Observed Speciation

[lucaspa]

It shouldn't be that difficult, unless you believe that sincerely held religious beliefs are legal and ethical grounds to discriminate against me being given the opportuinity to learn.

I thought you said NYMC. Refusing to accept evolution as a valid theory or science as a valid way of gaining knowledge about the physical universe does disqualify you, IMO, from being a physician. Such attitudes pose a danger to your patients. Since you are not going for medical school, your views in this area do not constitute an ethical problem.

I quote from my Evolution text.

Out of context. What "giraffe example"? Now, I am willing to bet a lot that the example is over the selection pressure for natural selection or the Lamarckian hypothesis of acquired characteristics. The trouble with Lamarck's hypothesis was that he didn't test it sufficiently. For instance, if stretched necks are inherited, how about bones that have been broken, healed crookedly, and now present a bent limb? Those types of acquired characteristics weren't inherited.

It should not be a problem to any scientist that his, or any other scientist's, or the scientific community work is met with skepticism. You haven't proven the theory part of Evolution, otherwise it wouldn't still be called a theory.

Oh boy! Someone didn't teach you what a theory is. Or you didn't pay attention. See my thread "Hypothesis and theory". Kenneth, this statement is so far off base that I despair of your future education.

If you have an ethical dilemma accepting folks who realize that, what you really have is an personal ethics problem.

What I have, Kenneth, is a problem with the ignorance represented by your statement. Ignorance of how science works and what the terms used by science are. Theories are not wild guesses. Theories are never proved in the strict sense of the word. However, theories are subjected to test and, when they are repeatedly failed to be shown to be wrong, theories are accepted as (provisionally) true. Remember, the earth is round is a theory. We accept it as true. The sun at the center of the solar system with the planets orbiting it is a theory. Do you consider it "proved"? If so, why?

Evolution -- both common ancestry and natural selection as the means of getting modification -- are both as "proved" as round earth and sun at the center of the solar system. That you are ignorant of the data that does that is your personal problem, not the problem of the theory or of science.

You can't? But when God intervenes, natural physical laws are broken resulting in a supernatural event. Science no longer explains that event. Only truth can explain the event. You can't speak the truth just because you're a scientist?

What example in science do we have of a breakage of physical laws and a definite supernatural event?

A contradiction between God's Creation and the Bible. Like when Abram was told he would have a son with Sarai when they were past child-bearing age? Like when the 12 spies brought back a true (but evil) report? Like when Jesus told the disciples to feed the multitudes when in their eyes they had no food?[/quote]No. Contradictions between geology and the literal interpretation of the Bible that says all geology was caused by the Noachian Flood. A contradiction between a literal interpretation of the Bible that the earth is less than 10,000 years old and God's Creation that says it is much, much older than that. A contradiction between a literal interpretation of Genesis 1 that "kinds" were poofed into existence and all the evidence that "kinds" -- however defined -- have evolved. I suspect that you were being deliberately obtuse in your comments.

Like the giraffe (among other animals) whose descent has no valid evolutionistic explanation? (BTW, I'm not letting other creationists do my research for me in this matter, as you probably would otherwise assume.)

I conclude, since a Google search shows several web pages claiming that the giraffe could not evolve.
http://www.pa.msu.edu/~sciencet/ask_st/061495.html
"Palaeotragus, transitional between early artiodactyls and the okapi & giraffe. Actually the okapi hasn't changed much since Palaeotragus and is essentially a living Miocene giraffe. After Palaeotragus came Giraffa, with elongated legs & neck, and Sivatherium, large ox-like giraffes that almost survived to the present. " http://www.holysmoke.org/tran-icr.htm
Using the Argument from Ignorance and claiming "there is no such information" is usually bad, as it was in this case. It took me two minutes to find references to proposed evolutionary explanations for the giraffe and transitional species for the giraffe. Remember, absence of evidence is not evidence of absence. Making a stand on the supposed absence of evidence will nearly always get you in trouble.

Answer: God's Word will be shown to be true.

There are different types of truth. No one is arguing with you that the Bible is theologically true. Instead, I am arguing that the scientific theory inspired from a literal interpretation of parts of the Bible is untrue.

 

[lucaspa]

For any of you who would wonder that Bible-believers are strangely under-represented in paleontology or any other scientific field, please read lucaspa's post #32. The implications of his having a "difficult ethical dilemma" with me entering a college in New York should be most seriously disturbing to you!

