As you've noted time and again, Darwin's theories DO NOT REQUIRE the absence of God, any more than the presence of a contractor and crew at a building site mean that no architect exists.

I might celebrate more if I didn't suspect that psychoanalysis was being buried to cut a clear path for a profession that wants free rein to prescribe endless drugs to correct my chemical imbalances and badly aligned neurons.

I don't know how useful it is to condemn these three as "wrong". They all had a lot of insights, some useful, some not. For instance, the idea that the depressed may be subconciously piling layers of irrational guilt on themselves and can benefit from an assisted self-analysis as to why can be very helpful. Marx on alienation resonates with a lot of conservatives. Darwin obviously saw something real. If they had seen themselves as panners for gold in the mystery of life--finding occasional nuggets in tons of sludge--their legacies might be more generally celebrated. But each felt compelled to build a whole self-contained, rational theory of the human condition and, of course, failed and bequeathed us disciples that caused untold damge.

The catastrophe was their unquestionning application of science (pure and noble, of course) to human affairs.

Michael has it exactly right. Nothing about Darwinism kills God, although certain anodyne versions of God, and literal interpretations of some scriptures, may have difficulties.

Peter:

Marx is clearly guilty as charged. But I think you have to read an awful lot between the lines to find a "self-contained, rational theory of the human condition."

Jeff:

Class warfare?

Jeff/Michael:

But unless you drop the randomness and purposelessness, aren't you left with a strange deity that created the universe in a millisecond of sublime creativity and then retired for eternity?

Michael:

That's right, what Darwinists beolieve to be Nature and randomness may well be God--but that destroys Darwinism.

I've said this before, but there are two clear logical ways of combining God (by which i mean a single, conscious deity) and Darwinism:

1) God started it off and then, as you put it, 'retired'

2) darwinism is true, but instance of anything happening which pertains to evolution (even though that instance is sufficient), God also wants the exact same thing to happen.

Admittedly, 1 makes God rather slothful, at least within timescales that we can comprehend. And 2 makes him a bit of an irrelevance, like a sports spectator who wants his team to win, and it happens to win.

OJ is right to suggest that calling the processes of natural selection 'God' would negate darwinism if we claimed there was teleology involved. Which is why darwinists don't claim it.

Peter:

I'm sorry, I don't understand what you mean by "class warfare."

You are overextending Darwinism's scope into astrophysics. Darwin has nothing at all to say about anything before, and including, the first instance of life on Earth.

The question really amounts to whether God, as revealed in nature, is more consistent with Darwinism, or, say, Genesis.

Who are we, mere humans, to say which conception of God is "strange?" We can say which is preferable to us, but I don't see how that is in any way binding upon God's actuality.

OJ:
That is quite wrong. God may well act in ways that perfectly mimic randomness to get some God-desired outcome and we would never be the wiser. Darwinism would still describe the observed phenomena.

If God acts in ways that are not random, then Darwinism takes a dive.

i missed out the words 'in each' in number 2 above.

It should read:

2) Darwinism is true, but in each instance of anything happening which pertains to evolution (even though that instance is sufficient), God also wants the exact same thing to happen.

OJ:

I'm not sure that follows. Randomness is in the eye of the beholder, and to answer Peter's point, I'm not sure it makes sense to discuss 'when' things are done by an entity outside space and time.

Of course, it also depends on exactly how you define the difference between 'evolution' and 'darwinism'.

Peter B, oj:

Why are randomness and God unable to co-exist ?
Humans use a lot of random processes, or processes that have random components, that manage to produce items or work that we find desirable.
For instance, my internal combustion engine doesn't burn anywhere near ALL of the molecules of fuel I put into it, nor can I predict which molecules will combust, and which not, but it still manages to lurch from point A to point B (or near enough).

As God is neither omnipotent nor omniscient, (and who should know that better than S/He), wouldn't it make sense to design a self-correcting system, where each change, whether God-directed or random, is automatically met with an optimal response ?
Especially since any God-directed change is going to result in both desired and undesired effects, due to the interlocking design of the universe.
Now, this view does mean that a whole lot of imperfect people get born, and die perhaps prematurely, but God doesn't view the carnal part of our lives in anyway near the same way that we do.

Alternatively, God IS omnipotent and/or omniscient... In which case, by reviewing all that we know has happened to the Earth, the environment, and the biosphere since creation, we can conclude that God is, by human standards, insane.
Or, humans are NOT the point and pinnacle of God's creation, which is perhaps worse.

>... aren't you left with a strange deity that
>created the universe in a millisecond of sublime
>creativity and then retired for eternity?

Which is the basis of 18th Century Deism.

Has anybody stopped to consider that God might have done this in one sense -- set up a self-sustaining "operating system" for the cosmos to run on its own so that He could interact with it in another manner? Like setting up a giant game of SimEarth, letting it run, and waiting until "Protohumans have Evolved (boop boop beep beep boop)" to step in, "ensoul", and interact with these creations?

Michael:

"by human standards" sort of forfeits the argument.

"But unless you drop the randomness and purposelessness, aren't you left with a strange deity that created the universe in a millisecond of sublime creativity and then retired for eternity?"

Peter, who said that the deity couldn't be strange? And strange from who's viewpoint? Have you read Job lately? How is it that you can judge the proper attributes for God? Do you find that kind of god strange because you have an understanding of how a universe creator should behave, or because you don't want him to behave that way?

Brit:

Don't claim it, but it's implicit.

Robert:

I am delighted to see you rely on Job as an authority, although I rather think that puts paid to the kind of god we are considering here. He was pretty involved as I recall.

