Avoiding the Word "Evolution" 895
jakosc tips us to a disturbing article in PloS Biology on the avoidance of the word "Evolution" in scientific papers and grants. From the paper: "In spite of the importance of antimicrobial resistance, we show that the actual word 'evolution' is rarely used in the papers describing this research. Instead, antimicrobial resistance is said to 'emerge,' 'arise,' or 'spread' rather than 'evolve.' Moreover, we show that the failure to use the word 'evolution' by the scientific community may have a direct impact on the public perception of the importance of evolutionary biology in our everyday lives... It has been repeatedly rumored (and reiterated by one of the reviewers of this article) that both the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation have in the past actively discouraged the use of the word 'evolution' in titles or abstracts of proposals so as to avoid controversy."
What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
All the major organised religions seem to want is lots of uneducated children who think they are going to go to 'heaven' when they die.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Funny)
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Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Informative)
No. Did you RTFA? They discusss this point. The terms being used instead of "evolution" are no more technical, like "acquire", even "learn".
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Sorry
"And this be out Motto: In God is our trust."
National Anthem - Francis Scott Key 1814
I believe the phrase is even older and Mr. Key just worked it into his poem.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Informative)
No, it was put there by christian fundamentalists first during the Civil War on coins and then on paper money during the 50s to try and force the notion upon the nation that it was founded on christian principles (which it wasn't). Read and learn [ustreas.gov].
Funny how the Founding Fathers, those bastions of christendom that the American Taliban likes to claim, overlooked putting those words on currency when they had the opportunity to do so, no?
Also, as far as the Pledge of Allegiance is concerned, because we all know that will be your next comment, it was developed by a Baptist Minister so that all persons, regardless of their religious persuasion, could pledge their allegiance to both the flag and Republic in a neutral manner. For a more thorough discussion, see this [vineyard.net].
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
The resistance does emerge or arise.
It is the microbe population that evolves.
Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
"Real, hardcore, scientific guys will dislike the word because it implies that every changed population is somewhat better than the previous (unchanged) generations, which is absolutely not true."
Real, hardcore, scientific guys know that the word 'evolve' does not imply objective betterment of the organism/population in question. The idea of evolution as a process of constant improvement is a common misconception among laymen. Organisms just evolve, ie. they become different from their ancestors. Whether this change makes them more or less fit (depends on the conditions) doesn't change the concept of evolving.
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Does this mean that whatever happens to organisms/populations is an evolutionary process
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As far as there is a notable change compared to the ancestral organisms, by definition, yes.
"What is then "the concept of evolving" according to these "real, hardcore, scientific guys" whose knowledge you know so well?"
Evolution is the observable phenonmenon of changes in the allele frequencies of a given population.
"Your message reminds me of the Popper's objection to evolution: it is impossible to disprove
Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Popper's opinion of scientific process would have more force if he had been a scientist.
In fact Popper's barely concealled objective was to provide a definition of science that Marxist and Freudian pseudoscience would be unable to meet. In particular he objected to the fact that both claimed to be 'scientific' while declaring their core theories to be absolute truth beyond the possibility of doubt.
Scientists of the day were happy to go along with Popper's definition because they didn't like the specious nonsense from the followers of Marx, Freud, Jung et al either. In point of fact neither did Marx by the end 'all I can say is that I am not a Marxist' (letter to Engel).
It took another couple of decades for folk to start noticing that what scientists did didn't meet the standards Popper had set either. Or rather it took that long for people to start mentioning the fact. By then the 'scientific' claims of the Marxists and Freudians had been effectively buried and the original political ibjective had been met.
Popper himself accepted that according to his definition there had been perhaps two genuinely falsifiable theories in the history of science.
The falsification canard is regularly trotted out by folk trying to push intelligent design but they miss the entire point. Popper's definition is based on intent. Except in very rare circumstances it is generally not possible to fully meet the falsifiability criteria in full. The real question is not whether the criteria are met but whether the practitioners have the intention of seriously testing their theory by attempting to disprove it or not.