Kenneth, there was a misunderstanding. I thought you said NYMC. That would be the medical college. As I explained in the previous post, if you try to be a medical doctor, that does present an ethical problem.

Most physicians in the US are Christian, so your statement "Bible-believers" is inaccurate. What you meant was Biblical literalist creationists. And yes, there is a dearth of them because, when faced with the data, most of them give up Biblical literalism and creationism. I know of two Biblical literalist medical students who, by the end of their first year of medical school, had accepted evolution as true (I know about them because they both came to do research with me at the end of their first year). The evidence for evolution was simply overwhelming and they couldn't deny it. And they had the personal honesty not to deny it. They didn't stop being Christians, but by your standards, I suppose, they were no longer "Bible-believers". Of course, the standards are flawed.

 

[lucaspa]

I thought it was because you guys worked with disproven pseudo science in that field *shrug*

Which field, armed? Creationism? Yes, that would be true.

If you meant evolution, remember that creationism was the accepted scientific theory prior to 1831. The scientists who showed it to be wrong were all Christians and many of them were ministers. So, if they had a bias it would have been to keep creationism at all costs. Bottom line, you can't have it both ways:
1. If science were only committed to keeping the status quo, then science could never have dumped creationism in the first place.
2. If science were open enough to dump creationism and accept evolution based on the evidence, then science is open enough to dump evolution and accept creationism based on the evidence.

 

[kenneth558]

OK lucaspa, I'll let your confessed misunderstanding rest. Its your unconfessed ones that bother me now. Oh, if only I had the time! But Histology, Evolution and Cellular Biology classes call to me. After my Evolution speech on the giraffe, I'll get back on here....

 

[Mustelidae]

If you meant evolution, remember that creationism was the accepted scientific theory prior to 1831. The scientists who showed it to be wrong were all Christians and many of them were ministers.

I hate to hijack this thread (hopefully not),but the history of the topic fascinates me.
Will you please elaborate on these two points;
-to 1831? Where does this number come from?
-All christians? Is it so?
Thanks in advance,


Hey Kenneth,
Was "Evolutionary Analysis" a good coursebook? (for an evolutionist book,if we are to mention that...)

 

[kenneth558]

Hey Kenneth,
Was "Evolutionary Analysis" a good coursebook? (for an evolutionist book,if we are to mention that...)

It is readable, I suppose. The main problem with it is the same problem that I have with the whole of evolutionary theory - it expects the reader to be gullible, naive, and shallow-thinking. That is all through the book. But another serious problem is with chapter 3 specifically. The authors present a case against creationism using old quotes from creationists, new quotes from evolutionists. IOW, the creationists are being called incorrect without letting them have the last word. You'll be glad our courts don't work that way if ever you are a defendant in court. Plus, this section encourages the instructor to lecture on creationism ("The Theory of Special Creation" in our class). Since when does an evolution instructor have credibility to lecture on the latest information supporting Creation? My professor sure doesn't! She was giving us 150 yr old "creationist" material!

Here is an example of the reader expected to be shallow-thinking (pg. 96-98). To any thinking person, the eyeball is obviously a challenge to evolution. The case is laid out on page 97-98 using several paragraphs. As you read these pages, you are expecting a powerful answer to this challenge just because the case is well-articulated. The reader is emotionally swayed even before the answer to the challenge is given. As if a football stadium of fans were shouting "RAH! RAH!" Then....the answer is given. Its as persuasive as a stadium full of fans because of the prelude, yet no more intelligent. Here is the answer:

It is, however, sensible to argue that the types of eyes discussed here form an evolutionary pathway (Gould 1983, essay 1). That is, it is conceivable that eyes like these formed intermediate stages in the evolution of the complex eyes found in vertebrates, octopuses, and insects.

WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE IS THIS? No data, no facts, just a threat to "argue" and conceive. On pg 335 we find the sentence that really belongs right after the above quote:

The giraffe example demonstrates that we cannot uncritically accept a hypothesis about the adaptive nature of a trait simply because it is plausible. We must subject all hypothesis to rigorous tests.

There are innmerable examples of this kind of hypocrisy, as far as I'm concerned.

Have to go again...

