Darwin's Doubt

[Dick Whitman]

No one should have to waste even a second of time defending evolution against creationists. That's not "shutting down discussion." That's "ignoring idiots."

We need a senior thesis to discredit evolution, much like the poster who used a senior thesis in his attempt to debunk climate change.

The ever-evolving flu virus would like a word with you.

I don't think the author is trying to debunk or discredit the theory of evolution.

Darwin himself expected others to come along and complete his work. Now, maybe not enough time has passed for this to happen. Or, maybe it can't be done.

I think that the author thought that it was worth exploring. I think that he's writing for a mass audience. And, rather than trying to discredit Darwin, he's trying to show that Intelligent Design and Evolution are not incompatible.

Now, if you want to discredit or Intelligent Design, that's fine. But falling back on Darwin alone won't do it.

Again: What does Darwin have to do with the origin of life?

 

[Here me roar]

I think, by definition, an author extolling intelligent design is working to debunk Darwin.

How is a working example of Darwinism a 'fall back' and not evidence?

 

[YankeeFan]

Again: What does Darwin have to do with the origin of life?

Exactly.

Intelligent Design may be the most flawed theory ever conceived. But, it doesn't conflict with Darwin.

 

[RickStain]

Say something stupid.

Get called on it being stupid.

Accuse less stupid people of trying to shut down discussion.

They aren't trying to shut it down. They are trying to keep you from dragging it down. When your science book requires "narrative" and "easy to understand" sections, it's not off to a great start.

 

[Songbird]

No one should have to waste even a second of time defending evolution against creationists. That's not "shutting down discussion." That's "ignoring idiots."

We need a senior thesis to discredit evolution, much like the poster who used a senior thesis in his attempt to debunk climate change.

The ever-evolving flu virus would like a word with you.

I don't think the author is trying to debunk or discredit the theory of evolution.

Darwin himself expected others to come along and complete his work. Now, maybe not enough time has passed for this to happen. Or, maybe it can't be done.

I think that the author thought that it was worth exploring. I think that he's writing for a mass audience. And, rather than trying to discredit Darwin, he's trying to show that Intelligent Design and Evolution are not incompatible.

Now, if you want to discredit or Intelligent Design, that's fine. But falling back on Darwin alone won't do it.

Again: What does Darwin have to do with the origin of life?

Frank Costanza could use a little help, too.

http://youtu.be/-MCtC_U4e2o?t=1m1s

 

[YankeeFan]

Say something stupid.

Get called on it being stupid.

Accuse less stupid people of trying to shut down discussion.

They aren't trying to shut it down. They are trying to keep you from dragging it down. When your science book requires "narrative" and "easy to understand" sections, it's not off to a great start.

Ok, let's back up.

If we're going to assign levels of stupid, can someone answer me this: did the author of the book, or the author of the article about the book, use the term "Darwinist" as a pejorative?

 

[LongTimeListener]

I think that the author thought that it was worth exploring. I think that he's writing for a mass audience. And, rather than trying to discredit Darwin, he's trying to show that Intelligent Design and Evolution are not incompatible.

Now, if you want to discredit or Intelligent Design, that's fine. But falling back on Darwin alone won't do it.

The author is trying to exploit God and Jesus, having seen the way millions upon millions of people line up at Chick-fil-A or buy Tebow jerseys for that one reason. (I no has Tebow jersey. I worship only the wing-T Tebow.) It is a cynical but extraordinarily effective use of religion, and if there isn't a sucker born every minute, there's certainly one born (or born again) often enough to make it worthwhile to put out a Jesus-related product.

There is no need to "discredit" Intelligent Design. It has no credit.

 

[da man]

Why aren't you holding Frances Crick and James Watson to this same exacting standard? They only made their discovery 60 years ago, and it was admittedly incomplete. Is Crick and Watson's work, therefore, null and void?

Not at all.

I thought it was an interesting subject. Even in terms of Intelligent Design, I think the author probably does a better job at introducing/explaining/defending the subject than most.

I guess I'm just as surprised that some people get their back up at the thought of questioning Darwin as black dude with pompano is at the thought of folks using the term "Darwinist" without proper deference. (And, for the record, I don't see how it could be described as a pejorative in the excerpt.)

Plus, I figured I'd get points for starting a conversation by referencing a source other than the Times.

There's a really good reason the fossil record is incomplete.

Do you know how difficult it is for an organism to become fossilized after it dies? All sorts of things have to go exactly, perfectly right -- the soil conditions, moisture, weather, other organisms not consuming it, etc. It is extremely rare for any plant or animal to become a fossil in the first place. Then the fossil must survive millions or billions of years of earthquakes, volcanic activity, tectonic plate motion, rock upheaval, erosion, etc., to get to the present day. And then it must be discovered by people who aren't necessarily looking for it (or if they are might be looking in the wrong place).

And that slim chance of an organism becoming a discovered fossil decreases exponentially when that creature is an invertebrate made of soft tissue with no bones or exoskeleton.

