwin Day, or so say a bunch of yahoos from Palo Alto. The Darwin in question, of course, is Charles Robert Darwin. He's the fellow who penned "Origin of the Species" and introduced and promoted environmental selection and common ancestry, Evolution in other words, as the dominant explanation for the variety of life on this planet. It is somewhat ironic that Darwin started out a deeply religious man. However, investigation of natural philosophy led him to question traditional expression of faith. It all but disappeared when his daughter died when he was in his early 40's. Thereafter he considered himself an Agnostic.
It is probably not well known, but one of the specific things that caused erosion of his faith was the idea of Intelligent Design. At the time it was promoted as Beneficent Design. As he traveled the globe in the Beagle, observing the creatures of the world, he found examples that led him to question the "beneficent" bit and he sought a better answer for himself.
OK so "Beneficent Design" was off the mark, but that does not invalidate Intelligent Design, does it? Well, this will be another post that tries to address the difference between what is real and what gets spun in politics. "Evolution is just a theory", it's detractors claim and say "Intelligent Design is a theory too". On the basis of this it is proposed that Intelligent Design should get equal time in education. This is not consistent with what "Theory" means in science.
Intelligent Design has some good science in it under the layers of politics. Specifically, the arguments based on information theory show some promise. What is that, you ask? Well, if you have not investigated Intelligent Design as a theory, then you probably just know it as: "Life on this planet is too complex to have arisen by happenstance and therefore it requires a creator." However, in science, this can not be taken simply on faith, it must be tested and not found lacking. Those working on Intelligent Design work in several directions. Mostly this involves looking for examples that simply could not explained by evolution. The least valuable of these take the form of, "look at the human eye, there is no way it could have been created by evolution." I take that only to indicate a lack of imagination on the part of the speaker. The more valuable arguments are being made with the application of hard science and mathematics.
DNA is a code for life. This code carries information. Not all of the sequences in DNA carry useful information. The ratio of useful to non-useful information is 1) a number that can be pinned down and 2) a number that can be predicted by the application of Evolution. The folks working this aspect of Intelligent Design are thinking that evolutionary processes could not produce the density of information based on information theory. I'll leave further understanding of this as an exercise for the reader, but suffice it to say that this has some scientific merit.
I used a word in the last paragraph, "predicted". That word is important in this debate because it characterizes the concept of "theory". A theory, amongst other things, is something that can be used to predict. This is one of the reasons why Intelligent Design is unpalatable presented as a theory. It seems to seek to throw it's hands up and fall back on faith, especially as it is presented by those seeking to shape public opinion. One of the things about Evolution is that it is a fine predictor. I'll explain more a little further down.
The main thing that characterizes a theory, though, is that it has been tested, either through observation of past evidence or through controlled experiments. Evolution has stood the test of both. No other theory has so well explained the apparent progression of species over time as evolution. Yes, there are holes in the record, but they are un-proven opportunities to invalidate Evolution. Those opportunities, as yet, are unsatisfied. Based on the overwhelming evidence in the rest of the historical record, it is reasonable to assume that those holes would be filled similarly. To date, no strong evidence of Evolution being false has been promoted and found valid.
Furthermore, Evolution has been tested. Scientists have observed speciation 30 or so times. Unfortunately for the layperson, none of these have been obvious enough (such as a dog morphing into an otter or some such) as to be convincing. This is, of course, mainly because our opportunity to observe these changes has been pitifully short compared to the history of life. However, tests have been conducted with Evolution as the idea being tested and the results have been positive.
Detractors of evolution then turn to something that Evolution does not attempt to explain and say that because it does not it must be false. This is tantamount to claiming that because a car can not fly it is not a vehicle. The something is abiogenesis. Abiogenesis the creation of life from non-living matter. For some faithful, there is nothing contradictory with saying God stuck his finger in the muck and, "zap," we have cyanobacteria and the rest is Evolutionary history. Others are offended at the thought of having a bacteria as a great great ... great grandfather. Nevertheless, Abiogenesis is a separate topic that has many theories of it's own.