In the case of evoloution the historical theory that we are the product of evolution is inherently untestable, but so is the theory that Napoleon was defeated at Waterloo. What is testable is the volumes of evidence that support the claim that evolution is the simplest method of interpreting and explaining the fossil record, the one that has provided the greatest predictive power with respect to new discoveries and the one that is consistent with modern experiments that do meet the falsifiability criteria.
Intelligent Design on the other hand is exactly the type of nonesense concocted to support a preconceived notion that the practioners have no intention of seriously testing that Popper was trying to eliminate.
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Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
Nah; it's only "evolution" if it affects the distribution of genes in the next generation. Of course, Darwin didn't know about genes, since genetics was still in the future. People knew that offspring inherited characteristics from their parents, but nobody knew how it worked. It took another century to find and verify the physical mechanism. He just explained how the evolutionary process works, without knowing the mechanism of inheritance.
It's pretty easy to come up with things that are "neutral" in the evolutionary process, and biologists often consider the possibility that some genetic variations are not actually significant. Thus, I have blue eyes, while other humans have brown eyes; there seems to be no survival value in humans to a particular iris color. Similar examples of trivial variation exist in many species. It's not unusual for biologists to hypothesize that some characteristic is "neutral", i.e., neither harmful nor beneficial.
At the other extreme, consider the K-T impact event 65 million years back. This would not be considered an "evolutionary event" for most of the species, because most species were simply exterminated and no longer evolved at all. Also, it's not something that the evolutionary process could adapt to, since asteroid impacts are too rare and utterly unpredictable by any genetic mechanism. The survivors survived mostly due to the blind luck of being far enough away from the impact site, in a place where they could find enough food and shelter to get through the next few years. Survivors were mostly small, opportunistic omnivores, of course, and there's an obvious explanation for this. But still, the survivors weren't adapted to asteroid impacts in any meaningful sense, and neither are their descendants.
It's common to argue that evolutionary theory is trivial and tautological, because it merely asserts that whoever survives is a survivor. But this is a "straw man" argument that's based on an extreme generalization while ignoring significant details. In the case of evolution, the significant parts include the fact that characteristics are inherited from parents, but the inheritance is error prone. This results in offspring that vary slightly from the parents, and many of the variations affect survivability. This in turn affects the relative frequency of characteristics in later generations. When you include such details, the evolutionary process is no longer trivial. And it's no longer clear that everything is necessarily of evolutionary significance.
Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:4, Insightful)
o rly?
where does the church stand today on the burning of witches? on slavery? on sex with 14 year olds - fine for Mary and Joesph but get called a paedo these days (not that it stops the most devout religious people)? on punishment for adultery - still stoning I assume?
is the Catholic church still accepting payments from people to reduce their time in purgatory? oh no, they're actually talking about getting rid of the whole idea aren't they.
is denying the existence of ghosts still an unforgivable sin? I've denied the existence of ghosts, especially holy ones, many times. so am I screwed even if I accept Jesus or could I still join your church?
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Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:4, Insightful)
And this explains why the church still has a considerable following. People want to know the truth, and believe in something which won't come and go with the shifting of political power. Remember the Energy Crisis of the 70's? The Low Fat - High Carb dogma? How about the Population Explosion? How about the Geocentric model of the solar system - yes, it was secular thought that brought that one forth. Science wasn't just a little wrong - it was completely false. And yet you have the Church, still sending the same message it has always sent, since the 70's - AD 70 - that there is a way to eternal life. And it doesn't change every decade. And for those willing to learn, it has a much more sound basis in truth than the scientific method could ever provide.
The difference is, that when science is wrong, it's possible to discover and fix it. When religion is wrong, it's not possible to discover and fix it. Given the fact that it's very easy for humans to fool themselves, and that human understanding is imperfect, I'd much prefer a system of knowledge that has at least some ability to identify errors. Every time I hear that "science was wrong about that," I think-- hey, we actually learned something there. That's exactly how you learn, from your mistakes. In that context, what does religion ever learn? I'll give you a hint-- "nada."
Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:5, Insightful)
So you avoid modern medical science? I doubt it and suspect your faith is veneer.