 

[lucaspa]

I hate to hijack this thread (hopefully not),but the history of the topic fascinates me.
Will you please elaborate on these two points;
-to 1831? Where does this number come from?
-All christians? Is it so?
Thanks in advance,

No problem. I've posted this several times before. Source books include Genesis and Geology by CC Gillespie and The Biblical Flood: A Case History of the Church's Response to Extrabiblical Knowledge by Davis Young.

The most succinct summary is here:
"There is another way to be a Creationist. One might offer Creationism as a scientific theory: Life did not evolve over millions of years; rather all forms were created at one time by a particular Creator. Although pure versions of Creationism were no longer in vogue among scientists by the end of the eighteenth century, they had flourished earlier (in the writings of Thomas Bumet, William Whiston, and others). Moreover, variants of Creationism were supported by a number of eminent nineteenth-century scientists-William Buckland, Adam Sedgwick, and Louis Agassiz, for example. These Creationists trusted that their theories would accord with the Bible, interpreted in what they saw as a correct way. However, that fact does not affect the scientific status of those theories. Even postulating an unobserved Creator need be no more unscientific than postulating unobservable particles. What matters is the character of the proposals and the ways in which they are articulated and defended. The great scientific Creationists of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries offered problem-solving strategies for many of the questions addressed by evolutionary theory. They struggled hard to explain the observed distribution of fossils. Sedgwick, Buckland, and others practiced genuine science. They stuck their necks out and volunteered information about the catastrophes that they invoked to explain biological and geological findings. Because their theories offered definite proposals, those theories were refutable. Indeed, the theories actually achieved refutation. In 1831, in his presidential address to the Geological Society, Adam Sedgwick publicly announced that his own variant of Creationism had been refuted:

Having, been myself a believer, and, to the best of my power, a propagator of what I now regard as a philosophic heresy ... I think it right, as one of my last acts before I quit this Chair, thus publicly to read my recantation.

We ought, indeed, to have paused before we first adopted the diluvian theory, and referred all our old superficial gravel to the action of the Mosaic Flood. For of man, and the works of his hands, we have not yet found a single trace among the remnants of a former world entombed in these ancient deposits. In classing together distant unknown formations under one name; in simultaneous origin, and in determining their date, not by the organic remains we have discovered, but by those we expected, hypothetically hereafter to discover, in them; we have given one more example of the passion with which the mind fastens upon general conclusions, and of the readiness with which it leaves the consideration of unconnected truths. (Sedgwick, 1831, 313-314; all but the last sentence quoted in Gillispie 1951, 142-143)
Philip Kitcher, Abusing Science: The Case Against Creationism pp125-126

Rev. Adam Sedgwick was Chair of Geology at Cambridge and the foremost geologist of his time (he taught Darwin). By 1820 the Flood was limited to just the superficial gravels and morraines. Rev. William Buckland published Reliquae Diluviae in 1825, defending these superficial gravels in Europe as being caused by the Flood. But when Lyell published his book on geology in 1829-30, he was able to show by his research and others that these could not have been caused by a Flood (we now know they were caused by glaciers during the Ice Age). The evidence was so overwhelming that Sedgwick made his concession the following year.

This ended creationism until the 1920s when George McReady Price tried to resusitate Flood Geology. But it had been dead way too long and the evidence that showed it to be wrong still exists.

Oh yes:
http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/ce/2/part12.html
"Many evangelical Christians today suppose that Bible believers have always been in favor of a "young-universe" and "creationism." However, as any student of the history of geology (and religion) knows, by the 1850s all competent evangelical Christian geologists agreed that the earth must be extremely old, and that geological investigations did not support that the Flood "in the days of Noah" literally "covered the whole earth." Rev. William Buckland (head of geology at Oxford), Rev. Adam Sedgwick (head of geology at Cambridge), Rev. Edward Hitchcock (who taught natural theology and geology at Amherst College, Massachusetts), John Pye Smith (head of Homerton Divinity College), Hugh Miller (self taught geologist, and editor of the Free Church of Scotland's newspaper), and Sir John William Dawson (geologist and paleontologist, a Presbyterian brought up in a fundamentalist atmosphere, who also became the only person ever to serve as president of three of the most prestigious geological organizations of Britain and America), all rejected the "Genesis Flood" as an explanation of the geologic record (or any part of that record), and argued that it must have taken a very long time to form the various geologic layers. Neither were their conclusions based on a subconscious desire to support "evolution," since none of the above evangelical Christians were evolutionists, and the earliest works of each of them were composed before Darwin's Origin of Species was published. The plain facts of geology led them to acknowledge the vast antiquity of the earth. And this was before the advent of radiometric dating."

