The "damnable doctrine" of Charles Darwin

[Ryan]

And?



Do you they they worship the great Secular Human?

And nothing thats the fact.

In the USSC affirmed the US Court of Appeals ruling that SH was a religion. I do not know what exactly they worship.

I suspect the Supreme Court was measuring the concept of secular humanism against some sort of legislative provision to see if there was a fit between "secular humanism" and the concept of "religion" as defined in the legislation. Perhaps it was a tax issue or something. I don't know. I do know that the Supreme Court can't define a concept for universal use. I might be using a fairly crude definition of religion but for me it requires at least one object of veneration, possibly with alleged supernatural origins.

The first case in the DC Court of Appeals was largely a tax case but the WES sought to be classified as a secular humanist organization purforming the tasks of other religions, there by being a religion. The USSC case might have been what is called "dicta" by pointing out that SH was among the non-theistic religions. I do not know.

I guess Buddhism is also non-theistic so its hard to set up special catagories. The bottom line is that it was not me that sought or made the case. I just pointed it out. I do not want religion in the public schools. Many of my ancestors were forced to read the "Common Book of Prayer" which was not part of our belief system by the Anglican Church.

The USSC should rule on any violations of the "no establishment" clause.

 

[Ringel05]

I'm pretty sure that Vatican II under Blessed John XXIII approved the concept of evolution.

Come on Di. Admit it. Aussies are really evolved from a baptised cross between a Roo and a Koala Bear.

 

[Setarcos]

Australia: the first penal colony to be recognized as an independent nation

 

[N4mddissent]

Yeah, the first time secular humanism is used was by me and part of the SE belief system is evolution. And?

Evolution is part of the Catholic belief system as well. If someone denied science or evolution is a religion and you responded, "Catholicism is a religion" then perhaps the non-sequitor nature would be more apparent.



But once again, if they are saying Darwinism is not a religion, then why are you talking about Secular Humanism and Scientology? Completely Irrelevant. I consider any mention of Secular Humanism as a religion irrelevant to the question of whether Darwinism is a religion.

The well respected naturalist, Charles Darwin, has influenced the world view of several generations with his theories of evolution through natural selection. Darwin is a particular favorite among the "secular humanists" who cite his theories as proof that Theism is a false belief system.

This is what the Dawkins quote is supposed to support? Wtf?

The problem is evolution deniers often try to paint the Theory of Evolution with an implicit sense that it is some doctrine formulated and created to support some atheistic agenda. This is not the case. Darwin wanted to join the clergy when he started his research. Over time, his theory developed on the basis of rational consideration of the evidence he collected. He struggled with the conclusion, but could not deny a conclusion based upon his honest reasoning.

Whether that theory is now incoporated into various religious/belief/philosophical systems like Secular Humanism or Catholicism, is not relevant to any criticism of the theory. And any criticism of the man, Charles Darwin, is not relevant to any criticism of the theory, making this entire thread academic.

And while I'm on the topic, why is it almost exclusively Evolution Deniers that use the term "Darwinist"? Many people respect Charles Darwin for his contributions to science, but that was the 19th century. Scientists and the scientifically literate understand that while he may be the father of the theory of evolution, they don't hold his views to be sacred in any way. He missed on quite a few points- understandable considering that the concept of the gene for transferring information wasn't even commonplace in his time.

I wouldn't mind be referred to as an Evolutionist, since I do accept the factual basis of Evolution. But calling those who accept evolution, "Darwinists" is simply an attempt to attach a specific label which they can then use to transfer aspersions and criticisms of the man, Charles Darwin, onto those who accept his theory of evolution. It's a neat trick when one is unable to attack the theory itself, and I'm afraid is the real purpose of the OP.

Post #105 should have helped you better follow the exchange. Good job and finding the point I was called a "liar" on. As far as I am concerned Richard Dawkins assertion that, "Darwin made it possible to be an intellectually fulfilled atheist" very much supports the point I was challenged. I do not really care whether you like it or not, if you want make the case that I am a also a "liar" in your opinion.

What is your source for stating that evolution is part of the Catholic belief system?

I do not have time for the rest of your post. Again, I refer you to my question of post #98 so I can understand the relevance of whatever point you are trying to make.

I wasn't calling you a liar. If you want to say Charles Darwin influenced several generations, you will find no argument from me. His impact on our scientific knowledge has been immense. His theory has made predictions which time after time have come true. As far as Secular Humanists claiming Evolution is proof that there is no god- I haven't heard that argument from them. You can provide examples if you like, but if they consider that alone is evidence of the absence of god, then they are wrong. It does not rationally follow, which is why Catholics can accept evolution and god.