Science is self-correcting. While scientist may be subjective and politics, as in all human endeavors, holds sway, science corrects itself to the data over time.
And religion was well on to those points right? The earth immovable and has a foundation, Joshua stopped the sun in the sky not the earth, there are four corners of the earth, A tree that can be see from anywhere on earth, men can threaten God by building a tower toward heaven, placing peeled and striped branches in front of livestock alters genetics, the stars are attached to tent like fabric, etc.
Here is a comment by Martin Luther concerning Copernicus...
"There was mention of a certain astrologer who wanted to pro"ve that the earth moves and not the sky, the sun, and the moon. This would be as if somebody were riding on a cart or in a ship and imagined that he was standing still while the earth and the trees were moving.... I believe the Holy Scriptures, for Joshua commanded the sun to stand still and not the earth "
Is that secular reasoning? That is the same reasoning resisting the acceptances of evolution today. Same battle different ground.
You can be wrong for a very long time and still be wrong. The concept of eternal life evolved and mutated and you can see that by reading the bible and seeing certain concepts emerge thru the ages (like heaven and hell)
Here is a parable.
Science is like a control system on a plane. When a plane takes off from Los Angeles to New York and goes on autopilot the plane never has the exact correct heading and attitude. There is a feedback mechanism that is always correcting. In other words the heading/attitude/altitude are always off but in the average it maintains its course and finds its way to the destination.
Religion is like taking a measurement and fixing the control surfaces at one time during the flight (canonization) and never correcting even though the plane is veering way of course and is about to crash. And the faithful will say amen.
Terminology Problem (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:But *THAT* is the problem.... (Score:5, Interesting)
Sure you can (at least if you're a bacterium
What happens is typical with such chemicals: When you apply some of it to a body part such as hands, there may be enough to kill the bacteria right there. But at the edge of the treated area there is a gradient of the antibiotic's concentration, which falls to zero over some distance. Within this gradient, there are bacteria with differing susceptibility to that particular antibiotic. Thus, withing the gradient zone, the more susceptible bacteria die, while the less susceptible bacteria live. This slightly increases the frequence of whatever genes provided the slightly better resistance of the survivors.
The bacteria in question have generation times that may be under an hour in good conditions. So over weeks or months, they can produce thousands of generations. If you are repeatedly applying the same antibiotic to small areas of your body, you are repeatedly producing gradient zones that further select for slightly better resistance to that antibiotic.
It's the evolutionary process at work right on the surface of your body, and it should be no surprise that the end result is a population of bacteria with good resistance to the antibiotic in your soap.
This process is one of the better examples of why the article's topic is significant. By suppressing understanding of "evolution", we haven't just dealt with an abstract academic theory. We have also created a society in which people are actively selecting bacteria for resistance to antibiotics. People are doing this because they don't understand how bacteria evolve such resistance. Most of them don't even believe in evolution. But the evolutionary process doesn't care whether you believe in it or not. Like gravity and many other abstract academic theories, evolution works even if you don't believe in it.
Did you ever notice? (Score:5, Insightful)
It's frustrating. You make the same point over and over. You refute the same idiocy over and over. Nothing changes. It's like a sick game to them. They're like the baby that keeps throwing its strained peas on the floor, and we keep picking them up.
It doesn't matter how much evidence we have. It doesn't matter how many times their objections to the theory are answered. It's not about truth to them, its about belief. Specifically, control of belief, which is religion's bread and butter. It's sophistry, plain and simple. They don't argue to arrive at the truth through a dialectic process. They argue to protect their untenable belief system from anything that might threaten it.
I would say that "Deliberate and venal ignorance" is about the best working definition of "Evil" that I can come up with. Counter-evolutionistas are evil.
Nobody told you? (Score:5, Funny)
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Personality cult.
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If there was no scarcity, there would be no need for any sort of economic system.
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You are confusing the radical anti-intellectal groups that like to call themselves conservative with those groups that don't actually think God hates poor people and actually do charity work. Christianity-Lite does not like the few books at the front of the Bible that they actually read to be questioned in any way. I'm not religeous but I seem to recall reading that the C
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Nah, simpler to assume there's some kind of invisible mastermind in the background planning it all.
Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. (Score:5, Insightful)
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This is allowed... but fortunatly seperation of church and state keeps those pesky witches, ghosts, flying saucers, astrologers, and reincarnations of Julius Caesar out of our schools and goverment buildings. It m
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Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. (Score:4, Insightful)
Read your own history, mate (Score:5, Insightful)
First at all you founding father were mostly deist, with some being atheist. So if you place any value in what they produced (constitution and all) or their idea, you should be aware of that little fact.
Furthermore you are NOT living in a democracy but in a republic.
Next, you know where this lead this "we live in a democraty, so the majority decide" ? Aside this litle fact about freedom of speech, Well this lead to stuff like persecution of minority. Do you even remmember why the USA had this "freedom of religion" in the first place ? Religious persecution in Europe anyone? And yes non-religion is one form of belief (or rather non-belief in anything). Suppress the freedom of it, then next the cathos will ask the protestant to be muted, the calvinist will ask the last day adventist to be gagged, and the mormon will ask all other to shut up. And in the end nobody open his big mouth because there is always a branch of christianty which is pissed of at another.
I could add more, like the "in god we trust" coming from the darkest era of Mccartysm, but hey, that is not my country so fuck it up as much as you wish, as long as you keep a sane foreign policy of "hand off"....
Re:Read your own history, mate (Score:4, Funny)
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A democracy just means that all power derive from the people in some form, and republic means you have president.
To be a republic without being a democracy you need a autocratic president, like Iraq under Saddam Hussein; and while the George Bush might be bad, he is not quite Saddam.
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Same with lots of other stuff. Much of the basics of how computers work, for example, were
Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. (Score:4, Interesting)
(The evidence of this is from hyroglyphs found picturing the process if you want to try and verify it)
A lot of what was known in science 2000+ years ago has been lost only to be rediscovered far more recently, through war, genocide, various cultural dark ages in different regions but 1 person can be given quite a large part of the blame - that rather famous (and egotistical) arsonist, Alexander the Great
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I guess the GP wasn't kidding when he said: "quite an advanced process really".
Electroplating non-conductors (Score:3, Informative)
With difficulty.
Actually, some years ago, I saw a demo by a fellow who was pretty good at such tricks. He had some finished pieces that were gold-plated wood and ceramic. He explained that the material he used were actually (slightly) porous, and had been saturated with salt water. The result still didn't conduct electricity very well, and the plating process was slow. But with gold, you only want a layer that's a few atoms thick. His demo ba
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Meanwhile, you have to understand that about 90% of the scientific community for which that technology is attributed are also of the deist/agnost/atheist group.
http://www.nwcreation.net/atheism.html
So yeah. I wouldn't be attributing the good stuff
Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. (Score:4, Informative)
Thomas Edison didn't invent the light bulb, Ben Franklin didn't discover electricity ... and computers were invented by and englishman and the first working one built by a german., and if you look around you'll find that Emile Berliner invented the record - the gramophone (as opposed to wax cylinders - phonographs).
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Re:Sorry Skinflute.. We are a Democracy. (Score:5, Insightful)
Being a republic is irrelevant to the question if the US is a democracy or not. Many republics are very democratic, others are not. Many monarchies are also democracies. Few are not.
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Oh wait, my bad, they do. What was your point again?
I'm not an atheist, though I am
Re:What do you expect? (Score:5, Insightful)
Well tough shit. I'm afraid of angry religious hive mind mobs coming to burn me out of my house, but you don't see me on TV campaigning to ban thoughts and theories contridictory to my own. I may laugh at them, but that's not going to create chilling effects.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Informative)
Everyone deep down hopes there is something after death.
I don't, ObsessiveMathFreak. Better fix your set.
Re:What do you expect? (Score:4, Insightful)
Not everyone. Some of us are perfectly OK with the idea that this is the only life we have and therefore we have to make the most of it.
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This is what I believe. I sure hope I am wrong tho.
