BioLogos Basics Video #7: How Evolution Works - Part 2 | The BioLogos Forum

Hi John T Mullen,

Actually I think you communicated exceptionally well, and my comment was intended as a (somewhat unclear) response to the mixed bag of reactions that your comment was generating. I agree with you completely and on all points. More: I think your respondents agree as well, and I think that each of the points I brought up are efforts to find an out clause rather than efforts to oppose your reasoning. In each case, the out-clause does not seem to succeed, and I think that the most interesting points you make haven’t even been addressed (the correlation between outliers and the religious motive and point that the motive itself is arguably non-essential to their faith commitment).

Hi John T Mullen,

As I mentioned before, I agree with you broadly regarding expert and non-expert opinions; the motivations for agreeing or disagreeing with any point of view are important and this applies to both religious and non-religious people. I have struggled to get a clear focus on many of the issues discussed in this forum, partly because I am not a biologist, and also because I look at these issues within a broader context of faith and reason, and this would consider all major scientific outlooks before I would consider re-examining established teachings of the Church. As I understand it, neo-Darwinism is not considered a heresy by the Church, nor its adequacies and inadequacies a cause for revising Church Dogma. I thus consider a consensus, and various differences voiced regarding aspects of the central, or core elements of Darwinism, as valid areas of discussion within a philosophy of science. If a central tenet, such as natural selection, (or origins of life, or gaps in a broad narrative of evolution, or changes from missing links to selected branches of what may be a tree or a forest of origins, and so on), is considered inadequate within a general theoretical framework, then this is a valid criticism. It is especially valid if this is then used to question established teachings of the Faith – this in no way is meant to prevent people questioning anything, be it religion or otherwise.

The difficulty for experts and non-experts stems from the broad manner which evolution is discussed – many aspects, such as lengthy times, variations in the earth and its bio-make up, are simply assumed to be explained by repeating the word evolution; often we may make the exact same statement by omitting any reference to evolution. This imo is a simple test by which a non-expert may use to distinguish ideological statements from scientifically valid ones.

Yes I also think that time will tell regarding the Darwinian paradigm – science has shown an ability to progress from outlook to outlook, and I think this will also occur for the bio-sciences.

hi bran and john t.

bren

i actually do talk about eukaryotes, and not about few cases here and there but a lot of cases:

http://www.pnas.org/content/95/12/6854.full

"Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves. "

so again- no hierarchy.

you said:

“So all of the mutated, fragmentary, frame-shifted, but otherwise homologous whale sequences that apparently relate to and are in the position of mammalian olfactory genes have been proven to be functional after all?!”-

not all but a lot of them. and my article i linked show it.

john t. you said that:

“it is likewise possible for an outlier to be correct. But such cases are so rare and improbable that it is not rational for a non-expert to deny a consensus”-

actually its not so rare. we have a lot of cases in the history:

let me ask you this question: lets say that we go back in time, when all people believed that the earth is flat. and some scientists will say to you that they have a proof that it isnt true and show it to you. in this case you still go by the consensus, or not?

Oh, ok, I had misunderstood. Thanks.

GJDS,

I think I broadly share your outlook on faith and reason. I’m not sure about your “test” yet. I guess I’ll have to try it out. It does seem to me that its adequacy as a test must be established by a good track record, i.e., by a history of cases such that we can see that it usually gives the correct answer. But to do that, we must already know the difference between an “ideological statement” and a “scientifically valid” one. Perhaps its adequacy could be established by applying it to clear cases, and then we could use it informatively on the hard, unclear cases.