No, I cannot answer any of those questions in terms that would satisfy you, although I could try theologically. You are forgetting all about revelation and human experience, but no matter. However, you guys are positing a very convenient deity, one that can be ignored completely in the story of life and completely validates secular materialism. Why would you bother?

The point I am trying to make from Job is that he had a certain expectation of how God was to behave. I seem to recall one of the resposes from the angel was something to the effect of "have you ever created a world from scratch? How is it that you can judge what is proper for God to do?" Your reply reminded me of that passage.

Of course, everything turns out just as Job had wished, and better. The lesson being that if you don't place any expectations on God, he will reward you by fulfilling your expectations.

Peter, I thought you were going to read Mayr. You won't find anything about a "whole rational theory of the human condition" there.

You and Orrin keep sneaking teleology back in. Fine. But that is not a critique of Darwinism.

It's a critique of your caricature of Darwinism.

What you accuse me and Jeff of doing to Christianity with the Inquisition, although in that event, instead of sneaking something, in you have to sneak something out.

Harry/Jeff:

Marx developed a theory of man's economic nature, where he came from and where he was going, inevitably. Freud developed a theory of the unconscious, which promised to explain why we do what we do. Darwin posited a theory encompassing the history of all natural life and offering an explanation of how we (and all other life) developed physically and socially. All claimed to use the scientific method. That is all I meant, but it's a fairly signficant all, isn't it?

Peter:

There's nothing more enjoyable than listening to them try and differentiate Darwin from the other two. It really shows that no one questions his own faith. Nor should he.

Robert:

I understand that was your point, but just about a week ago you were railing against G-d's immorality in the story of Abraham and suggesting He didn't deserve our devotion. Now you are slapping my wrist for being presumptuous. Colour me confused.

Just as I cannot be sure in rational terms that the world wasn't created by a three-headed donkey, I cannot be sure the god you guys are suggesting isn't real. But what I believe, I have reasons for. Why would you guys even consider believing in the one you are describing? Could it possibly be to get those irksome religionists off your backs? :-)

"Could it possibly be to get those irksome religionists off your backs? :-)"

One can only wish! No, it is just to be able to have a rational discussion about Darwinism without having to bring God into the equation.

Robert:

Kind of close-minded, isn't that?

Robert:

I understand your frustration. We can't have a decent debate on spirituality around here without some fundamentalist roaring in to rant about witches, Aztecs or some voodoo idea called innate morality.

I don't have any trouble distinguishing among the three.

One was non-teleological and the others were teleological.

It is, in fact, the only difference that Orrin cares about, because it is the lack of purpose that bothers him about Darwinism.

Nobody gets bent out of shape, not even the strictest fundamentalist, about the evolution of the dicots.

Oh it is teleological all right. It wouldn't be if all it said was that the question of causes was outside its purview, but it doesn't. It says natural history is random and purposeless, i.e. inconsistent with the idea of causation. That qualifies.

Peter:

That doesn't quite square. To be teleological, Darwinism would require a goal, and a plan to get there.

Try as hard as I might, I can't find them.

Elsewhere, Jim Hamlen mentioned that St. Paul had "in Christian theology (Psalm 19 and St. Paul in Romans) we are told that God has revealed himself in nature to the extent that knowledge of him (yes, knowledge) is plain, such that we are accountable for unbelief."

Well, I guess that makes me accountable for my unbelief. That also makes everyone accountable for not seeing the God nature portrays. On what basis do you Darwin didn't get close to the mark? Other than personal preference, that is.

That also puts paid to the notion Darwin is a God killer.

That's logically silly, Peter.

If I say I don't care whether the coin falls heads or tails, and you flip it and it comes up heads, that's not teleology.

At a minimum, teleology has to be declared beforehand. You cannot pull the black queen out of the deck and say, "Aha, I knew all along it would be the black queen."

Darwinists are insistent that natural selection cannot produce humans or any other species, and that if you rewound there is next to zero chance you'd get the same sequence of events.

I understand that you guys want Darwinism to say different, but it is not a critique to tell a falsehood about somebody and then say, "See, I caught you in a lie!"

The end of Darwinism is fitter organisms--by no coincidence it has ended with Man. It is teleological, just quietly to avoid embarrassment.

Jeff/Harry:

As Orrin said, this is one of those aspects that evolutionists will be very careful about when challenged directly, but slip up on tangentially. Here is Mayr (I kept my promise Harry):

" The discrimination against outsiders, which is perhaps the major reason for the resistance to a worldwide acceptance of a broadly conceived human ethics, is gradually being overcome by some basic social principles, such as equality, democracy, tolerance and human rights."

and;

"Our superb brain has enabled us to create one invention after another by which to become increasingly independent of the environment. No other animal was ever able to exist successfully on all continents and in all climates."

and especially;

"Modern humans, by contrast, constitute a mass society and there is no indication of any natural selection for superior genotypes that would permit the rise of the human species above its present capacities. With selection for improvement no longer being exercised, there is no chance for the evolution of a superior human species."

Sounds to me like we've crossed the finish line, give or take a UN convention or two.

"The end of Darwinism is fitter organisms--by no coincidence it has ended with Man.."

It makes no more sense to assert the end of Darwinism than it does to mark the end of a circle. Evolution results in organisms that are sufficiently fit at any given moment with respect to the total environment--mammals are no fitter now than dinosaurs then. Other than that, you are right on track.

Peter:

I'm not clear how any of those refutes natural history up to post-Industrial humanity. Ironically, the last rather seems to substantiate it. Up until modern humans, no species could view their future teleologically. (It is no refutation of Darwinism, BTW, that evolution could result in a species with such capability.)