My source for evolution and Catholicism is the Pope.

You should make time for the rest of my post, since it would save you the time of continuing this thread.

Even if I agreed with you and said Charles Darwin was a rotten bastard and his theory causes people to become genocidal maniacs, it still doesn't affect whether the theory is true or false. We don't get to pick reality according to how we think it should be. I think you read the rest of my post, but didn't want to deal with the reflection of your dishonest arguments.

So answer this: Why do you use the term Darwinist instead of Evolutionist?

 

[Diuretic]

Australia: the first penal colony to be recognized as an independent nation

Don't want to get off topic here but it was actually several penal colonies and one free province (mine!), became a country 1/1/1901 (and we've been squabbling every since).

 

[Diuretic]

I'm pretty sure that Vatican II under Blessed John XXIII approved the concept of evolution.

Come on Di. Admit it. Aussies are really evolved from a baptised cross between a Roo and a Koala Bear.

Roos up trees??

 

[N4mddissent]

Australia: the first penal colony to be recognized as an independent nation

Don't want to get off topic here but it was actually several penal colonies and one free province (mine!), became a country 1/1/1901 (and we've been squabbling every since).

Interesting. We had a penal colony in the U.S. too. (mine!) Seriously.

The US and AU have a lot in common. Even Randy Newman says we should save you guys (although it may be just the Kangaroos).

 

[Setarcos]

Australia: the first penal colony to be recognized as an independent nation

Don't want to get off topic here but it was actually several penal colonies and one free province (mine!), became a country 1/1/1901 (and we've been squabbling every since).

I was unaware that there had been a free province.

 

[Setarcos]

Can you eat the 'roos, or are they a protected species?

 

[Diuretic]

Can you eat the 'roos, or are they a protected species?

They're protected but permits are available to take them. Professional hunters are employed by companies to take the animals. They are for human consumption. You can buy kangaroo meat in most supermarkets.

 

[Diuretic]

Australia: the first penal colony to be recognized as an independent nation

Don't want to get off topic here but it was actually several penal colonies and one free province (mine!), became a country 1/1/1901 (and we've been squabbling every since).

Interesting. We had a penal colony in the U.S. too. (mine!) Seriously.

The US and AU have a lot in common. Even Randy Newman says we should save you guys (although it may be just the Kangaroos).

He means the kangaroos for sure....can't mean one of these:

 

[Diuretic]

Australia: the first penal colony to be recognized as an independent nation

Don't want to get off topic here but it was actually several penal colonies and one free province (mine!), became a country 1/1/1901 (and we've been squabbling every since).

I was unaware that there had been a free province.

It was settled by free settlers and the South Australia Company in London organised it.

South Australian Company - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

 

[gcomeau]

Next section will follow after a suitable waiting period.

Well, been over a day. Next section incoming.

Phylogenetic Analysis.

Previously we kind of skimmed over the creation of a phylogenetic tree with a very simplified example of how they are constructed using only some selected major genetic characteristics. In the last post we touched on how even much less obvious genetic characteristics can also be analyzed for phylogenetic relationships… like ERVs. As the discussion progresses the importance of the nested hierarchy and it’s very nontrivial nature will continue to become more apparent. Like in the case of ERVs it goes significantly beyond such superficially obvious observations as “we never expect to find snakes producing orange juice”. It applies right down to the molecular level even to genetic sequences which have absolutely no reason, from the standpoint of observing the “obvious” groupings of organisms, to display nested hierarchical patterns... except that evolutionary theory says they should because of their patterns of common ancestry.

When actually constructing a consensus phylogenetic tree such as the one shown at (Life on Earth ) not only are a great many genetic traits taken into account, but a rigorous mathematical analysis of the actual DNA sequences of the organisms in question (where such DNA is available) is done to create cladograms (the branching diagrams showing patterns of descent) with the highest possible percentage confidence. These techniques have been tested in situations where the correct evolutionary relationships are already independently known for an absolute certainty to verify that they do in fact not simply produce an evolutionary relationship but the correct evolutionary relationship to within a very low margin of error..

One example:

http://www.unifesp.br/dmip/Sanson-etal,2002.pdf

(Edit: Dammit, looks like that link has gone inactive since I originally wrote this up. Looking for an alternate source for the paper...)

(Edit again: Success! http://mbe.oxfordjournals.org/cgi/reprint/19/2/170.pdf )

In the paper above the researchers started with an original sample of DNA from Trypanosoma cruzi. They bred it over successive generations and allowed it to continually mutate, and every 70 generations 2 of the resulting DNA sequences were isolated at random and then used to found new populations. This process was repeated 4 times until 16 different ancestral DNA sequences had been generated. A rough diagram illustrating the process is shown in Figure 1 on page 2 of the paper.