Anyone who believes we're going to discover the complete fossil record that shows the exact steps from prehistoric ancestor to every present-day organism is sorely mistaken. We'll never even find a tenth of it, nor a hundredth.

That said, there do exist a number of fossil trails that show a very clear evolutionary path from ancestor to current animal -- most famously, in the horse, though that evolutionary progression was apparently far more complex than the original "straight-line" sequence it first seemed.

Which brings up another point -- those evolutionary sequences are not going to be straight lines. It doesn't work like that. There will be many branches that go nowhere, or species that coexist with their so-called ancestors, or lines that split in different ways, or all sorts of variations. In short, it isn't as simple as finding some sort of "missing link" in any particular organism's evolutionary chain.

As for the Cambrian Explosion, you're looking for fossils that predate some of the oldest fossils known. It's obvious that the more recent the fossil, the better chance it has of surviving and being discovered -- and conversely, the older it is, the less chance of making it. And, again, all of the animals we're looking for are invertebrates and most are soft-bodied, making fossils far more difficult to come by. From what I've read, the kind of stone in which many of the Cambrian Explosion fossils have been found is extremely rare, and Cambrian-era layers seem to have an unusually high percentage of that type of stone, which helps preserve soft tissue, whereas other (pre-Cambrian) eras do not, making it harder to find a record of organisms from those eras. And there is even some disagreement about the relative age of the layers in which many of the Cambrian fossils were found, meaning the "explosion" might actually have occurred over a longer period of time than first thought.

But then, you don't have to take my word for it: http://icb.oxfordjournals.org/content/43/1/157.long

"... the temporal aspects of exceptional preservation are also worth remarking on. Almost all of our detailed knowledge of the macro-fossil record of the Cambrian explosion comes from the exceptionally preserved biotas, of which the Burgess Shale is merely one representative among many (Butterfield, 1995). ... It is important to note that these preservational modes are not always randomly distributed. ... Revisions to the Cambrian time-scale allow a moderately long period of time, some tens of millions of years, between the first likely bilaterian trace fossils, and the general appearance of crown-group members of the phyla."

All that said, evolution has been actually observed. Ask any doctor who has had to change the antibiotics he or she prescribes because certain bacteria have become resistant to certain antibiotics. How do you think that happens? Well, the antibiotic kills most of the bacteria it encounters -- but not all of them. The ones that survive multiply and pass their resistance on to their offspring. Given the compressed time frame and prodigious nature of bacterial reproduction, it doesn't take that much time for that trait to become dominant in a certain population.

So the short answer is, Darwin did not claim to have all the answers. No one does. But expecting the fossil record to offer complete proof of evolution, and citing gaps in the fossil record as evidence that evolution is false, is foolish.

 

[Songbird]

Wonder if Darwin ever wrote about the evolution of the scrotum, like Slate did:

http://slate.me/17229gX

 

[da man]

I think that the author thought that it was worth exploring. I think that he's writing for a mass audience. And, rather than trying to discredit Darwin, he's trying to show that Intelligent Design and Evolution are not incompatible.

Now, if you want to discredit or Intelligent Design, that's fine. But falling back on Darwin alone won't do it.

The author is trying to exploit God and Jesus, having seen the way millions upon millions of people line up at Chick-fil-A or buy Tebow jerseys for that one reason. (I no has Tebow jersey. I worship only the wing-T Tebow.) It is a cynical but extraordinarily effective use of religion, and if there isn't a sucker born every minute, there's certainly one born (or born again) often enough to make it worthwhile to put out a Jesus-related product.

There is no need to "discredit" Intelligent Design. It has no credit.

The reason millions of people line up at Chick-fil-A is because their sandwiches are forking awesome.

Just sayin'.

 

[LongTimeListener]

That too, I do have to agree.

 

[YankeeFan]

The author is trying to exploit God and Jesus, having seen the way millions upon millions of people line up at Chick-fil-A or buy Tebow jerseys for that one reason. (I no has Tebow jersey. I worship only the wing-T Tebow.) It is a cynical but extraordinarily effective use of religion, and if there isn't a sucker born every minute, there's certainly one born (or born again) often enough to make it worthwhile to put out a Jesus-related product.

See, I don't really disagree with you. Pop/pseudo science sells (certainly more than real science), especially if it also appeals to Christians.

And, I'm not sure if it's any more or less exploitative than the works of folks like Dan Brown (who, admittedly bills his work as fiction, but many believe they are reading the "truth" when they read a book like The Da Vinci Code).

I also thought da man's post was terrific.

It's probably true that if you took da man's post and submitted it as a book proposal, you're unlikely to get a contract, while Meyer's proposal did lead to a contract.

I find Darwin and evolution fascinating. (The idea of intelligent design is somewhat interesting, but less so than Darwin/evolution.)

So, if a statement like da man's isn't interesting or provocative enough to set off a discussion on the subject, I'll settle for Meyer's book.