But now there is one. And Mayr's guess is that teleological ability will put the brakes on non-teleological evolution. The advent of the latter highlights the former.

I'm still looking for the tangential slip-up.

I recommend "Non-Zero, The Logic of Human Destiny" by Robert Wright. Not particularly about evolution (although Gould comes in for a bit of a drubbing); rather, it focuses on Mayr's last quote above.

Jeff:

So you agree that what Mayr is saying is just a guess? If so, what authority are we supposed to accord it? Is "Gotta better explanation?" your final riposte?

Other than that, you have lost me. What has post-industrial society got to do with evolution? It's not exactly like man hasn't had any survival struggles since then.

I understand that, strictly speaking, evolution denies a teleological purpose, but my point is it seems to have to grab onto teleological thinking in order to explain the fact that man appears to have been totally outside the operation of the theory since homo sapiens first appeared in the savanna. (so have a lot of other species--seen much change in the cat in the last few million years). Dawkins seems to think the answer may be sexual selection (another guess?)but Mayr clearly thinks that theory applies to all species and is part and parcel of the package. Harry is suggesting our genotype is now so comfy that not even a new Black Death would do anything, while I assume he is convinced speciation is going on all over my backyard. C'mon Jeff, these are serious objections. You guys insist this is all hard fact and that our only problems are religious blinders and an obtuse refusal to "understand". Why does evolution seem to be so solid on itsy-bitsy, icky things and then stumble into guesses and conjectures the higher up you go. Mayr on "How did Mankind Evolve" is 100% conjecture (he admits it) and doesn't even make sense at times.

BTW, maybe Harry should answer this, but up above he distingushes Darwin from Freud and Marx on the basis of teleology. What was teleological about Freud's theories?

Jeff:

You continue to fundamentally misaprehend Darwinism. It is a historical narrative attempting to tell us how we got to this point in time--the end of evolution--without invoking a deity. That's why it makes no predictions, is not testable, etc. It's not science.

"The end of Darwinism is fitter organisms--by no coincidence it has ended with Man. It is teleological, just quietly to avoid embarrassment."

OJ, Darwinism hasn't ended. No fat lady has sung. If you want to take the present moment as the halftime score, it has ended with Man, but also cockroaches, ferns, viruses, coelecanths (sp), seagulls, sea-lampreys, mosquitos, ...... on and on. In what way are we fitter than any of these species? Do you want to place bets on the 3rd quarter score?

Robert:

Who came up with the theory? Us.

I bet the worms have a different one.

Yes, we came up with the theory, but the theory doesn't say "we win". There is no "win" in the theory, there is only not losing, or survival. It is an endless sudden death elimination tournament, all you ever get for survival is the right to play in the next round. There are no style points for creativity, we are no further ahead in the game than the worms.

Now if I were going to write the rules of the game, I'd want to rig it more in our favor than what Darwinism provides. If I were a betting man, I'd put my money on the worms.

Robert:

You guys even acknowledge that we've won free of Darwinism, that it no longer controls us, uniquely among all the species in the Universe. How welse define the winner?

OJ I, for one, do not share that view. If our massive brain allows us to separate sexual desire from procreation, then it may end up being a massive liability in the end. Our future is not assured.

Freudianism is hardly a coherent theory, but is teleological in the sense that early influences are considered as controlling later outcomes; and it does not seem to allow for mutation -- in contradiction to Orrin's view that Freudianism is utopian, I read it as guaranteeing stasis.

Darwinism doesn't say that. It allows for (non-heritable) development in the phenotype; and for mutation in the genotype.

Peter:

Yes, I suppose I agree that Mayr is hazarding a guess, but a very educated one. Population genetics is a branch of mathematics combining statistics with observations of how genes work--and strongly substantiates Darwinism.

Among other things population genetics predicts is that where virtually all members of a large population successfully reproduce, and there are no isolated groups (that is, there is significant genetic crossflow throughout the population), the gene pool will remain virtually static over time. To the humanity coincides with these conditions, evolution will be equally static. There is utterly nothing non-Darwinian about that. In fact, the proof is in the pudding. Aboriginal Australians were a small, isolated population. Population genetics mathematically predicts that population will change at a different rate than the rest of humanity. That turned out to be the case. Given the amount of genetic divergence of Aborigines from the rest of humanity, population genetics predicts that they would have become a separate species given another 50,000 years of isolation.

That points towards your objections are far less serious than they first appear. Any species that exists under the conditions outlined above will have slow to non-existent rates of change over time, and humans are by far from the only ones in that category. The evolution Harry has been talking about occurred under far different circumstances, and typically, if not always, involved reproductively isolating a small portion of the founder population.

You seem to be transposing the general process of Evolution, and the details of how it happened. We will almost certainly never know precisely what happened to change the gene pool of the founder population of what eventually became humans from the last shared ancestor with the founder population that became chimpanzees. But not knowing the details does not contradict the overall process. For instance, I could conjecture that environmental changes force our founder population from an arboreal environment to savannah, where a tendency towards bipedalism would allow seeing over the grass; concurrently, the arms, no longer needed for locomotion, could provide reproductive advantage to those who had a tendency to carry things, and use primitive hand signals, which led to ... Internally coherent? Yes. Does it explain what is observed? Yes. True? Who the heck knows. But even if false, it doesn't contradict the overarching schema of natural selection: just because we don't know precisely how it happened doesn't mean natural selection didn't happen.