Regarding the “time will tell” issue, it seems to me that we are going to have to wait a long time. I’m talking about hundreds of years, not just dozens. None of us will still be around (so we can relax a little). The problem is that we are near the very beginning of the search for natural paths through biological space. If there is a gap that seems stubborn, what is needed is for a lot of capable people to work for a long time on the problem of closing it. But we will need hundreds of years of such research, with no progress at all, before it will begin to look as if the Darwinian paradigm simply cannot close the gap. (I take it that the ID movement was too quick to pronounce that puzzling gaps are evidence of design… they simply haven’t allowed enough time and lack of progress to build up adequate evidence for their conclusion.) I have written on this blog occasionally about divine hiddenness and its explanatory power for an evolutionary creation. Because of that, I tend to anticipate that all the stubborn gaps will eventually close. And I don’t see that as even a moderate threat to my faith. You seem to anticipate that some gaps will simply remain stubborn. Perhaps you’re right. Time will tell.

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dcscccc,

The article you cited does not show that historical instances of outliers turning out to be correct are not very rare. But it does show something interesting that will not help your anti-evolutionary case, and I’ll try to address that below. It seems to me, though, that the right answer to your question is also not what you seem to think it is. But first, can we change the historical example to geocentric astronomy instead of a flat earth? The first consensus that emerged regarding the shape of the planet (among those who had put time and effort into studying the problem) was that it was a sphere. However, geocentric astronomy was indeed a consensus of experts for many centuries, and it has now been decisively overturned. So it will serve very nicely as one of the rare exceptions. And your question applies just as well to the former geocentric consensus: If I had been a non-astronomer (but with some astronomical interest) living in, say, 4th century (post-Ptolemy) Rome, and some astronomer (whom I grant is an expert) had told me that he has a proof that the sun and planets do not revolve around the earth, and he had showed his “proof” to me, should I still “go by” the geocentric consensus? The answer is… yes of course I should. And so should you have, and likewise for everyone who did not know enough to evaluate the “proof” competently. [As an aside, the evidence needed to firmly establish heliocentric astronomy was simply not available until the mid-16th century, so this fellow’s “proof” could not have been persuasive even to professional astronomers of the day. In fact, Aristarchus of Samos rather famously advanced a heliocentric theory in the 3rd century BC, and in retrospect we can see that he did a pretty fair job of arguing for it (this is a consequence of this case being one of the very rare exceptions). But his peers were quite reasonable in rejecting his theory, because it had too many problems that required a non-Aristotelian physics to solve.] It is easy to think that we should “go by” what we now know to be the case, but in fact it would be exceedingly unreasonable for a non-expert in such a situation to reject the nearly-unanimous judgment of established astronomers and allow this fellow’s “proof” to change his mind. By hypothesis, he does not know enough to evaluate the “proof.” Therefore, he should continue to be a geocentrist.

If you want a better argument for your point here, you might cite Larry Laudan’s very pessimistic induction on the History of Science (see his paper “A Confutation of Convergent Realism”). Laudan shows that a number of scientific theories that held sway for a time are now known to be false, and he problematically concludes that we have good reason to think our current theories are false. So you would love it! But be careful, because Laudan will not be your friend when it comes to denying common ancestry in biology. He was arguing against some specific types of Realism in the Philosophy of Science, which a very interesting topic, but even he would certainly have agreed with me that non-experts should accept common ancestry because of the scientific consensus in its favor. For my part, I think the problem here is that we haven’t yet discussed how one determines whether a consensus exists, which brings me to the article you cited…