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And what is your evidence to back up this statement? I know a counterexample pretty intimately...
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Do your spiritual beliefs affect your understanding of science though? What do you do when your spiritual beliefs say that God created man in his current form yet science provides compelling evidence to suggest otherwise?
Science is not a religion, if you believe that then you don't understand wha
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That's why string theory is called a theory, rather than a law. Presumably they plan to test it eventually (since we might not have the necessary technology now). But
the role of science... (Score:5, Insightful)
The role of science is not to manage public perception. It's to find out how things work. Unfortunately, receipt of grant money is often tied to public perception (positive, or negative).
It IS disturbing... (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:It IS disturbing... (Score:5, Insightful)
It's like saying that there's "microwalking" which is what I do from the car park to the office every morning, and down to the shops on weekends, and that can result in changes of my location over time on a small scale; but the idea that people, over tens of thousands of years walked out of central Africa into Europe, then over to Asia, across to North America and into South America - that's "macrowalking" and it's impossible. God must have put them there.
Re:It IS disturbing... (Score:4, Insightful)
There *is* a distinction between microevolution and macroevolution. In macroevolution, an organism gains new features, such as wings. In microevolution an organism gets stronger arms. This explains how it is possible for the Watusi of Burundi to have an average height of over six feet and the Mbuti in Congo (they live 100 miles or so apart) grow to an average height of four and a half feet or so. This is microevolution. This is the enhancement of certain characteristics that already exist within a single species. The Watusi and the Mbuti can marry and have children. Their children would likely vary greatly in their height (though they do not intermarry; they loathe one another). If the Watusi and Mbuti had experienced macroevolution, one tribe would have wings and the other would have venom and fangs.
I understand the theory that lots of small changes over an incredibly long time period equals larger changes. In the above example, macroevolution teaches that stronger arms eventually become powerful wings. Microevolution acknowledges that stronger arms can become a dominant feature in a species. The genetic code, however, is not present for those arms to produce feathers.
The difference between micro and macro is the former is the enhancement of features already present while the latter is the addition of features not formerly present.
It's like saying that there's "microwalking" which is what I do from the car park to the office every morning, and down to the shops on weekends, and that can result in changes of my location over time on a small scale; but the idea that people, over tens of thousands of years walked out of central Africa into Europe, then over to Asia, across to North America and into South America - that's "macrowalking" and it's impossible. God must have put them there.
The ability to walk is not a new feature. It is a present characteristic similar to my illustration of an organism developing stronger arms. It is merely an enhancement of an existing feature: the ability to walk farther. The ability to *fly* from Africa into Europe would be an example of macroevolution.
Re:It IS disturbing... (Score:5, Insightful)
A lizard has four limbs covered in keratinious growths. So does a bird. No new features there.
The distinction is in your mind, not in nature. Evolution is all about gradual change in function, arms to wings by gradual change of shape.
Godtard bullshit alert (Score:3)
What does the baby Jesus command you to call it when an organism gets stronger arms with a longer flap of skin on them that permits gradually improved gliding performance from trees? Is it "microevolution" until the mouse accidentally flaps his front legs and looks kind of like a bat, at which point it would be "macroevolution" and smote down as blasphemous by a jealous genocidal war-god?
The w
Evolution, with numbers. (Score:5, Insightful)
Imagine a species has 100 million members, and lets say it is a large-sized species which experiences a generation turnover every 20 years or so. Lets say there is a low mutation rate of perhaps 1% of offspring having some mutation. Let us also say that 99% of mutations are harmful, or perhaps even fatal, and a mere 1% are beneficial. Now we do the math:
If 1% of the population experiences a mutation, that means 1 million will experience a mutation per generation. If 99% of these are harmful, that means 990,000 will die or fail to procreate, or 0.99% of the total population. If 1% of the mutations are beneficial, that means 10,000 will have some superior trait.
At the end of this cycle, there are still around 100 million members, but 10,000 of them, or 0.01%, have a beneficial mutation. Now by definition of a "beneficial" mutation, from an evolutionary perspective, this means that those 10,000 are more likely to survive and procreate than the other 100 million or so.