Intelligent Design is a theory that has barely made it past the stage of hypothesis. It is very poorly tested at this point. That does not mean it is false, it simply means that it is very questionable. Evolution, on the other hand, has been very well investigated and found to be, many times over, an adequate theory to explain what has happened and what will happen. When theories become this well established, this is when they should be introduced into lower education. Intelligent Design, as it stands, is pretty much still a topic for graduate level scholars to puzzle through.
Happy Darwin Day!
It is probably not well known, but one of the specific things that caused erosion of his faith was the idea of Intelligent Design. At the time it was promoted as Beneficent Design. As he traveled the globe in the Beagle, observing the creatures of the world, he found examples that led him to question the "beneficent" bit and he sought a better answer for himself.
OK so "Beneficent Design" was off the mark, but that does not invalidate Intelligent Design, does it? Well, this will be another post that tries to address the difference between what is real and what gets spun in politics. "Evolution is just a theory", it's detractors claim and say "Intelligent Design is a theory too". On the basis of this it is proposed that Intelligent Design should get equal time in education. This is not consistent with what "Theory" means in science.
Intelligent Design has some good science in it under the layers of politics. Specifically, the arguments based on information theory show some promise. What is that, you ask? Well, if you have not investigated Intelligent Design as a theory, then you probably just know it as: "Life on this planet is too complex to have arisen by happenstance and therefore it requires a creator." However, in science, this can not be taken simply on faith, it must be tested and not found lacking. Those working on Intelligent Design work in several directions. Mostly this involves looking for examples that simply could not explained by evolution. The least valuable of these take the form of, "look at the human eye, there is no way it could have been created by evolution." I take that only to indicate a lack of imagination on the part of the speaker. The more valuable arguments are being made with the application of hard science and mathematics.
DNA is a code for life. This code carries information. Not all of the sequences in DNA carry useful information. The ratio of useful to non-useful information is 1) a number that can be pinned down and 2) a number that can be predicted by the application of Evolution. The folks working this aspect of Intelligent Design are thinking that evolutionary processes could not produce the density of information based on information theory. I'll leave further understanding of this as an exercise for the reader, but suffice it to say that this has some scientific merit.
I used a word in the last paragraph, "predicted". That word is important in this debate because it characterizes the concept of "theory". A theory, amongst other things, is something that can be used to predict. This is one of the reasons why Intelligent Design is unpalatable presented as a theory. It seems to seek to throw it's hands up and fall back on faith, especially as it is presented by those seeking to shape public opinion. One of the things about Evolution is that it is a fine predictor. I'll explain more a little further down.
The main thing that characterizes a theory, though, is that it has been tested, either through observation of past evidence or through controlled experiments. Evolution has stood the test of both. No other theory has so well explained the apparent progression of species over time as evolution. Yes, there are holes in the record, but they are un-proven opportunities to invalidate Evolution. Those opportunities, as yet, are unsatisfied. Based on the overwhelming evidence in the rest of the historical record, it is reasonable to assume that those holes would be filled similarly. To date, no strong evidence of Evolution being false has been promoted and found valid.
Furthermore, Evolution has been tested. Scientists have observed speciation 30 or so times. Unfortunately for the layperson, none of these have been obvious enough (such as a dog morphing into an otter or some such) as to be convincing. This is, of course, mainly because our opportunity to observe these changes has been pitifully short compared to the history of life. However, tests have been conducted with Evolution as the idea being tested and the results have been positive.
Detractors of evolution then turn to something that Evolution does not attempt to explain and say that because it does not it must be false. This is tantamount to claiming that because a car can not fly it is not a vehicle. The something is abiogenesis. Abiogenesis the creation of life from non-living matter. For some faithful, there is nothing contradictory with saying God stuck his finger in the muck and, "zap," we have cyanobacteria and the rest is Evolutionary history. Others are offended at the thought of having a bacteria as a great great ... great grandfather. Nevertheless, Abiogenesis is a separate topic that has many theories of it's own.
Intelligent Design is a theory that has barely made it past the stage of hypothesis. It is very poorly tested at this point. That does not mean it is false, it simply means that it is very questionable. Evolution, on the other hand, has been very well investigated and found to be, many times over, an adequate theory to explain what has happened and what will happen. When theories become this well established, this is when they should be introduced into lower education. Intelligent Design, as it stands, is pretty much still a topic for graduate level scholars to puzzle through.
Happy Darwin Day!
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