Now this might not sound like much… but the number of possible phylogenetic trees that can be generated for a group of N different related genetic sequences increases in a steeply exponential manner as N increases. That number is described by the equation: (2N-3)!/((2^(N-2)) (N-2)!).

For 2 organisms this gives us only 1 possible tree (which should be obvious).

For 3 organisms it gives us 3 possible trees.

For 5 it gives us 105.

For 10 it gives us over 34 million.

For 16 organisms that gives us a total of (29!)/((2^14)(14!)) = 29!/1.428x10^15 = 6.19028x10^15 possible phylogenetic tree diagrams that can be generated. Picking the correct one isn’t something you can do by luck... unless of course you can beat better than 6 quintillion to 1 odds. If you have mathematical routines that can, when applied to genetic sequences from those 16 organisms, subsequently generate the correct tree or even a very close approximation of it, it can safely be concluded that it’s because the routine works and works well.

So, they subjected the 16 final (terminal) sequences to phylogenetic analysis to see what the calculated highest likelihood phylogenetic tree for the organisms was. The result is displayed in figure 3 on page 5 of the paper. The top tree is the actual observed branching pattern during the experiment. Each of the circles represent a point at which sample sequences were isolated to found new populations… ie: an evolutionary branching of the population into two separate groups. They are numbered to correspond to the illustrated points in figure 1. The numbers along each branching line along the diagram represent the “branch length”. A value that can be used to represent either time between nodes… or amount of genetic sequence changes between nodes. In this case, the latter. For example, between node 2.1 and 3.1 the sequence undergoes 5 changes… while between node 2.1 and 3.2 it undergoes 6. T1 through T16 are the final 16 sequences generated as the end result of the process.

Displayed below that is the highest probability tree returned by the phylogenetic analysis of the sequences. Note that not only is every single node and branch correctly placed but the predicted length of each branch is also found in 29 out of 30 cases to within the calculated margin of error (on the branch linking the 2.2 and 3.3 nodes it missed the branch length by 1 sequence change more than it’s calculated margin of error.)

The entire evolutionary history of all 16 terminal sequences back to their common ancestor… reconstructed completely starting only from the end product and working backwards. Just as we can do with any other living things we have DNA samples from.

In short, the method works. Very well.

As noted in discussion of the previous topic there are, occasionally, some grey areas where it is not clear where a species should be placed in the tree to within a node or so due, in most cases, to some small scale discrepancy between phylogenies based on morphological data and phylogenies based on molecular or genetic data. An example will follow further down the post.

Evolution critics will often point to these regions of uncertainty as some kind of indication that evolutionary theory is incapable of explaining the evolutionary origins of some species… that evolution is “stumped” by certain species and should therefore be rejected. This is ludicrous. Even in a cladogram of only 16 organisms if this had been true of one of them… and a single branch had been mis-located by one node… given the amount of possible trees that had to be eliminated to arrive at the correct location for each of those nodes and branches it amounts to the equivalent of a margin of error in the results of 1 part in roughly 3x10^15…. or a measurement inaccuracy once we reach the equivalent of the 14th decimal place. An incredibly tiny margin of error if ever there was one.

To contrast … last I checked the charge of the electron has been measured reliably to 7 decimal places. G, the gravitational constant, to 3 decimal places. Nobody in their right mind suggests that this means we need to toss out physics and start from scratch because G and the charge of the electron “stumps” us through our inability to achieve a 100% perfect correlation between experimental results. 99.99% is pretty damn good too.

99.999999999...% is extraordinary. (They don’t say that evolutionary theory is one of the (if not the) most strongly evidentially supported scientific theories in the history of science just because they think it sounds good.)

Is it frustrating on those occasions when there is one branch on the tree with a positioning uncertainty of one branch... or maybe even two on sufficiently zoomed in scales? Yes. Ideally we would like to have absolutely every last detail right down to every single individual species nailed down with absolute certainty. It is why scientific research always continues to try to narrow those uncertainties... to add just that one more decimal place to that correlated value…

Is it somehow fatal to evolutionary theory that we still require some more data and better measurements to get that one branch position nailed down once and for all? Ridiculous.