Evolution is a material answer to a material problem. So far, it has been completely consistent with material observations--including ones not known at the time. (Lord Kelvin used physics to prove the Earth wasn't old enough to allow for evolution. Neither he, nor Darwin, knew about radioactivity. So a material observation Evolution requires turned out to be true.) There may be some quibbling over the details, but not over the theory itelf.

Of course, it could all come a cropper tomorrow with some discovery that turns everything on its head. (It happened to Newtonian mechanics immediately upon the invention of a telescope that could resolve binary stars. Do you know why?

OJ:
Once again you caricature evolutionary theory, and insist it fulfill requirements you wouldn't apply to another science. As I mentioned above, population genetics is testable, and does coincide with Darwinism. Additionally, as mentioned before, Darwinism, unlike religious faith, is falsifiable. You cannot simultaneously believe plate tectonics to be true and evolution to be false whilst maintaining a shred of logical consistency.

In fact, plate tectonics is something you need to face squarely: Over the millenia, all Earth's surface area has moved all over the entire globe, causing significant changes in climate. Very few species are environmental generalists, so absent environmentally induced evolution, there wouldn't be any terrestrial life. But there very clearly is. Absent evolution, how do you explain that?

Jeff:

The similarity of flora and fauna in wide-ranging environments suggests it has little real effect. Some goats live on mountains, some in valleys.

Ending in the current stasis.

Have you ever been to a desert?

Hugely different from where you live. I'll bet virtually none of the flora or fauna that survive in New Hampshire would live for a month in the Mojave, and vice versa.

Since land masses have made that climatological transit over time, the only reason flora or fauna made survived the transit is because they changed also.

The effects have been both real and large.

As for stasis, you are looking at time through a soda straw; no, a pipette. Even a racing car at full tilt looks like it is standing still if you restrict time enough.

Jeff:

I don't think you understand the objection. I think you are coming very close to turning Darwinism into a tautology. Your theory seems to be: A) There is this theory of natural history called evolution, born of some very insightful, but disjointed and far-flung, biological observations; B) We will test it by looking at the fossil record and other evidence, which is very, very incomplete; C) Based upon this evidence, we will adapt/amend the theory to make it consistent with the evidence (fair) and conjecture about the gaps on the basis of ideas we think are consistent with the evidence (very dicey); D) Once we have done that, we will argue the truth of the theory based upon its consistency with the evidence.

This would take too long a post, but Jeff, it is clear that the theories about the evolution of humans: a) are almost entirely speculation; and b)stop evolution in its tracks on the basis of a permanent stasis; and C) demand leaps of common sense and reasonableness.

Just one example. You talked about the aborigines of Australia. According to Mayr, they arrived in Australia 50,000 years ago as a part of a worldwide exodus out of Africa that had no discernable reason (Try that with any other species and see how silly it sounds). The same exodus arrived in East Asia only 30,000 years ago. Seeing as East Asia is on the direct route to Australia, and they presumably had no modern sophisticated navigational skills, how did that happen? The only conceivable way was to island-hop from East Asia, and even that involves a lot of assumptions. But more to the point, you say their isolation led them to a near-speciation (Damn! So close!). But why were they so isolated? If they got there from Africa, surely they could turn around.

Jeff, you are in the world of myth. Myth is not the same as error--there are truths involved in many of them. But it isn't science.

Jeff:

Trees, lizards, grass, snakes, bugs... Shocking, like another planet.

Sorry, the end of last sentence in the first paragraph (D) should read:"...with the evidence and our conjectures."

Peter:

I should separate little-e evolution from Big-E Evolution. The former is not in dispute. Everyone except Bible literalists agrees that life has changed over time. If I may be so bold as to speak for OJ, he also agrees. The difference, however, is over the source of change, and the source's plan.

Little-e evolutionists require Intelligent Design, some deus ex machina that is pulling the levers behind the scenes to make the whole process work towards a specific goal: Us. No further explanation is required, and evidence is utterly beside the point.

Big-E Evolutionists are those evil, universal bogeymen, terrifying to women and children, capable of making even a strong man shudder. They believe that any system that exhibits certain characteristics will change over time, and also achieve self-organized complexity in the absence of any overarching plan, or planner. Those characteristics are: Inheritance, gaussian variability, mutability, with consequent difference in resource gathering and reproductive ability.

With that in mind:
A) The biological observations are often far from disjointed and far-flung. Certain species that fossilize readily due to their "lifestyle" or structure provide extensive evidence.

B,C) The fossil record, in general, is incomplete. However, there are cases where it is very complete. The Evolution of the whale from land dwelling to aquatic animal is substantiated by a detailed fossil record AND geological record. The horse, wolf, are similarly extensive. So the question is: if the process is firmly substantiated in every case where extensive fossil evidence is available, is it reasonable to conclude it works in all cases? In other words, is it consistent with scientific reasoning to exclude exceptions when none have been found? Evolutionary theory is little-t true because it is completely coherent with all known evidence.

Next para.
a) Per the above, if there are no known exceptions to Evolutionary theory, then there is no reason to think Evolution could not have led to humans, although the details of precisely what and how are likely forever lost to time. In other words, if no plan was required to produce whales, is there any reason to assume a plan and planner was required to produce humans?

b) Population genetics is what it is--and humans aren't the only species to be relatively static over longish-periods. That said, humans have existed in their present form for about 100,000 years. That is far from a long time compared with, say, the shark. And permanency is a brave prediction to make about the future.

c) What leaps in common sense does this require? Less than 300 genes separate us from the chimpanzee, and our common ancestor lived 1.4MYA.

