…an interesting post over at . …..

As I realize it has nothing to do with the main thread!

Thanks for the update!

(The return emailing got popped back to me and apparently the server was down or somesuch, but did not work. So to let you know I got your missive, I’ll just post here.)

Yes, Coast-to-Coast of course is one of those semi tongue-cheek type venues, mostly for fun. But it does have a really wide audience and probably more people than we might suspect who actually are taken in by Crypto-zoology (Bigfoot, giant birds the size of trash trucks, wild cougars in Britain, as some claim), the paranormal, and other apparitional spook stuff. Of course–that sorta thing) their mainstay is the continuing persistence of conspiracy theory and the alleged international withholding of vital info on UFOs.

I too was surprised to find out that guys like Ian Punnit (sp?) who seems
very orthodox (small ‘o’!) and doctrinaire protestant (I think), was part of the lineup for the main hosts.

But perhaps he’s just an easy-going guy who likes to have fun.

I’ve been very busy myself of late, and tying up some odds and ends.

Even though my line of work is slowing down, due no doubt to the frowsy
American economy, I’ve been busy with other things like some coursework of my own dealing with real estate appraisal.

I realize from casual glances that much is going on. I’ve not been able to attend to very much blogging or anything else. Many odd, confusing (to
American culture at least) and relatively new and troubling things are
happening. There is the attack on Fox News, but to some people that’s just droll and surrealistic for an administration to do, and then we now have in American apparent Islamist “honor” killings and Islamist shootouts with the FBI.

Astonishing.

Later on (I don’t know when) I’ll have some more interesting input that,
this time, you might like to comment on and even publish. Some of your
readership might find it interesting!

Take care!

–Wake

If you’re unfamiliar with A Matter of Days, Dr Ross is an astronomer who has a much simpler and logical take on Genesis than embracing an allegorical reading of the text to support evolution.

All interesting stuff though. And exciting to think that science, faced with a creation time-scale incompatible with purely random mutation to create even ONE simple life form (much less the incredible speciation witnessed on earth), must now reconsider the possibility that an outside influence initiated (at least) the process and more likely controlled the whole shebang… so to speak :^)

As for neither of us changing the other’s viewpoint, that’s true, and I’m sure you have a lot of other very pressing matters demanding your time and attention. However, I’d still like to reply to some of the comments here.

Firstly, you seem to have understood me as talking about evolution in the very technical sense in the definition you gave above. Thanks for the compliment, but I was simply talking about it in the ordinary, everyday sense that most people who aren’t evolutionary biologists talk about it. For example, Everyman’s English Dictionary, by D.C. Browning (London, J.M. Dent & Sons 1956) defines evolution as

unfolding, devellopment, evolving; planned movement, manoeuvre, of troops etc; origination of species by development from earlier form; theory of this’ . It was in the last sense of speciation that I was talking about evolution.

Now let’s deal with remark about my comments about evolution and Down’s Syndrome. You stated:

You said gene duplication is, … a feature of plant, rather than animal evolution, .
Though it happens more often in plants, gene duplication is still very common in animals. e.g. each case of Downs syndrome in humans is another independent case of chromosome duplication.

You specifically refer to gene duplication in animals as the problem. I replied and gave Downs Syndrome as an example off the top of my head. Point made – gene duplication happens in animals too. Your response is to change the topic from gene duplication in animals to the emergence of new plant species.

Now remember, I really was talking about evolution in the very strict sense of speciation. As I said, as far as I can recall from Oliver Rackham, speciation has been observed in some plant species, such as the elms through polyploidy and gene duplication. Now I’ll admit that I wasn’t aware that it also occurred in humans, but having looked it up I agree that you’re right. However, my original point still stands – the existence of gene duplication in animals and humans does not automatically lead to speciation.

Now let’s deal with your comments about evolution occurring through gradual, incremental changes:

But then you balk at the idea it can create new species. Why? The definition of a species is fairly artificial – but is generally accepted as referring to a group of organisms that breeds successfully but but cannot, (or does not naturally) interbreed with other similar groups.

Given separate populations of a species subject to different selection pressures these microevolutionary changes will change the gene frequencies in the populations in different ways. What logical, or biological reason is there to conclude that the genetic changes will not change the physical characteristics of the two populations to the point that if they re-encounter each other they will not interbreed? Once that happens you have two separate species. Obviously they will at first be very similar and closely related, but given enough time and generations (which evolution has aplenty) the differences become greater. This has been observed many times, as you must know (look up ’speciation events, or ‘ring species’) – so why profess doubt that it happens?

Critics of conventional Neo-Darwinian evolutionary theories have attacked it on the grounds that there are problems with the mathematics involved. For example, the late Fred Hoyle, in his book Evolution from Space argued that the mutation rate in humans was too low to account for the divergence of humans from gorillas. His calculations have been attacked in their turn, but others have maintained that there are still problems in reconciling the mutation rate with the appearance of new features. The late Gordon Rattray Taylor, a former producer of BBC’s Horizon programme also took this view.

Now let’s deal with your comment
Simply an acknowledgment that some problems are difficult and take time to resolve. As you say – it is possible, even likely, that some things are beyond human explanation. But it’s also obvious that there are many things we don’t yet understand, that *are* within our grasp. And way to tell the difference is to keep trying.

