[luke warm]

helene_t, on Jan 5 2009, 06:46 AM, said:

luke warm, on Jan 5 2009, 12:11 PM, said:

richard calls the distinction between macro- and micro-evolution "farcial" but is it really?

You drive 100 meter down the road in 5 secs and call it micro-travel. You drive 100 kilometer down the road in 5000 secs and call it macro-travel. Is there an essential difference? I suppose it depends on your perspective.

You could distinguish between domestic travel and international travel, so a 100 meter journey becomes macro-travel if it happens to cross a country boundary. But there is no similar thing in evolution. Evolution does not cross species boundaries at specific time points, it just changes gray shades gradually, and when we decide to call it a new species is not an objective thing but just a feature of the way we have decided to classify fossils.

that doesn't help me, helene... why are they not two separate processes? my understanding, which may be flawed, is that macroevolution is that which results in a new species while micro- is that which results in changes within a species... as i said, my understanding may be incorrect... i'm sure someone will correct me as needed

[helene_t]

thats what i say, jimmy: there is no difference between changing within and between species, since its all about gray shades, and dividing ancestral lines into species is arbitrary.

See my analogy with the yellow and red paint. You can call adding one drop of paint micro and adding 100000 drops macro but it is not very interesting.

[hrothgar]

luke warm, on Jan 5 2009, 02:11 PM, said:

richard calls the distinction between macro- and micro-evolution "farcial" but is it really?

I suspect that anyone with even remote familiarity with the scientific method would consider it farcical...

Its useful to have some background information about just where the distinction between micro and macro evolution came from. One of the two creation myths included in Genesis includes the following

Quote

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Many creationists are willing to except so-called "micro-evolution" because it doesn't result in the emergence of a new species. They are unwilling to except "macro evolution" because it violates their interpretation of Genesis.
They entire distinction comes about because creationists are trying to force their so-called "science" to conform to what's probably a mistranslation of a mistranslation...

[Lobowolf]

helene_t, on Jan 5 2009, 06:35 PM, said:

thats what i say, jimmy: there is no difference between changing within and between species, since its all about gray shades, and dividing ancestral lines into species is arbitrary.

See my analogy with the yellow and red paint. You can call adding one drop of paint micro and adding 100000 drops macro but it is not very interesting.

Or it could be analogized to the difference between adding 1 part per billion of arsenic to my drinking water and adding 100 parts per billion. (I believe the current EPA level of acceptability is 10 ppb, but adjust as needed until you arrive at my points). Maybe that's not interesting, either, but it sure isn't trivial.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Jan 5 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

that doesn't help me, helene... why are they not two separate processes? my understanding, which may be flawed, is that macroevolution is that which results in a new species while micro- is that which results in changes within a species... as i said, my understanding may be incorrect... i'm sure someone will correct me as needed

Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve?

[helene_t]

PassedOut, on Jan 6 2009, 03:28 AM, said:

Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve?

Yes, that's a good point.

[luke warm]

hrothgar, on Jan 5 2009, 07:17 PM, said:

luke warm, on Jan 5 2009, 02:11 PM, said:

richard calls the distinction between macro- and micro-evolution "farcial" but is it really?

I suspect that anyone with even remote familiarity with the scientific method would consider it farcical...

Its useful to have some background information about just where the distinction between micro and macro evolution came from. One of the two creation myths included in Genesis includes the following

Quote

And God made the beast of the earth after his kind, and cattle after their kind, and every thing that creepeth upon the earth after his kind: and God saw that it was good.

Many creationists are willing to except so-called "micro-evolution" because it doesn't result in the emergence of a new species. They are unwilling to except "macro evolution" because it violates their interpretation of Genesis.
They entire distinction comes about because creationists are trying to force their so-called "science" to conform to what's probably a mistranslation of a mistranslation...

actually that isn't where the terms came from... from wiki

"Russian entomologist Yuri Filipchenko (or Philipchenko, depending on the transliteration) first coined the terms "macroevolution" and "microevolution" in 1927 in his German language work, "Variabilität und Variation".