 

[lucaspa]

Here is an example of the reader expected to be shallow-thinking (pg. 96-98). To any thinking person, the eye is obviously a challenge to evolution. The case is laid out on page 97-98 using several paragraphs. As you read these pages, you are expecting a powerful answer to this challenge just because the case is well-articulated. The reader is emotionally swayed even before the answer to the challenge is given. As if a football stadium of fans were shouting "RAH! RAH!" Then....the answer is given.

You neglected to tell us what the "rah rah" was so we can evaluate it. All we have is your, admittedly biased, opinion.

It is, however, sensible to argue that the types of eyes discussed here form an evolutionary pathway (Gould 1983, essay 1). That is, it is conceivable that eyes like these formed intermediate stages in the evolution of the complex eyes found in vertebrates, octopuses, and insects.... Here is the answer: WHAT KIND OF SCIENCE IS THIS? No data, no facts,

This seems incomplete. For instance, I note the phrase "eyes like these". That indicates that the text did show you those eyes that could be intermediate in the evolution of vertebrate, octopus, and insect eyes. And those eyes are on living species.

So I think there were facts and data, but that you either didn't see them or chose not to admit that you did.

Anyway, for your own edification, get a copy of Climbing Mt. Improbable. Dawkins goes into great detail into the evolution of eyes -- he spends most of the book on it.

Introductory science textbooks at the high school level typically don't go into details of how conclusions were reached for the simple reason that there isn't time. So they give the conclusion without going into all the data that led to the conclusion. For instance, in chemistry did you get all the details about how it was decided that the hydrogen atom has one proton and one electron? Anyone discuss the specific papers that did that? Yet you don't seem to have the same skepticism about that lack. Why? Because it doesn't conflict with your religious beliefs? Is that a good enough reason?

 

[lucaspa]

On pg 335 we find the sentence that really belongs right after the above quote:The giraffe example demonstrates that we cannot uncritically accept a hypothesis about the adaptive nature of a trait simply because it is plausible. We must subject all hypothesis to rigorous tests.
There are innmerable examples of this kind of hypocrisy, as far as I'm concerned.

I asked this before and you blew me off. Let me ask this again:

What specifically is the "giraffe example" and why does it demonstrate the need to test the adaptive nature of a trait?

 

[lucaspa]

After my Evolution speech on the giraffe, I'll get back on here....

You are giving a speech on the evolution of the giraffe? Going to include the transitionals I posted to you?

I hope this isn't what it sounds like: you giving a speech to mislead people about evolution.

 

[lucaspa]

Kenneth It's late, I'm calling it a day. But I don't want to leave you hanging if your are serious in your qwest for truth. Go get your Bible and read. Yes, it will take a few weeks or months to get through. But it will answer many of your questions. Otherwise you may have to wait quite a while for me to get back here. Finals are coming up fast.

You didn't answer the question. When we have a contradiction between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible, why should we trust the interpretation?

Kenneth didn't answer the question, and I really want an answer. So I thought I'd put the question again.

 

[kenneth558]

When we have a contradiction between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible, why should we trust the interpretation?... ...Kenneth didn't answer the question, and I really want an answer. So I thought I'd put the question again.

lucaspa, the question you mean to ask is "Should we trust the interpretation?" Once that is settled (the answer is "It depends...."), I can answer that the reason we should is because God credits righteousness to us for believing Him. It should be obvious that believing God is a non-issue when our 5 senses and our natural intellect tell us the same thing as what God is saying. So believing God is only a discussible issue when what God says seems to contradict what our 5 senses and our intellect tell us.

And don't think I am blowing you off just because I can't answer questions as fast as you can can post them. For the next 10 days that's the way it'll be.

This is not my full answer to another question of yours, but the evidence of "intermediate" forms between the okapi and giraffe seem to be of large okapi skeletons. I'll be looking more into it, but don't expect me to swallow other people's interpretations to the contrary. I'll do my own thinking, thank you very much

 

[Jet Black]

you have swapped from believing God, to believing your interpretation of His word. Lucaspa's question is

When we have a contradiction between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible, why should we trust the interpretation?