Re aborigines: even isolated mid-pacific islands become colonized by chance. Otherwise, they would be completely lifeless. (And life did not start on them independently--there are about 43 billion ways to write DNA, and all life on earth uses just one). The aborigines almost certainly go to Australia by accident, which means small founder population, and no genetic cross flow with the originating population, because there was no going back. The result was precisely as predicted by population genetics. Certainly, that must count for something.

So, no it isn't a myth. Of the species whose evolution is clearly detailed, Evolution is fully substantiated. Analogous systems precisely as Darwinism would predict. Computer programs to produce solutions to unsolvable--that is, the existence of an optimum solution cannot be proven--problems, such as network design, produce more optimum results than the starting designs provided by humans. The algorithm is Darwinian. Drugs are developed using Darwinism. On sign of a successful scientific theory is its wider applicability. Darwinism passes that test. Intelligent Design does not.

I strongly recommend "Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism" by Philip Kitcher. While the book is slightly dated due to Creationism presenting such a fat, slow, target, it does an excellent job of describing Evolution by contrasting it against what others say about Evolution.

OJ:

Surely, you jest. They are not the same trees, lizards, grass, etc. The Mojave has no trees, New Hampshire has no cacti or creosote bushes. The Mojave has no salamanders, New Hampshire has no Gila Monsters. Have you seen any tarantulas or scorpions up your way? Any diamond-back rattlers?

Nope, didn't think so. Well, if all continents have moved through widely disparate climates throughout their history, the only alternative to no life is life changing with respect to the environment.

Timber rattlers, diamondbacks, these are significant differences?

JefF:

"Big-E Evolutionists are those evil, universal bogeymen, terrifying to women and children, capable of making even a strong man shudder."

Don't flatter yourself, big guy. You are the ones that haunt your children with tales of the fabled religious right and the Inquisition. Do you think we intone "Beware the big-e evolutionist" to our kids?

"if there are no known exceptions to Evolutionary theory, then there is no reason to think Evolution could not have led to humans,"

Leaving aside the fact that you are hiding behind a lot of negatives, which can't be proven as we all know, there are reasons to decline to accept the theory as proven theory when there is evidence that the devlopment of a species didn't follow the internal rules of evolutionary theory.

I don't know where you came up with 1.4 mya. According to Mayr, it was 5-8 mya, and there is no fossil record, but no matter, let's go with it. What he says is the common ancestor evolved into australopithecus, who swung from African trees and didn't eat meat. Then an Ice Age causes the trees to disappear. Now defenceless in the face of predators, he "quickly" evolves a brain three times the size because "(they)depended for their survival on their ingenuity to cope with their defenceless position...". Ecco homo erectus and then, with a slighly larger brain, homo sapiens.

Then we read "What is perhaps most astonishing is the fact that the human brain seems not to have changed one single bit since the first appearance of homo sapiens." I'll say that is astonishing. We needed to triple our brain size to outsmart lions, but required no change to build the Catherdral at Chartres, write symphonies or develop the bomb. These came for free: "This enlarged brain made the development of art, literature, mathematics and science possible."

Am I to understand that evolutionary theory provides for mutations and adaptations that not only respond to immediate survival threats and pressures but also can go far beyond those pressures and lead to capacities, talents etc. that have nothing to do with the triggering pressure. I think I would understand your analogy to whales more if the whales not only adapted to their marine environment but went on to build Atlantis.

What exactly do you want me to conclude from our gene similarity to chimps? We also are composed of the same few elements, are mainly water and have all sorts of obvious physical similarites. Be a scientist here. What flows from that rationally?

Finally "The aborigines almost certainly go to Australia by accident". What is that supposed to mean? They were headed for New England and lost their way? Jeff, do you realize you have drawn a straight line from fossil records for horses and whales to certainty over such a conjectural improbability? It could be true in theory, for sure, but whence your certainty? "It could be true" is hardly a scientific assertion. That is an example of what I meant by myth.

Peter:

Where I came up with 1.4MYA was memory from something I read some time ago. I could well be wrong.

I think it is productive to separate the question. Does Evolution adequately explain the change in life over time, excluding humans? Secondly, does it explain the Evolution of humans from existing life?

As my continental drift example (I hope) demonstrates, the existence of one phenomena practically demands the latter, if life is to exist at all. Materialistically speaking, denying the latter, Evolution, requires a better explanation in its place. Therefore, I conclude that the answer to the first question is yes, because it is consistent with the evidence, and there is no other explanation on offer more consistent.

Now, as for the second. Your objections are completely reasonable--I find it amazing, as well. However, presuming there is no identifiable barrier that evolution is unable to cross, amazing is not the same as impossible. The brain's structure is not that of a mechanical calculator, a one trick pony. Consider a much simpler device, the computer I am working on now. Video editing, spreadsheets, word processing, ad infinitum are widely divergent. Yet all can be implemented through appropriate combinations of AND and NOT gates.

The human brain largely retained already existing capabilities--eyesight, hearing, etc. While greatly extending others, and possibly adding one or two more, primarily language.

The fact of Evolution is that all of this is mediated by genes, which are heritable, variable, and mutable. If one accepts that small changes are possible, but larger ones not, then, in order to be rationally consistent, one should be able to identify the "this far, but no farther" point. Since the material evidence overwhelmingly supports the notion of small changes, and even large, then absent an identifiable barrier, what conclusion makes sense?

What you are supposed to conclude from our genetic similarity with chimps are two things: 1. The genetics substantiate the fossil record. 2. The number of changes is completely consistent with known rates of genetic drift (see population genetics for those who don't believe evolution has any mathematical basis, or does not make predictions). Evolution, to be true, required that number to be small before it was known. Subsequent knowledge is consistent with the pre-existing requirement.