Lets say each beneficial mutation is only beneficial by a very tiny amount, such that a pair of members without the mutation can have an average of 1.95 children survive to reproduce, while pairs with the mutation can have an average of 2.05 children survive to reproduce. In this case, within 200 generations, or 4,000 years, the members of the species which have received at least one beneficial mutation from the first generation of mutations will outnumber the unmutated members of the species by 2:1.
Feel free to tweak the numbers however you see fit, and you will see that it will still work out, and the only thing you will change by tweaking numbers is how long it takes. Evolution does not require the balance of the numbers to be in its favor, because the process of mutation and selection is intrinsically in favor of improvement, even when the beneficial changes are extremely rare.
Re:Evolution, with numbers. (Score:5, Funny)
You're going to hell, mister!
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Here's a challenge for ya: I claim genera
Re:Evolution, with numbers. (Score:4, Informative)
No, you have not taken into account the fact that mutations are a rare event, and that the majority of genetic mutations will have no effect at all. When they do have an effect, this effect is usually small. I'm not sure you realise just how much genetic variation there is out there in the wild. Also, I'm not sure you realise how much machinery there is in your body to prevent mutations from happening.
In other words, the "99% of flawed mutations" are only among those (rare) mutations which do have an effect. Meanwhile, "normal", not-significantly-mutated organisms keep breeding happily, perpetuating the "wild type".
What you are talking about (harmful mutations accumulating beyond control) is called "mutational meltdown [wikipedia.org]", or "error catastrophe [wikipedia.org]", depending on the context. It just doesn't happen in large natural populations today, precisely because 1) mutation rates are so low and 2) those mutations which are harmful are eventually eliminated.
Osteogenesis imperfecta ("brittle bones" disease) most certainly does affect reproduction and survival, especially in pre-modern times ! Again, I'm not sure you realise how even a small (but persistent) disadvantage in reproduction is dramatically amplified by the exponential nature of replication.
Thus how can can one random mutation produce (...) eye sight
I can't believe the example of the eye is still being used by creationists. Not only do we have plausible scenarios for gradual, step-by-step evolution of the eye, but we have actually found each of these "steps" in organisms living around us right now. Please have a look at this picture [ox.ac.uk].
One mutation cannot produce the vertebrate eye (or a squid eye or insect eye for that matter). The patient accumulation of small, beneficial improvements (which are kept in the population, precisely because they are beneficial - as opposed to the thousands of non-beneficial small modifications which are quickly eliminated) can.
Executive summary: you are trying to criticise natural selection while not fully understanding it, please read more Dawkins [wikipedia.org].
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I'm NOT talking about natural selection, which makes perfect sense, but evolution; ie beneficial mutation
The ratio of beneficial to non beneficial mutation is hugely in favour of increasing disorder.
What exactly is that supposed to mean? That because most mutations are not beneficial, everything should fall apart in the long term?
This is the same flawed argument that people who say stuff akin to
"The chances of all these evolutionary steps are the same as picking out the queen of hearts from a shuffled pack seventy times in a row" (or whatever)
It's wrong because it (a) disregards natural selection, i.e. all the less beneficial mutations won't survive and (b) the mutated organism does not automati
Another word (Score:2, Interesting)
Are we still in the middle ages? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Just because a globe spins doesn't mean you can't hold the globe & spin the stand around it.
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yes (Score:3, Funny)
Re:yes (Score:5, Funny)
Who came up with this? (Score:5, Insightful)
Could this possibly have something to do with the fact that the latter terms are used when they are more scientifically accurate?
If you're talking about antimicrobial resistance spreading, then it would be absolutely wrong to say that it was evolving: the bacteria has already evolved and the spread is just the increasing domination of that new line. If they have lumped all those words together than that alone could account for their conclusion by itself, although I would also argue that the other harms have certain preferable contexts for description.