 

[kenneth558]

you have swapped from believing God, to believing your interpretation of His word. Lucaspa's question is

I know, Jet Black, I know. God gives us understanding of His word when we seek Him for it. So I don't concern myself with discussion of the interpretation step. If you want to, go ahead. But the real issue is understanding, not interpretation. Of course, you would ask "How do we get understanding without interpretation?" How about if you answer that one?

 

[Jet Black]

so how come so many people understand differently?

 

[Mustelidae]

Lupasca,Kenneth,
Thank you very much.

 

[JohnR7]

When we have a contradiction between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible, why should we trust the interpretation?

Isn't that what got Jesus into trouble, when He refused to follow the traditions of man. Didn't it get a lot of the prophets killed, because they refused to go along with the establishments program?

 

[kenneth558]

Sexual Selection in Giraffe Neck Elongation
[Kenneth558], University of Nebraska at Omaha
Speech given on April 30, 2004

Abstract.— “Giraffes demand an explanation”, according to authors Freeman and Herron[sup]1[/sup]. But Robert E. Simmons and Lue Scheepers suggest in their 1996 The American Naturalist article[sup]2[/sup] that the classic evolutionary explanation of giraffe neck elongation lacks credibility when scientifically scrutinized. Therefore, based on their own research and that of others, including David Pratt and Virginia Anderson[sup]3[/sup], they propose an alternative hypothesis to the classic Darwinian feeding competition idea: sexual selection favors males with more massive necks. In their defense, Simmons and Scheepers argue that current research leads to failure of three of four predictions arising from the classic feeding competition hypothesis’ assumptions, while all predictions arising from assumptions of the sexual selection hypothesis hold true. I present their case - not as one convinced of their conclusions, but as a critical audience suggesting other issues appear to have been overlooked. As Freeman and Herron admonish, “The giraffe example demonstrates that we must not uncritically accept a hypothesis about the adaptive significance of a trait just because it is plausible.”[sup]4[/sup] Specifically, I would question the requisite evolution of other traits within the generally accepted evolutionary time frame while consistent with the constraints of known ranges of phenotypic variation. In part, those troublesome traits are chromosome characteristics, head and neck vasculature, ossicone origin and dimorphism, and structure of fetal ovaries that “needs an explanation” according to the accomplished Dr. Kurt Benirschke of the UCSD School of Medicine[sup]5[/sup].


[sup]1[/sup]Evolutionary Analysis, 2004. p. 331.
[sup]2[/sup]The American Naturalist, 1996. Vol. 148, pp. 771-786.
[sup]3[/sup]Journal of Natural History, 1985. Vol. 19, pp. 771-781.
[sup]4[/sup]Evolutionary Analysis, 2004. p. 335.
[sup]5[/sup]http://medicine.ucsd.edu/cpa/okapi.htm, 2004.

 

[lucaspa]

lucaspa, the question you mean to ask is "Should we trust the interpretation?" Once that is settled (the answer is "It depends...."), I can answer that the reason we should is because God credits righteousness to us for believing Him. It should be obvious that believing God is a non-issue when our 5 senses and our natural intellect tell us the same thing as what God is saying. So believing God is only a discussible issue when what God says seems to contradict what our 5 senses and our intellect tell us.

I didn't say "believing God". I said believing an interpretation when the evidence in God's Creation is against it. An interpretation of the Bible isn't God, unless you are committing false idol worship.

This is not my full answer to another question of yours, but the evidence of "intermediate" forms between the okapi and giraffe seem to be of large okapi skeletons.

Why are you running off to giraffes when you have a list of observed speciations in the OP? Why don't you try dealing with them?

 

[lucaspa]

Isn't that what got Jesus into trouble, when He refused to follow the traditions of man. Didn't it get a lot of the prophets killed, because they refused to go along with the establishments program?

Jesus got into trouble when he went against the Biblical literalists of his day. And an interpretation of the Bible is a tradition of man.

But you ignored the first part of my question, John. Here, I'll bold it for you:
When we have a contradiction between God's Creation and an interpretation of the Bible, why should we trust the interpretation?

Both you and Kenneth keep ignoring "God's Creation". You treat what we get via our 5 senses as separate from God. Why is that?