Since the inception of the two terms, their meanings have been revised several times and even fallen into disfavour amongst scientists who prefer to speak of biological evolution as one process."

i suspect the terms fell into disfavor amongst scientists for the reason richard gave

PassedOut, on Jan 5 2009, 09:28 PM, said:

luke warm, on Jan 5 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

that doesn't help me, helene... why are they not two separate processes? my understanding, which may be flawed, is that macroevolution is that which results in a new species while micro- is that which results in changes within a species... as i said, my understanding may be incorrect... i'm sure someone will correct me as needed

Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve?

i'll have to read the link provided, i haven't done so yet

[helene_t]

TimG, on Jan 5 2009, 09:36 PM, said:

Darwin's theory, or breakthrough, is really natural selection, not evolution, isn't it?

Good question.

Today the term "Darwinism" refers to the theory of evolution by natural selection. The evidence for evolution is a bunch of facts collected by thousands of biologists, natural selection (in combination with the Mendelian* inheritance laws and mutations) is the theory that accounts for it. There has been (at least) one other theory accounting for evolution, namely the one of inheritance of acquired features, associated with Lamarch and Lysenko.

While Darwin was not the first to propose evolution, he was the first to provide large amounts of evidence for it. He may also have been the first to propose the idea that different modern species may descent from the same ancestor, which is very important of course.

The idea of evolution by natural selection has been proposed at least twice before Darwin (I am too lazy to find the refs, they are in Daniel Denett's "Darwin's dangerous idea"), but I think Darwin was the first to relate the idea to large amounts of evidence. The earlier two were just philosophizing.

Maybe most importantly, Darwin was the first to write decent books about evolution and natural selection, and thereby to have large impact on the scientific community and even the general public.

*This post-dates Darwin so when Darwin wrote his books, his theory had still a major hole. He recognized this himself.

[PassedOut]

luke warm, on Jan 6 2009, 06:18 PM, said:

PassedOut, on Jan 5 2009, 09:28 PM, said:

luke warm, on Jan 5 2009, 06:19 PM, said:

that doesn't help me, helene... why are they not two separate processes? my understanding, which may be flawed, is that macroevolution is that which results in a new species while micro- is that which results in changes within a species... as i said, my understanding may be incorrect... i'm sure someone will correct me as needed

Doesn't the information about "ring species" demonstrate nicely how new species evolve?

i'll have to read the link provided, i haven't done so yet

Because you seem to have read some about evolution, I figured you'd probably given some thought to "ring species" before Richard posted that link. It's one of the more commonly discussed examples of how evolution works.

I'm interested in whether this example affects your opinion.

[barmar]

ASkolnick, on Jan 5 2009, 02:41 PM, said:

Even I learned in Biology:
Ontogeny recapitulates phylogeny

That's not actually true. Early embryologists noticed some similarity between developing fetuses and ancestral forms (such as mammals fetuses having gills) and came up with this hypothesis. But as biologists have studied development more closely, they've found that there isn't really a strict correlation between ontogeny and phylogeny. We've inherited genes from all our ancestors, and some of them have active effects at various times during development, but not all of them and not necessarily in the historical order.

Quote

I don't know if a supreme being exists or not.  I'm not sure why it happening only once is any more or less likely than a supreme being.

Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.

[luke warm]

PassedOut, on Jan 7 2009, 09:43 AM, said:

Because you seem to have read some about evolution, I figured you'd probably given some thought to "ring species" before Richard posted that link. It's one of the more commonly discussed examples of how evolution works.

I'm interested in whether this example affects your opinion.

no, i haven't read anything on it... the soonest i'll be able to is this weekend (i mean read it, not scan it)

barmar, on Jan 7 2009, 11:44 AM, said:

Quote

I don't know if a supreme being exists or not.  I'm not sure why it happening only once is any more or less likely than a supreme being.

Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.

peculiar... i'd think occam's razor more easily fits in with a creator rather than no creator... another peculiarity to me is how non-believers can see the same things believers see yet can not see intelligent design in them

[jdonn]

Lukewarm I'm curious, have you thought about Helene's paint analogy? I think it's a really good analogy despite being (or because it is?) very simple.