Aborigines. Remote islands never part of a larger land mass are not lifeless. Terrestrial life forms colonized themsomehow--and that somehow is a set of rare, fortuitous circumstances. It happens to birds, plants, and people. The founder population of Aborigines meant to get somewhere else, but didn't. By far the most likely outcome is death at sea, but very occasionally, what happens instead is fortuitously fetching up on a truly foreign shore.

Why is what I propose not a myth? Because it has been clearly demonstrated true for other organisms, and there is no evident reason why it could not be true for people.

Jeff:

Of course Darwinism adequately explains evolution. It's an ex post facto historical narrative. What it doesn't do is survive observation or testing, because it's not a science.

What observation or test does it not survive?

All

Wrong on the facts. Not surprising, though.

Jeff:

Surely you can't concoct a conjectural account of man's natural history guided only by the fossil record, and then point to its credibility on the basis that it is consistent with the fossil record. That is not a scientific test, it is a tautology.

Peter:

You are right, a conjectural account is just that. But a conjectural account is the beginning of a hypothesis, and one has to have a hypothesis before knowing what, if anything is testable.

A conjecture that is consistent with existing theory and observations is plausible, but that doesn't make it correct. (A point I think I explicitly noted earlier in this thread.)

That is why I approached this discussion the way I did--attempting to establish the general theory (if it is true for all verifiable cases, then it is logical to conclude it is true for all cases), while clearly understanding the implementation details may be forever lost to us.

Peter:

You know what Mayr says:

"Darwin introduced historicity into science. Evolutionary biology, in contrast with physics and chemistry, is a historical science - the evolutionist attempts to explain events and processes that have already taken place. Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques for the explication of such events and processes. Instead one constructs a historical narrative, consisting of a tentative reconstruction of the particular scenario that led to the events one is trying to explain. "

The conjecture is all they have to offer.

Once again, wrong on the facts. Once again, not surprising.

Of course he is, but he's our agreed expert on Darwinism.

Jeff:

OK, but if you are going to proceed that way, don't you have to at least submit to a test of plausibility? Your total (and exclusive) fealty to the fossil record and population genetics has led you to bet the pot on quite a fantastic story:

A) Right after Mayr tells us the brain stopped growing because the genotype had no more pressures in the African environment, he says: "A wave of homo sapiens eventualy broke out of Africa and spread rapidly all over the world." What? One minute Africa is just the ticket environmentally and the next it is like Stalag Luft III. ("Schmidt, vere are ze homo sapiens?") Have you thought about how many myths and faiths are based on originating voyages? But at least they generally provide reasons. What in the world caused this to happen? In all directions, no less?

B) If man undertook such a colossal venture, why didn't the chimps as well? Same ancestors, same environmental pressures. Why did they stay put and just find some more trees so they could stop evolving? I guess big brains are overrated.

C) So, the brain doesn't have to change one bit to allow us to meet the challenges of surviving in remote and savage lands, but some of us still have to pass through Lithuania (Harry, not Mayr) to evolve light skin and blue eyes? In a few tens of thousands of years?

Jeff, here comes the heresy. Using a test of plausability, isn't it far more likely man evolved/appeared/developed his big brain, etc. in more than one place? Don't accuse me of advancing such a theory because I am not. I am simply asking whether it is more plausible. And don't panic, theology is clumsy on this one too.

Remember now, this isn't all academic. The Mayr account, or Mayr-like accounts, are being taught to our children as scientifically proven fact and their proponents are struggling to keep other conjectures out of the schools on the basis that they are myths and have no basis in reality.

Peter:

Good questions. Being merely a mildly well read amateur, I don't know. I'm reasonably certain no one does, so all that is left is conjecture.

Keeping in mind, of course, that there is a difference between the overarching validity of the theory, and its specific applications. (As an example, no one doubts the overarching validity of Newtonian mechanics in its domain, but that doesn't mean that many-body problems are solvable.)

A) Pressures come from different sources: the environment itself, other species occupying the same niche, and, at least as importantly, other members of one's own species. In a previous thread on migrations, given the minimal distances people moved in a generation, any direction is as good as another. No matter where you live, forty miles away is going to, in general, look an awful lot like where you already are.

B) Two words: clothing, fire. Almost all life is relatively tightly climatologically bound. Fire, and using animal skins as clothing removed that fundamental restriction. Credit the general purpose problem solving machine between our ears for that.

C) No. The conjecture I have found most plausible (and not the one Mayr proposes) is that changing environment put proto-humans onto the savannah, which favored bipedalism, which in turn freed up the arms for something other than locomotion, which enabled sign language, which had huge positive feedback loop in terms of brain development, because humans could cooperate much more effectively to hunt, and those humans who hunted better survived better. Language involves symbolic manipulation, leads to a whole other bunch of knock-on effects. (BTW--Karla Labov,a linguist, wrote a book about twenty years ago called "Women's Place in Language." Her thesis was that English, by its very nature, relegated women to second class status. So she did the logical thing, and looked for a language where that wasn't the case. Couldn't find one. Her thesis: men, as hunters, used language far more dynamically in forming hunting teams. Hence the universal pattern...)

Your final question is far from heresy. I thought the argument between Multiple Migration and Out of Africa theories had been decisively decided through mitochondrial DNA analysis in favor of the latter. But Harry (I think) says otherwise, and I haven't read anything on the subject in 5 or so years.

Another perplexing question is that of the Neandertals. They clearly existed, were significantally smarter than all other animals except humans, and were phylogenetically related to humans. Hmmmm...