Actual example of discrepancy between two phylogenetic analyses:

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/croc.gif

These are two different phylogenies for species of crocodile. One based on the morphological data, one based on a molecular analysis of the c-myc proto-oncogene… taken from this study:

http://163.238.8.180/~fburbrink/Courses/Seminar in Systematics/gharials.pdf

Morhohological data will under almost any circumstances be considered secondary to molecular and genetic analysis... this being because the units of biological inheritance are the genes themselves. Analyzing morphology is observing a secondary characteristic of inheritance and thus has an expected slightly larger margin of error which can occasionally cause minor discrepancies in the two phylogenies like this one. If you scan down to the figure on page 8 of the linked paper you get a slightly better picture of the extent to which the sequences are analyzed to establish the tree in a genetic analysis. The chart shows the multiple mutations which were experienced along each branch to arrive at the final c-myc sequences.

The two charts created differ only on their placement of Gavialis. Based on the morphological data it was expected it would be less closely related to Tomistcoma than to other crocodiles… but the genetic analysis says they’re more closely related than other crocodiles. Notice that with the exception of the single Gavialis branch both trees are identical.

Note that even if we are to consider only these 8 species in isolation from the much larger tree into which they fit, and in which their position is well established, a difference of a single branch position for a single member of the group between one measurement and the other is miniscule. There are over one hundred and thirty five thousand possible phylogenetic trees for a group of 8 organisms… having the morphological and genetic sequence data correlate to this degree is an impressive level of agreement. Resolving that last branch position is the same as resolving a measurement out at the 4th or 5th decimal place. We still want to do it, but it’s not bringing the theory crashing down while we’re waiting for the call to be made. It’s not causing any difficulty to the theory at all.

...

I'll give it another day or so before moving on again. But really Sunni Man, if you're still reading along, if you're not going to point out that "nonsense and pseudoscience" part soon you're going to run out of time. If you accept everything posted so far you've basically accepted all of evolutionary theory as being validly supported by the available evidence. So... any time now.

 

[Sunni Man]

I am still here watching you build this house of cards.

 

[SmarterThanHick]

and yet no matter how hard you huff and you puff, you can't blow it down.... interesting....

 

[gcomeau]

I am still here watching you build this house of cards.

And with that now we're going to have to pause.

If you want to call it a "house of cards" then step up and point out the errors or flaws or weaknesses in anything so far presented. Because if you can't then you DO realize that with what has been presented so far we've pretty much iron-cladly established common ancestry is shared by all modern organisms, right? Or were you not really following what was happening here?

Do you or do you not accept the accuracy of what has so far been presented?

 

[Sunni Man]

I am just waiting to see how you pull all of these seperate pieces into one ironclad irrefutable theory

 

[SmarterThanHick]

so it's not that you're refuting any given piece, so much as ignoring all of them collectively. I see.

This isn't a jigsaw puzzle where we've constructed individual pieces that much fit together in order to see the larger image. This is evidence based science. Each of these "separate pieces" (as you say) can in and of itself show evolution to be correct.

Phylogenetics has shown this to be the case.
Genomics/Proteomics has shown this to be the case.
Anatomy has shown this to be the case.
Radiometric dating has only supported these things.
And nothing has refuted any of it.

So again I ask, given the fact that all of these things support the same theory: what part do you not accept as accurate? Alternately, if you find them all accurate: how do those facts explain anything other than evolution? What is the next logical conclusion you can obtain from that information?

 

[gcomeau]

I am just waiting to see how you pull all of these seperate pieces into one ironclad irrefutable theory

Fine. But do you or do you not dispute any of the data thus far presented?

 

[gcomeau]

Fine. But do you or do you not dispute any of the data thus far presented?

Just because I'm continuing with the next post doesn't mean I'm forgetting this question is hanging out there. This post jumps around a bit to hit several different lines of evidence briefly.

Chromosome Fusions

A lot of animals have different numbers of chromosomes. An often raised objection to evolution is that this means at some point an organism would have been born with a different number of chromosomes from the rest of the population but it wouldn’t have had anything it could mate with that had the same number of chromosomes so the mutation wouldn’t have been preserved. This objection is based on the false idea that animals with different numbers of chromosomes are incapable of interbreeding.

If this was true the existence of modern domesticated horses would be something of a genetic miracle. Domestic horse populations have 64 chromosomes… wild horse populations have 66.

In reality chromosome fissions and fusions are hardly an unknown phenomenon.

One such fusion clearly occurred after the hominids branched off from the rest of the primates. Humans have 23 pairs of chromosomes, all the rest of the primates have 24. Evolutionary theory and the nested hierarchy then tells us this means there was a fusion event which reduced the number of chromosomes in humans to 23 after their ancestors split off from the wider population. If this prediction is true, we should be able to see clear evidence of it in a chromosomal analysis.