[mikeh]

[quote name='luke warm' date='Jan 7 2009, 06:27 PM']
Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.[/QUOTE]
peculiar... i'd think occam's razor more easily fits in with a creator rather than no creator... [/QUOTE]

That is true only because believers in supreme beings shut down their analytical faculties at the point where they state: God did this.

God is, to a religious person, what a 'black box' is to an engineer... it is a device that does something important, but for current purposes, need not be analyzed.

Of course, some would argue that, when we are looking at ultimate causes, the black box should be analyzed

I admit that physics, as currently understood, only takes us so far... we can explain the universe from a very early time.. tiny fractions of a second after the big bang... all the way to star formation, planetary creation, and the beginnings of life... and string theory suggests that we may be able to intellectually envisage some form of existence beyond that currently susceptible to detection via technology... but no-one yet has any explanation, founded in physics, that answers the ultimate questions about why the universe or multiverses exist.

It may well be that the question is meaningless. It may also be that minds that evolved as our did are incapable of ever comprehending the 'answers'.

But calling the as-yet-unknown areas 'god' is not recourse to Occam's razor.. it is an intellectually lazy avoidance of thought.

As for Skolnick's issues... I suspect that part of the problem may lie in terminology. When I was a student.. high school level... I never studied these areas in university... I learned that a species was a distinct grouping of individuals. Physics was also taught, at that time, in an analogous manner.

We now understand that almost everything is a continuum of some kind. We have opened our intellectual eyes to the reality of a far more complex, interactive, messy, and glorious reality. A reality in which viruses can transfer genes from one creature to another.. a reality in which the ring species to which others have referred can exist. A reality in which new species have arisen in laboratories.. a reality in which chaos theory results in a much more subtle understanding of the world than was possible 50 years ago. And so on, and so on.

We tend to lump entities into discreet blocks, presumably because the tendency to do so fostered reproductive success in our ancestors.. just as we presume that our tendency to see pattern in random dots (or the night sky) arose as an evolutionary adaptation. But, as we move from being primarily actors to being primarily thinkers, in terms of our interaction with the universe, these old tendencies can be counter-productive.. our common sense may be common, but it may no longer be sensible.

[helene_t]

mikeh, on Jan 8 2009, 02:03 AM, said:

That is true only because believers in supreme beings shut down their analytical faculties at the point where they state: God did this.

I think you are generalizing too much here. It appears to be possible for some to reconcile religion with scientific thought. I suppose it could go along the line of "we have to find out how God did it". Saying that God made the apple* hit Newton's head apparently doesn't necessarily stop one from accepting the law of gravity.

Or one could insist of keeping religion and science apart as Elianna described. (Not that I quite understand it but Codo approved it )

In any case I know a few deeply religious (theist or otherwise) scientists and it seems to me that they don't think radically differently than I about scientific issues. There may or may not be differences with respect to "deep" philosophical thoughts about ultimative causes, but that could be true between two atheists as well (or between two theists, I suppose).

*It may be an urban legend but that doesn't matter for this purpose

[Fluffy]

Occam's razor? one of my favourites.

Non supreme being means universe and all the physic laws are there ad-oc, just appeared from nowhere, and have no purpose other than just exist.


Beleiving in god is more simple. There is something that is playing with us as barbie dolls and might create things if it ever pays enough attention to our little world.

[helene_t]

Fluffy, on Jan 8 2009, 01:42 PM, said:

Occam's razor? one of my favourites.

Non supreme being means universe and all the physic laws are there ad-oc, just appeared from nowhere, and have no purpose other than just exist.

Beleiving in god is more simple. There is something that is playing with us as barbie dolls and might create things if it ever pays enough attention to our little world.

Well, to each his own.

Occam's Razor was meant as a selection criterion for scientific ideas. The existence of God is not a scientific (testable) idea, unless one subscribes to a naive view of God as some physical being such as an old eremite who lives on Olympus.

But of course, if Occam's Razor is one of your favorites it's fine to use it for the selection of religious ideas as well.