The reserachers did not bother to do any actual pyschological research in their psychological study: they only looked at frequency distributions of the terminology. Apparently this is enough to infer the motivations of the medical patois. I don't suppose it's even remotely possible that the simple fact that evolutionary biologists study evolution could explain the increased frequency of 'evolve' in their personal vernacular? Perhaps if medical scientists spent all of their time researching, reading about, and writing about evolution, the word "evolve" might be as much integrated into their writing.
Regardless, it is absurd to suggest that incipient trends in word usage should in any way be a concern of either medical or evolutionary scientists. I might expect some outcry if people were being coerced (perhaps that is why there was no psychological investigation in this--not enough drama) but if you are going to throw a fit because a certain word isn't used as often as synonymns which say the same things but aren't as directly referential to your pet issue, I would say you are as much a culprit in politicizing science as any creationist school board.
Rhetoric == politics. Research results are not changed by the linguistics of the writeups.
Re:Who came up with this? (Score:4, Informative)
Thus the spreading of "more desirable" characteristics is one of the core parts of evolution.
It makes *perfect* sense to say, for example: In many hospitals there are strains of bacteria that have evolved antibiotics-resistance.
A Tough Problem (Score:5, Insightful)
This same issue came up on a recent episode of NPR's Science Friday [sciencefriday.com] (look towards the right side of the page for an mp3 download link). Essentially, biologists were being encouraged by well-meaning people at the government agencies who sponsor them to avoid the word "evolution" so that their research remains uncontroversial and doesn't run afoul of any anti-science policy makers.
This latest article raises a good point, though. By trying to cloak discussion of evolution in other terms, anyone with a grasp of basic evolutionary biology is able to understand what is meant and how the process of natural selection applies to the problem at hand. Politicians and non-scientific observers not familiar with biology, however, don't see that evolution is explicitly referenced and so they don't raise a ruckus over it.
The problem is that this can help feed the general lack of understanding about evolution that creationists exploit. On the one hand, because most schools don't teach a rigorous curriculum on evolutionary biology, creationists can argue pseudo-scientific fallacies (e.g. that the second law of thermodynamics rules out evolution of increasingly complex species. Incidentally, this is false because the second law only applies to closed systems, and Earth's ecosystem continuously receives new energy from the Sun's light and heat). Additionally, because the fact that natural selection, as the basic organizing principle which has guided research in biology for over a century, isn't emphasized in new research reports that come out, many people don't realize that the huge advances we've made in our understanding of life on Earth over the past century, and the great medical breakthroughs that have emerged, nay, evolved from that understanding would not have been possible if we didn't understand evolution. Indeed, many things that we know to be true about biology simply couldn't be true if evolution weren't at work. That's not to say that it's a perfect theory, but like many good scientific theories it is revised and its precision is sharpened as new evidence becomes available (for example, we now know about cycles of punctuated equilibrium in the fossil record, and about patterns in human and other animal genomes, which Darwin didn't know about), in the same way that Einstein's relativity built on and refined Newton's laws of motion.
As loathe as many scientists are to do anything with public relations, I think that we have to do a better job of emphasizing the basic scientific theories behind today's research. So I encourage researchers out there to not be scared of using the word evolution, as it will hopefully contribute to people understanding that it is pervasively important to biology.
Eh it goes both ways? (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Eh it goes both ways? (Score:5, Funny)
Storks! (Score:5, Funny)
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But isn't it more accurate? (Score:3, Insightful)
What we need is religion vs religion (Score:3, Insightful)
BUT - if we somehow manage to get an islamic movement to try to ban teaching the ideas of evolution as being against the teachings of the prophet Mohammed and thus the word of Allah, then I'm pretty sure we'd see these religious wack jobs get off their pedistals mighty quick.
Can't try to promote something that those "awful muslims" promote, can we?
In fact - next time friends, relatives or people you meet bring up the idea of not teaching evolution in schools, just add in "oh, you mean like the Taleban? They didn't want schools teaching evolution either."
Playing the "terrorism" card for a GOOD cause for once!
Not only biology! (Score:3, Informative)
On the other hand, the religious nutters do have a point (if completely unwittingly), since it modern astrophysics contradicts the bible version of creation just has much as modern biology does!