To me, bipedalism, which in and of itself isn't particularly a huge evolutionary leap, is at the root of our specific evolution. It makes all other subsequent changes, which are really a matter of degree (no matter how extreme) rather than kind, materially understandable follow-on effects.

Is that anything more than conjecture? No. But is the process containable within Evolutionary theory? Yes, completely. Does that make Evolution True? Who's to know? Does that mean Evolution has truth value obtained through application of the scientific method?

What do you think?

Jeff:

Well played.

Peter

You're asking the right questions, which is to say, that your objections are in the right category (as opposed to most of OJ's objections, which are in the wrong category. OJ's objections require us not to provide detailed answers from our postion, but to explain over again what our position is, and why he's not objecting to it at all).

To find the scientific answers to your questions, you can read about genetic drift and population bottlenecks. And also take a look at Punctuated Equilibrium if you like browsing wikipedia.

Re: your 'myth' objection...I'll try to put this as succintly as possible:

Modern Synthesis (or since we are already, let's call it big-e Evolution) posits that all you need to explain the fact that life on earth has changed over time is a set of rules and a lot of that time. You don't need a designer to make change happen.

We know some things about genes: replication, mutation, inheritability. We also know that the earth has had a changing environment over its history. Now, assuming that these things are the 'rules', over large amounts of time you would expect populations to look different at points x and y in the timeline.

That's just mathematics. We can test whether these basic mathematical principles are true with even the simplest computer programs.

Evolution has scientific credibility because the observations support the theory. And while certain observations could falsify the theory, none have so been made.

Note, as has been said before, that this non-teleological concept of evolution, which has no need of a conscious designer to produce change, says nothing about the origins of life or why we have these particular rules. That's why Darwin is not necessarily a 'God-killer', just a 'literal interpretation of Genesis-killer' (but then, so is a lot of science).

Big-e Evolution just notes that the rules are there and that those rules are sufficient to explain the fact that life looks different at different points in time.

So, what is a "correct-category" objection to Evolution? It would be an objection that says: but look at this...the rules aren't enough to explain it."

Those questions are being raised all the time by the people who study evolution. And that's why some theories have been rejected and others refined.

But so far, nobody has managed to find anything that falsifies the basic non-teleological approach.

Brit:

That is, of course, precisely wrong. If you reason back from a result and formulate rules to reach it you've got an undisprovable systewm by definition. That's why it isn't science, but a historical narrative.

so, as Jeff is always saying, you must reject plate tectonics by the same reasoning.

Do you?

I have no opinion on plate tectonics, but I'd note that tyhe theory predicts certain prospective things and they happen, unlike Darwinism which is entirely retrospective and, therefore, as Mayr says, not testable.

Jeff:

What do I think? This post started with a discussion of the links among Freud, Marx and Darwin. Harry thinks teleology makes a big difference, but I don't see that as relevant even if I agreed with him, which I don't. What does connect them is that they and their disciples simply can't stop! The theory becomes all and facts are forced in to make it fit. Not at all unlike cults and religious literalism.

Why couldn't Darwinists simply say that the theory seems to take them up to a certain pre-historical point and after that, nobody knows? It seems clear that human consciousness throws the theory all awry--in fact, it takes man right out of it all together. Nothing in any of the higher mammals seems to have changed in a very long time. In a sense, Mayr has set himself up by letting a scientific theory "mutate' into a self-contained world view. He can't handle mystery, so he writes a natural history of man that he admits has no basis in proven fact but still he gets testy with doubters and calls them ill-informed. (And he gets even wilder when dealing with ethics)

This, not the science, is what makes a lot of Darwinists so hostile to faith, as were Marxists and Freudians. It is also what makes them dangerous. With respect, I think it is also what makes you struggle so hard to try to explain this year's Chevy model using evolution. Face it Jeff, there are few good scientific reasons to include the story of man in the theory except a visceral compulsion to defend the theory and exclude competing theories That is I think why Orrin calls it a faith, and I agree.

I think it is time for Darwinists to learn the virtues of doubt and humility.

P.S. Re: Clothing, fire. That seems to suggest we were more advanced than the chimps. If, so why did we leave and they stay? If evolutionary changes are caused by survival pressures, where did that non-forced wanderlust come from? Jeff, I swear I will scream if you tell me that this is the first proof of your theory that evolution can explain modern mass tourism. :-)

OJ

Perhaps you'd like have a look at it then, since exactly your objection would rule it out as a science.

it is not possible to test whether the earth's crustal plates have moved in this way over the last 4.5bn years, because we haven't got 4.5 billion years and an earth to experiment with.

all you can do is posit a theory and observe whether the evidence supports it. nobody seems to have a problem calling this 'science'. i suspect that's because they don't perceive any consequences for their religious beliefs if the theories are true.

Brit;

What Orrin said. I understand you don't "need" a designer. Of course you don't. The theory says it all happened randomly from a simple beginning. Ex post facto conjectures are then made to fit the theory AND then defended because they fit the theory. Nice work if you can get it.

Peter

That objection looks fair, but in fact it isn't.

Here's why:

You're trying to portray Darwinists as having started with a complete theory explaining everything, and then, when certain bits of evidence don't fit the theory, instead of rejecting it, we just keep adding bits and saying: 'look, we were right all along...". A bit like a cheating child making up the rules to a card game so that he always wins..."No, queens only beat jacks if its not Tuesday and it's not raining and you're not wearing red etc etc...."

But that's not the case, because we don't claim to have a complete theory that explains everything and every detail in the first place.

The basic position that we're defending here is the notion that evolution can be explained non-teleologically.