Now some of the ID theorists actually agree with you on this point. Mike Behe has said that although he feels that there is a boundary to the ability of naturalistic evolution to create new characteristics, nevertheless research should continue to explore this boundary and test it, as new discoveries are indeed being made, some of which have challenged his original ideas. So although he is a critic of the ability of Neo-Darwinian processes to explain the emergence of new species, he doesn’t want research to stop.

We both know that neither of us is likely to change our points of view based on an exchange like this – but continuing much further seems unlikely to be of much benefit to either of us.

Brief replies to some of your six (!) posts

Post 1)You said I’d just like to clear up what we understand by ‘evolution’. You then invoke the (artificial) distinction between microevolution and macroevolution, and conclude “I don’t think its unreasonable to doubt its [evolution's] ability to account for speciation”

The definition of evolution accepted by most biologists is something equivalent to “the change in gene (or allele) frequency in a population over time”. You accept that this happens, at least to the point of ‘microevolution’ – creating new ’strains’.

But then you balk at the idea it can create new species. Why? The definition of a species is fairly artificial – but is generally accepted as referring to a group of organisms that breeds successfully but but cannot, (or does not naturally) interbreed with other similar groups.

Given separate populations of a species subject to different selection pressures these microevolutionary changes will change the gene frequencies in the populations in different ways. What logical, or biological reason is there to conclude that the genetic changes will not change the physical characteristics of the two populations to the point that if they re-encounter each other they will not interbreed? Once that happens you have two separate species. Obviously they will at first be very similar and closely related, but given enough time and generations (which evolution has aplenty) the differences become greater. This has been observed many times, as you must know (look up ’speciation events, or ‘ring species’) – so why profess doubt that it happens?

Then you continue:
You query my comment about plant evolution. Perhaps I should I have made myself .. clearer .. I was discussing the emergence of new plant species here..

Well, no you weren’t.
You said : “gene duplication is, I understand, a feature of plant, rather than animal evolution, although polyploidy has been observed to an extent in certain insects. The problem with this is whether it applies to animals”

You specifically refer to gene duplication in animals as the problem. I replied and gave Downs Syndrome as an example off the top of my head. Point made – gene duplication happens in animals too. Your response is to change the topic from gene duplication in animals to the emergence of new plant species.

In a similar way, after I mentioned Down’s Syndrome (only in the context of gene duplication) you responded “The mutation that produces Down’s Syndrome doesn’t produce new human species, but tragically only handicapped humans“. A true statement – but another complete change of topic.

Post 2)Belief in god hindering science – or not.
You:
“Okay, now let’s deal with the idea that belief in a God somehow undermines science, because one can always claim that God was responsible for some observed phenomena. In fact, science has its origin in the Judaeo-Christian view of God creating a lawful universe…”

Taking the second point first: When I said it’s completely irrelevant I meant the *origin* of science and the scientific method is not relevant to the sort of discussion we are having on this page.
Whatever the history may be, the position today is obvious. There is a conflict between the predominantly materialistic scientific approach to knowledge, and the truth claims of fundamentalist religious believers.

And the idea “that belief in a God somehow undermines science”. You took issue with my claim than a non-believer is more likely to say “We don’t *yet* have a good explanation of how X could have evolved – but we’re working on it”

You said “it supposes that there is a materialistic cause for all phenomena in the cosmos. However, this is a presupposition that does not necessarily correspond to reality …. it assumes that even if there is a naturalistic cause, that cause must be intelligible to humans and will eventually be discovered
There is no pre-supposition involved. Simply an acknowledgment that some problems are difficult and take time to resolve. As you say – it is possible, even likely, that some things are beyond human explanation. But it’s also obvious that there are many things we don’t yet understand, that *are* within our grasp. And way to tell the difference is to keep trying.

Anyway – that’s enough. I could spend my life on pages and thoughts like this, and there are other calls on my time. Thank you for encouraging me to think…

Malcolm

Quite possibly the first person to have the idea of the bow and arrow or to conceive the idea of making fire from the heat produced by friction would have to have had the qualities that would make a good physicist. Nevertheless, the intellectual conception of the great prehistoric inventions must have been a pretty rare occurrence; I can’t see the great, but very rarely operative, advantages to a population of having in its gene pool the capacities for making such inventions as exerting much selection pressure on the population’s gene pool. But let us concede that a population of modern human beings transported to some vastly ancient time (and divested of modern knowledge) would have had a distinct reproductive edge on otherwise similar populations that lacked the bilogical basis of physical intuition, owing to its capacity to invent the bow and arrow and fire-by-friction. This concession simply raises a further question: How did the gene frequencies that groudn this capacity get established before-it must have been before-there was a relatively advanced technology to confer on them the opportunity to be advantageous? (Peter Van Inwagen, ‘Genesis and Evolution’ in Paul Helm, ed, Faith and Reason (Oxford, OUP 1999), pp. 269-70.

I hope this clears the matter up there.

As for gene duplication involving the loss of an allele, in trying to find the reference for that it seems that I made a mistake and got it garbled.