Lo and behold:

Chromosome fusion

There is overwhelming evidence that human chromosome 2 is the product of the fusion of two chromosomes which just happen to look basically identical to two chromosomes found in chimpanzees… as seen in the image included in the above link.

Note that this is not just evidence that human and chimp genetic sequences kind of look the same. The telomere and centromere sequences in the middle of human chromosome 2 are clear indication that that chromosome is the product of the combination of two different pre-existing independent chromosomes. If humans had been independently created in their modern form rather than having evolved into it from a common ancestor with other animals there is no reason to expect find something like this in the human genome… but there it is.

Biogeography and Paleobiogeography

Biogeography is the mapping of spatial patterns of biodiversity. Ie: which animals and types of animals are found in which geographic regions. Combined with paleobiogeography, which is the mapping of the same in the fossil record, this presents us with yet another piece of corroborating evidence for evolution. Fossil forms which are morphologically transitional stretching back from modern animals back to earlier ones are found in geographically contiguous locations throughout the record. Obviously this is something which is to be expected if all those transitional forms were to have evolved one from the other. If they were not transitional ancestral organisms but rather just completely independent separately created lineages of some kind there would be no reason to expect the geographical distributions we do observe that they fall into.

Properties of DNA Replication

DNA is the genetic identity of an organism; it’s the primary factor in making an organism what it is biologically. The DNA changes - the organism changes.

It is a well established property of DNA that it undergoes mutation during replication on a fairly regular basis. Different nucleotides are substituted for each other, new nucleotides are inserted in or deleted from a sequence resulting in shifted reading frames, entire genes are occasionally duplicated and subsequently subjected to independent mutation events, chromosomes split and fuse… and over time those changes spread even as they continue to accumulate. There’s no avoiding that simple fact.

The genetic code of all living things is in a constant state of change and thus all living things are changing. Generation, after generation, after generation.

Another simple fact is that, unless under the influence of some restraining factor which places boundaries on the absolute range of change achievable, this fact presents us with a very simple equation:

Constant Change + Time = Greater Change.

And in dealing with the history of biological life on Earth we are considering a very, very great length of time indeed.

As for that “restraining factor”, this is one place you’ll see a great deal of anti-evolutionists try to take a stand… if you can call it that. You’ll see them say things like ”Oh sure, evolution can happen… but only microevolution that produces variation within species. Evolution doesn’t make new species.”

Of course they’re quickly forced to retreat from this claim as soon as the numerous examples of observed speciation events are called to their attention demonstrating quite unequivocally that evolution not only can but does produce new species.

The fallback position from that point is usually to say that evolution can’t produce new “kinds” of organisms. Even a cursory examination of this position topples it in short order as well. When asked to define how to recognize what a “kind” is so that this claim can be put to the test no answer ever seems to be forthcoming. When asked the nature of the genetic barrier somehow preventing genetic changes from crossing the threshold between “kinds” no answer ever seems to be forthcoming. When asked for an example of which specific genetic code would be preserved by this barrier they can’t describe no answer ever seems to be forthcoming. When asked on what possible other basis the claim that evolution doesn’t result in these new “kinds” is made no answer ever seems to be forthcoming. When asked how exactly a person can claim that “A” never happens when they can’t explain why it is that “A” never happens or even worse, define what “A” is in any detail whatsoever … well, just guess.

Rates of Genetic Change

Another claim you’ll see sometimes made against evolution is that there hasn’t been enough time for all the observed “microevolution” to produce the degree of biological diversity we see today. Again, a claim that is quickly debunked.

Multiple studies have been done measuring average rates of mutation within species, average genetic divergence between species, and amount of time since divergence of those species ancestral lines indicated by the fossil record in which that genetic divergence had to occur. Despite the vague claims against evolution in this respect every time an actual objective measurement is performed it somehow fails to turn up any kind of problems.

For example: the fossil record indicates the ancestors of chimps and humans diverged approximately 6 million years ago. Based on analysis of the regions of the human and chimp genomes with the highest divergences from each other today (worst case scenario from the evolutionary perspective) and using that as the basis for calculating how fast mutation would have had to occur to produce the differences between those sequences if starting from a common genome the required rate of mutation arrived at is approximately 2x10^-8 nucleotide substitutions per site per generation… taken from Futuyama’s ‘Evolutionary Biology’, Third Edition. Current measurements of the average rate of mutation of human and chimp genomes gives a figure somewhere between 1x10^-8 and 5x10^-8 nucleotide substitutions per site per generation… right where it should be.


Now, have we yet hit the point where you want to object to anything presented Sunni Man? Or do you accept the validity of the information presented to date?