This article shows only that the word “consensus” is cited too frequently, and used too loosely, in public policy debates. That is very likely the result of the apparent authority that a scientific consensus is presumed to have. Once there is a perceived authority, everyone wants it on their side, and sometimes people just say they have it, especially if they want very badly to win the policy debate. But the problem is not with the authority of a genuine scientific consensus. The problem is with the criteria that are used to establish whether such a consensus exists. In my first post I claimed that even a non-expert can apply such criteria, provided only that he/she has a reasonably broad-based education. I stand by that, but I never said what the criteria were. I don’t intend to go into detail here, but a minimal condition is a careful survey of the peer-reviewed (i.e., expert) literature in the field. A search of the word “consensus” in popular political periodicals does not count. I think that all of the examples cited in the article would fail the test of a genuine consensus. Most of them involved cancer research, which is notorious for changing regularly (as the article pointed out). In such a research environment, it is rash to proclaim a consensus about anything. But it is most emphatically not the case that the same can be said about the status of common ancestry in the biological sciences. There are only a very few cases where a genuine scientific consensus has turned out to be incorrect. Geocentric astronomy is one of them. Newtonian mechanics (another interesting case) is another. And there is a short list of others. But they are far too rare to justify a non-expert in challenging them. Experts may continue to pursue alternatives (if they can secure funding) in keeping with the principle of the perpetual revisability of science, but they need to accept that they will be outliers when they do so. But as experts in the field they have that privilege. Non-experts are rationally required to accept a genuine consensus. Let me end with a few examples of what I regard as a genuine consensus, and then ask if you think a non-expert can reasonably doubt them: heliocentric astronomy (since we’ve been talking about it), the circulation of the blood, atomic theory, plate tectonics, the periodic table of elements, and light as electromagnetic radiation. Since the genome projects were completed, common ancestry is like those things.

Dcscccc,

“i actually do talk about eukaryotes, and not about few cases here and there but a lot of cases: http://www.pnas.org/content/95/12/6854.full “Phylogenetic incongruities can be seen everywhere in the universal tree, from its root to the major branchings within and among the various taxa to the makeup of the primary groupings themselves.””

Bren: This article is discussing LUA (Last universal ancestor) and trying to make the case that especially at the base of the tree, gene transfer was fluid enough to make any discussion of direct descent meaningless (“…initially, both mutation rate and lateral gene transfer levels were elevated…”). At this stage in evolution, you can only trace the descent of individual genes or groups of genes. This makes sense and I appreciate the change in approach that the author is advocating. “The universal phylogenetic tree, therefore, is not an organismal tree at its base but gradually becomes one as its peripheral branchings emerge”. Again, this makes sense, but as I pointed out; Darwin was referring to a tree that relates Eukaryotes (plants and animals anyway), not prokaryotes and progenotes. It is only as we investigated prokaryotes and Achaea, beginning to look for the very early splits and for the LUA, that lgt became a serious problem for discerning phylogenies. There has been a great degree of “crystallization” since the first billion years, and much less gene transfer, especially in the “higher” taxa to which the tree originally referred. As I said, the phylogenies are generally resolvable and are not masked by lgt, though I would now add that they are masked (and even obliterated) at the base of the tree, as the author points out.

Bren: You use this article to make the case that there are “a lot of cases” of lgt in eukaryotes (whatever that claim actually amounts to), and to support it, you make the above quote from the article. What it actually says is that there are incongruities throughout. What this means is that there are individual proteins that yield discrepant phylogenies when compared with the convergent phylogenies arrived at by other means, and that we know exactly why (lgt). This seems like a complication, but it most certainly doesn’t seem like a problem for evolution; we know the discrepancies, we almost always know how to resolve them (convergent results from multiple independently derived phylogenies), and we know exactly why the discrepancies arise in the first place. The only reason there is any focus on it in this article, is that a very early period is being discussed; one in which a very different situation existed when it came to gene flow. You somehow took it to mean that there is no actual discernible pattern at all that can be resolved into any sort of a phylogeny. It does not say this. And again, who cares? We have a universal tree that is more complicated and difficult (if not impossible) to resolve at its base, but generally clear and well supported elsewhere. But really; what does this have to do with anything? It is interesting and represents an advance in our knowledge, but it has absolutely nothing to do with your main thesis (that evolution didn’t happen). Why add it to the main text of your thesis when it does nothing to support it? If evolution didn’t happen, it is quite clear that there would be no reason to expect any congruent phylogenies at all. We shouldn’t see any pattern. Instead, we see a strong pattern (including the nested hierarchies that you seem to want to deny) for which there are exceptions, and we happen to know the reason for the exceptions (and at times we can even trace how and where the genes were inserted during lgt based on how other sequences are interrupted). This looks like a dead end if it is intended as a tool to make trouble for the prevailing paradigm!

“so again- no hierarchy.”