We're well aware that there are gaps in our knowledge of the specific mechanisms of speciation and genetic drift. So the mini-theories about specifics are developed, refined and rejected as the evidence demands.

That's why the details are always being debated. That's why evolutionary theory has changed. Darwin didn't know about DNA. Mayr and Dawkins and all the others disagree with each other on specifics, but they all agree the basics: that evolution can be explained with rules and time and without design.

On this site we get a lot of attacks on the basic non-teleological approach. This approach is falsifiable, but has not been falsified, even though lots of mini-theories about the specifics of speciation have.

Brit:

Tell it to the people of Bam.

Brit:

Oh, I understand that. I don't think you are cheating and I respect the brilliant minds at work. Of course the theory evolves in response to the fossil record, molecular clock, etc. It is the filling in of the gaps with conjectures I am addressing. Like everything that has happened in history for the last 150,000.00 years.

The details may be being debated constantly, but not the extent of the theory and what it does OR CAN OR WILL explain. The answer to that--everything--is holy writ.

Marxists and Freeudians continually debate the details too--gotta do something if the world isn't turning out the wat you predicted.

that's fine.

if so-called 'social darwinism' isn't your bag, then i'm not going to try to force it on you

OJ

Peter eloquently raises an objection. i've answered that objection. you should now respond to my answer, or at least show me that my answer doesn't address your objection.

instead, you've just raised the same objection again (but rather less eloquently)

which suggests to me that either you:

a)don't understand my answer; or
b)don't understand how arguments work; or
c)are just being childish (am not! are! am not! are...)

this happens quite a lot.

Brit:

I understand perfectly. You're relating your faith. I deny your faith. You are incapable of acknowledging it to be only a faith. Therefore argument is pointless, but it amuses me to drive you crazy. It is childish, but fun.

ok, so it's mostly 'c'.

a, b, & c

I know what you devoutly believe and that therefore argument is pointless, but it's fun.

OJ my friend, if you really do now have some inkling of what it is that I 'devoutly believe', then our little chats have been very far from 'pointless'.

Brit:

How could one not, it's a common orthodoxy.

heh heh.

a while back, when you were repeatedly attacking the common misinterpretation of natural selection, i wondered whether you were accidentally misinterpreting the theory, or deliberately misinterpreting it for the purposes of denigrating it.

in other words, were you being dull or dirty?

you're now trying to claim the latter: that you understood all along, and that you've been having your little bit of fun.

But I don't think I'm going to credit you with that. I suspect that you were just dull, have since gained an inkling that you were being dull, and are now pretending that you've been being dirty all along.

can't prove it of course. but I, for one, call it progress :)

What's hard to understand about it? You just credit Nature with everything that's ever happened. It's completely circular and undisprovable, merely a function of whether you want a morally imbued universe or a neutral one.

Lots of people find the basics hard to understand. Here's some more really basic misconceptions, clearly exposed. You've said 'em all. Nothing to be ashamed of, nearly everyone misconstrues the theory at first.

Also, in my experience, practical jokers don't tend to try to convince you that they're joking.

...They just carry on laughing...

I'm not joking. The theory is nonsense, but it is internally consistent, just like Marxism and Freudianism. It's only in the real world that they fail, not in the thought experiment stage.

ok, so now we know that the non-teleological approach to evolution is internally sound.

so tell me, how does it fail in the real world?

have you discovered a piece of evidence that exposes its failure?

No, it is teleological. It has to explain how we got where we are. It starts from a result.

hmmm...dirty or just dull?

"No, it is teleological. It has to explain how we got where we are. It starts from a result."

As does Newtonian Mechanics, Thermodynamics, Electro-magnetics, The Wealth of Nations, ad infinitum. Understanding the underlying rules is not the same as being teleological. Monopoly has rules, it is not teleological.

In order for you to make a serious contribution to this discussion, you need to concretely and specifically discuss the ways in which the theory fails to coincide with observations, or requires ad hoc agglomerations to accomodate them.

BTW--Darwin used his theory to make an important, ground breaking, prediction. Do you know what it was?

Brit:

Chartres. In fact, religion. Also, vice, consciousness, language, romance, suicide and a lot more. Plus the fact that our brains haven't changed in 150,000 years, but everything else about us has. I could add the fact that just about everything we need to know about evolution has been pretty much settled at precisely the same time Mayr's career came to an end, but that would be inductive reasoning and rather cheeky.

"if so-called 'social darwinism' isn't your bag, then i'm not going to try to force it on you"

Thank you Brit, thank you very much. Hold the neurons too, if you please.

The Wealth of Nations explained the world as Adam Smith saw it--we live in a different world but the theory has held up.

Darwin explained the world as he saw it and it's not changed a lick.

Jeff:

"In order for you to make a serious contribution to this discussion, you need to concretely and specifically discuss the ways in which the theory fails to coincide with observations, or requires ad hoc agglomerations to accomodate them."

You mean like you and Harry do with Christianity?

Peter:

Yes, actually. I try to be as serious and well informed as I possibly can be when discussing religion; I try to never make an assertion that I can't back up with something--or things--I have read; I try to take religion on religion's terms where applicable, or otherwise judge it against the historical record to the extent I know it.

That's what I try to do, anyway. As with mileage, however, your perception may vary.

Peter:

Yes, actually. I try to be as serious and well informed as I possibly can be when discussing religion; I try to never make an assertion that I can't back up with something--or things--I have read; I try to take religion on religion's terms where applicable, or otherwise judge it against the historical record to the extent I know it.

That's what I try to do, anyway. As with mileage, however, your perception may vary.