June 10, 2004
NOT BEEN FALSIFIED? CAN'T BE:
The 17-Year Itch: Brood X reappears, with clues to cicada behavior (Tabitha M. Powledge, 6/07/04, Scientific American)
For more than 100 years, entranced mathematicians and biologists have tried to explain why periodical cicadas have evolved these prime-number cycles. One idea has been that the different cycles reduce competition for resources and interbreeding, because 13- and 17-year broods in the same locale will emerge together only once every 221 years. But in fact, different periodical cicada broods tend to be dispersed; little geographic overlap exists among most of them. And they do almost all their competitive eating during their long underground years, when they are sucking sap from tree roots.Theorists have also argued that these oddball life cycles help cicadas to avoid predators and parasites with shorter, even-numbered life cycles. In 2001 researchers at the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Physiology in Dortmund, Germany, reported that prime-numbered life cycles emerged from their mathematical model of predator-prey relations.
Cicada researchers are deeply dubious about this explanation, however. The theory has not been falsified, notes evolutionary biologist Chris M. Simon of the University of Connecticut, because it cannot be tested. Her colleague David C. Marshall points out that true periodicity is rare in cicadas--separate groups of most species emerge every year. "If periodical cicadas evolved longer and longer life cycles to avoid a synchronizing parasitoid species," he notes, "then why has this apparently not happened in scores and scores of other cicada species that suffer predation and parasitism, not to mention in other kinds of insects and other animals?"
Boy, faith in Darwin requires one to believe in much pure nonsense, no? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 10, 2004 8:10 AM
Rather like faith in God. Water into wine, immaculate conception, rising from the dead, making the world in seven days....yawn. Zzzzzzzz.
Fairy tales for adults who ought to know better.
Still, you put your faith in faith, and I'll put my faith in reason. If I'm wrong, I'll go to hell (or purgatory, or New Hampshire), and if you're wrong - well, it won't cost you anything at all.
And, as a added bonus, you'll get to feel oh so morally superior!
I wonder who is taking the easier road?
Rather like faith in God. Water into wine, immaculate conception, rising from the dead, making the world in seven days....yawn. Zzzzzzzz.
Fairy tales for adults who ought to know better.
Still, you put your faith in faith, and I'll put my faith in reason. If I'm wrong, I'll go to hell (or purgatory, or New Hampshire), and if you're wrong - well, it won't cost you anything at all.
And, as a added bonus, you'll get to feel oh so morally superior!
I wonder who is taking the easier road?
Rather like faith in God. Water into wine, immaculate conception, rising from the dead, making the world in seven days....yawn. Zzzzzzzz.
Fairy tales for adults who ought to know better.
Still, you put your faith in faith, and I'll put my faith in reason. If I'm wrong, I'll go to hell (or purgatory, or New Hampshire), and if you're wrong - well, it won't cost you anything at all.
And, as a added bonus, you'll get to feel oh so morally superior!
I wonder who is taking the easier road?
Mr. Chellew:
We are:
http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/013345.html
Posted by: oj at June 10, 2004 11:20 AMWhat faith (I'd rather say, the confidence born from experience) in Darwinism leads to is questioning.
No answers are guaranteed.
You keep saying they just tell each other just-so stories. But this demonstrates that you're wrong, doesn't it?
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 10, 2004 2:15 PMHarry:
No. They just can't settle on a just-so story. If open-minded it would occur to them that natural selection has nothing to do with it.
Posted by: oj at June 10, 2004 4:50 PMTom Chelley:
Assuming it wasn't an accident, repeating the same post three times doesn't do much for your credibility.
OJ:
Is there some sort of reflex hardwired into your DNA to bash on evolution any chance you get?
You're reminding me of that radio preacher years ago (Calvary Chapel Costa Mesa, I think) who would go out of his way to bash Star Wars in every sermon he could (and he was really stretching it on some of them).
Posted by: Ken at June 10, 2004 8:49 PMI dunno, that accursed Wookie reminded me strongly of Satan.
Tom Chellew:
One fairy tale that no adult should believe, (be she religious or skeptic), is that we know all and see all.
There is far more going on in the Universe than human senses can detect; Our human reality, constructed of what we can perceive, is but a tiny fraction of all that occurs.
To say with certainty, that God does not exist, is to state that one is content with one's ignorance.
Posted by: Michael Herdegen at June 10, 2004 10:19 PMOrrin, if you had read any darwinian research reports, you'd know that the role of natural selection is reviewed constantly.
You just make yourself ridiculous to people who know the subject.
You're better than that.
Posted by: Harry Eagar at June 11, 2004 1:42 AMOJ's problem is that he still doesn't know his enemy. He gets his categories and levels mixed up.
Which is why he doesn't criticise Darwinism, he just heckles in its general direction.
Posted by: Brit at June 11, 2004 4:16 AM