Flock of Dodos (Score:3, Informative)
There's an excellent documentary on the evolution vs. intelligent design wars called "Flock of Dodos [flockofdodos.com]" that covers this very issue -- there's actually a scene with a bunch of leading evolutionary scientists sitting around a poker table, lamenting that they have to avoid using the word "evolution" in their NSF grant proposals if they want to keep their grants. If you haven't seen it, and you're interested in this issue, you should definitely track down a screening in your area.
(Full disclosure: I know the guy who made the movie and am a big fan of his work teaching communications skills to scientists. If you want a second opinion on the movie, here's a New York Times article about it [flockofdodos.com].)
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Agreed. It just shows that slashdot hasn't evolved, as we are going to see the emergence of a thousand posts of the same diatribe we have all seen before.
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Re:Unfortunate? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:Unfortunate? (Score:5, Insightful)
Why is this unfortunate? Evolution is a theory.
Gravity is a theory. Are you saying physicists discussing rocks falling to the floor should avoid mentioning it?
It happens that science is the process of systematically improving theories. You're telling swimmers to avoid water.
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Whats that you say? Theres plenty of evidence for all of the above? Yes
Re:Unfortunate? (Score:5, Insightful)
On the contrary. Science is about researching the unknown. This is why we scientists have theories - we are trying to learn the truth, acknowledging that we don't know it all and probably never will. The only things that are 'known facts' are observations, like last time I let go of a stone it fell down, not up. Nobody knows that it will do the same next time, strictly speaking, but we have a very well researched theory that says it will. Theories are the basis for everything around you: the computer you use was developed using such a theory as quantum mechanics, which is far more speculative than evolution. After all, the theory of evolution is based on fossils you can see with your bare eyes, whereas quantum mechanics deals with things we can't see. It is quite possible - likely even - that our idea about what fundamental particles are like is only a poor approximation to reality.
So if you can accept quantum theory well enough to use computers and other modern electronics, why not evolution? As for facts - we can see that evolution has happened; the fossils are there, and just like a line of footprints on a beach tells you that somebody has walked there recently, the fossils tell you that life has evolved. There is no reasonable doubt about that, and 'evolution theory' is not about that. It is about how it happened.
Re:Unfortunate? (Score:4, Insightful)
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Re:Some quotes. Including one from Darwin: (Score:4, Insightful)
You do realise that Darwin lived 150 years ago, do you? A lot has happened since then. A lot of predictions by the theory of evolution have been proven to be true. The mechanism that encodes the inherited traits that Darwin speculated about (DNA) had been discovered. Predictions that weren't true, have lead to refinements of the theory that made more accurate predictions. Many "missing links" aren't missing anymore. In Darwin's time there was plenty of room for doubt, but now, 150 years later, there simply isn't anymore. It's as scientific and well-supported as relativity and quantum mechanics.
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I'm Pastafarian [venganza.org] you insensitive clod!
that's only if you believe in Islam. That's why they still ride camels over there.
Someone needs a quick history lesson. Islamic faith is not at all against education - in fact at one point if you wanted to be on the cutting edge in some fields (mathematics, medicine) you had to study in Persia. The bit about keeping people in the 9th century has to do with politics and powe
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There is no "right" and "wrong". There's only my behaviour, and the consequences of my decisions. An example: I could rape a sedated patient - there's nothing to stop me. However if I did that I would a) be breaking my hippocratic oath and not be the physician I'd like to think that I am b) probably get caught, go to jail, lose the respect of my children, my license to practice, etc c) have to li
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Guilt comes from knowing that I have intentionally done someone harm and caused suffering. Only a psychopath anti-social doesn't give a damn about other people. Atheists are not psychopaths. Guilt comes from compassion and empathy with the other person - not right or wrong.
I have NO qualms cutting someone open in order to save their life - even if this causes them a great deal of pa
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All scientific claims, on the other hand, can be verified by you or I personally, if we have the time and skill. That verification, of course, while very difficult to describe in a systematic way, is certainly not arbitrary. One can do a bad job at this verificat