[kenrexford]

If one cell, in a very short period of time, can diversify itself into a wildly complex matrix of multitudes of interrelated but completely different cells, then how hard is the next step of assuming that one wildly complex matrix of interrelated but completely different cells can tweak ever-so-slightly into a slightly different matrix of the essentiialy identical matrix, given thousands or millions of very short periods of time? Is this not simply that same one cell diversifying itself into a wildly complex super-matrix of different cells, interrelated in a more attentuated sense but nonetheless part of the same super-matrix?

Of course, I cannot even figure out how one amoeba becomes two amoebae. Sure, I have heard a bit about the mechanics, but it still makes no sense to me.

[luke warm]

jdonn, on Jan 7 2009, 06:43 PM, said:

Lukewarm I'm curious, have you thought about Helene's paint analogy? I think it's a really good analogy despite being (or because it is?) very simple.

not much, but i will... i only have time for short reads/replies right now and i'm afraid my computer at home might have a virus

mikeh, on Jan 7 2009, 08:03 PM, said:

That is true only because believers in supreme beings shut down their analytical faculties at the point where they state: God did this.

no we don't

Quote

I admit that physics, as currently understood, only takes us so far... we can explain the universe from a very early time.. tiny fractions of a second after the big bang...

no "we" can't... "we" aren't even sure the BB is correct

[vuroth]

luke warm, on Jan 7 2009, 06:27 PM, said:

barmar, on Jan 7 2009, 11:44 AM, said:

Quote

I don't know if a supreme being exists or not.  I'm not sure why it happening only once is any more or less likely than a supreme being.

Occam's Razor. A supreme being requires a large number of unlikely things to be assumed. Spontaneous generation of life just requires the right chemicals and energy sources to be around, and it only has to happen once.

peculiar... i'd think occam's razor more easily fits in with a creator rather than no creator... another peculiarity to me is how non-believers can see the same things believers see yet can not see intelligent design in them

As to the appliation of Occam's razor, it really depends, doesn't it?

Scientists are trying to build a chain from the big band to the existence of all life on earth as we know it (as well as all physical phenomenon observable and reproducable via experiment in the universe). If you take the time to really try to read the theories, you'll find they have build some VERY impressive chains.

But yes, there are still some gaps. And really, if you're interested in applying Occam's razor to the divine intervention question, then really, you need to reevaluate every time the biggest gap in the scientist's chain gets smaller.

Of course, the gap size may reduce to zero, and it may not. It may also depend on whether a particular gap is bridged with solid scientific theory, or merely a "reasonable" hypothesis.

200 years ago, the gaps were vast. Now, the chains are vast, and the gaps are starting to be the exceptions.

Whichever side of the coin you're on, I think, the endgame is going to be very interesting. Closing the chain would be amazing, but so would scientific proof that the chain can not be closed.

V

[mikeh]

Fluffy, on Jan 8 2009, 07:42 AM, said:

Occam's razor? one of my favourites.

Non supreme being means universe and all the physic laws are there ad-oc, just appeared from nowhere, and have no purpose other than just exist.


Beleiving in god is more simple. There is something that is playing with us as barbie dolls and might create things if it ever pays enough attention to our little world.

I think you miss a very important point.

I assume that your idea of God is that it is some entity that existed before the universe came about... we needn't worry about whether it continued thereafter, for now.

What does it mean to 'exist' in the absence of the universe?

Does time exist before the universe? If so.. how does it pass...

If time does exist before the universe, that implies an origin... a beginning... of what?

Beginnings imply (to our meat brains) something 'before' the beginning. What was that?

When did your God begin?

What preceded your God?

If your God began... why? Was it created? By what? And the questions about your God then arise about God's creator?

If your answer is that God always existed and that these questions are meaningless.... consider.... I would argue that perhaps it is the universe that has always existed, in the sense that time did not exist BEFORE the universe came into existence (the Hawking no initial boundary condition proposal).

Surely you can see that the argument that God always existed is equivalent to the argument that the universe always existed? Or that the argument that God somehow came into existence and that we cannot understand why or how is no more explanatory of anything than is the argument that the universe somehow came into existence without any divine act?

All you have done, with your resort to God as the ultimate cause is to push the questioning one level further than is needed... or (and this is my suspicion about virtually all believers) you have decided that all thinking has to stop once you invoke the God explanation. That is not, regardless of how you may wish it to be, an application of Occam's razor.