Bren: It seems you have systematically misunderstood the conclusion that the author expects you to come to (but I do appreciate your providing such an interesting paper and I’m curious as to how you came by it).

“you said: “So all of the mutated, fragmentary, frame-shifted, but otherwise homologous whale sequences that apparently relate to and are in the position of mammalian olfactory genes have been proven to be functional after all?!”- not all but a lot of them. and my article i linked show it.”
Bren: Actually, we have known functions only for a small minority. How do you make the hop from a minority to all sequences? Please address my actual argument. And even if you address the argument I made, I repeated at least 4 times that this was rather beside the point (homology is the point, not whether there is secondarily acquired function). I thought I was overdoing it in repeating it that many times and even sort of made a joke of it, but to my astonishment, it has been completely ignored.

“john t. you said that: “it is likewise possible for an outlier to be correct. But such cases are so rare and improbable that it is not rational for a non-expert to deny a consensus”- …. let me ask you this question: lets say that we go back in time, when all people believed that the earth is flat. and some scientists will say to you that they have a proof that it isnt true and show it to you. in this case you still go by the consensus, or not?”

Bren: I always find it funny when we go back to a generally pre-scientific age for our best examples of how science has failed! More to the point, please explain why it is rational for a non-expert to deny a consensus (this seems like the more interesting point). I understand for the expert, but to repeat [again] we are discussing non-experts here.

It is reasonable to examine motives for denying common ancestry. My motives are several. One is that non-common ancestry seems to correlate better to the scriptural account. Second is that separate ancestry relates better to God’s purpose for man, and man’s unique relationship to God. Third is that common ancestry is so often used as a philosophical basis for proving that we do not need God, and that we are mere animals, driven and controlled solely by our biology. So those are my motives. But I think discussing motives in this case is useless for the purpose of discovering anything about evolution, its validity or inaccuracy, its assumptions, or its own motivations and impacts on scientific discovery.

This discussion about evolution is not driven by scripture or scriptural motivations. Nowhere in scripture are we encouraged to follow evolution, either in science, or in behaviour, or in philosophy. The discussion is driven by an examination of nature, and so the questions must address our examination and discoveries in nature. If anti-evolutionists are wrong, then discussing their motivations will not matter. Their motivations may not be wrong regardless, but motivations do not guarantee truth. If anti-evolutionists are right, then the motivations of evolutionists might be examined, but not until then.

Consensus is a political term. A non-expert may decide to follow consensus, or he may decide to follow a particular expert that he trusts. Either way may be reasonable/rational. As dcscccc has pointed out, there are many cases of correct non-consensus positions. I have not looked at his link, but… Copernicus/Galileo were non-consensus, Luther - non-consensus, Jesus - nonconsensus, Elijah, Jeremiah, Paul and Nicodemus, original flight, original spaceship, Pasteur, Newton, Edison, Darwin, etc., etc…

It may even be a consensus that following the consensus is best. This may be reasonable, but the opposite may also be reasonable. From a scientific point of view, it is best not to dwell on these political and social terms too much, nor to employ them in an argument for acceptance. “Consensus” is merely another logical fallacy equivalent to “arguing from authority”. Judges may have no choice but to consider consensus as well as expert opinion, but strictly speaking this cannot guarantee the right conclusion, as we see from some of the recent cases of false murder convictions.

This argument will really not make an iota of difference to a committed young earth creationist, nor to an evolutionary creationist. (you will not change an EC to deny God on the basis of consensus, and you will not change a YEC to accept evolution because of consensus).

JohnZ,
It is rare that I see someone arguing that there is no particularly good reason for a non-expert to follow the view of the vast majority of experts in a highly technical subject like biology, so I was surprised to see you advancing this position. The position that you disagree with seemed so obviously correct, that I didn’t expect it to be challenged. Consensus is a perhaps a loaded term in some quarters, and it is maybe the word itself that makes you uncomfortable enough to dismiss it as a merely political term (which it arguably can be in some contexts). To break down the word for the context in which it is being used, it refers to the conclusion that is generally and confidently agreed upon by the great majority of experts in the relevant field after extended debate and investigation. The major symptom of such an outcome is that the experts in the field have reached a point where the consensus is generally and frequently used as a solid premise for any ongoing discussion or in any technical literature. It is difficult to deny that this is the case with evolution. As has been pointed out, the question of whether or not evolution occurred is no longer discussed in scientific journals, yet a great deal of fruitful work is done with evolution acting as an established paradigm. This is not the same as using it as a catch-all explanation (evolutiondidit) and conversation stopper for further research. To use it as an explanation for particular biological changes would be a category error, and I would like to see a reference showing where you see this sort of discourse (I suspect that it was in the context where evolution was being generally contrasted with special creation). Far from denying that evolution is no longer seriously questioned in the literature, many creationists are bothered by it, seeing it as an indication that it is merely an unexamined assumption made by the experts. This is, of course, one (farfetched) possibility. In the sciences, where careers are made based on carefully questioning old findings and conclusions as well as pioneering new hypotheses and where heated debate and criticism is systemic, it is tough to credit such a position, but here’s roughly what it would take for this to be true: essentially, higher education, instead of teaching critical thinking skills and the basic scientific skill of testing conclusions based on evidence, would have to be institutes where brainwashing is the name of the game and where the evolutionary paradigm is systematically insulated and protected from data. It would require only a limited exposure to university post-grad culture to completely debunk this. If it were true, it would be politics as you say, and it would be the equivalent of an almost absurdly successful conspiracy. On the other hand, the history of the heated scientific debates and the enormous scrutiny that evolution has undergone over the last 150 years (arguably far more than any major theory in any field of science) is public knowledge, and a cursory knowledge of this history leads to the far more plausible idea that evolution is now taken as a given amongst experts simply because it has emerged as a highly fruitful, extremely well corroborated and firmly established paradigm over that period. In other words, it is taken as a consensus because there appears to be general agreement amongst biologists that there is no longer any rational justification for doubting it.

No layman is arguing from authority when relying on the well established majority view of those who are in a position to know what’s what. They are instead being simply rational (the only other logical options are to either rely on the direct knowledge that they don’t have or to rely on an outlier expert). In order to make it rational to instead take the opinion of a trained scientist who disagrees with that well established consensus, you would need some very solid justifications; you would need to establish that there is a conspiracy amongst the rest of the experts to reject the obvious truth, involving a system-wide motive that causes them to overlook the problems. You could do this by saying that evolutionists are driven by a strong desire to explain the universe without God and to reject His authority. This is easily disproven by speaking to actual evolutionary biologists and realizing that many don’t make any such connection between the science and the question of God and that many are Christians or belong to other theistic faith communities. The usual strategy for rescuing this justification is to assume that the evolutionary creationists are actually just bowing to the peer pressure of their colleagues, which is also easily debunked by communicating with them and asking them why they think what they do (or reading whatever books they write in which they often take the time to explain their position). Alternatively, assuming the conspiracy strategy doesn’t work out, you could claim that you have reason to believe that this outlier expert is such a genius that he leaves the rest of the field far behind (tough to see this as a good option and I’m not sure it needs to be discussed, though I suspect Sarfati might see himself in this way). Finally you would also need to establish, assuming that you failed to establish a universal biasing motive on the part of the “consensus community”, that the expert in question doesn’t have any biasing motive of his own. Unfortunately you are in a bad position on this one, since the expert you are thinking of is almost certainly a person whose faith commitment gives him/her a strong motivation to resist the conclusion that evolution occurred. This seems to exhaust the options, so it seems that only two rational approaches are left; either stop being a layman and become a trained expert (give yourself 8 to 12 years minimum) or trust the consensus (if you don’t like the word, than replace it with “the firmly established view of the vast majority of experts”).

Otherwise you seem to be trying to make the case that this discussion of motives is largely irrelevant. This seems obviously wrong to me. If you have a point of view that strongly motivates you avoid admitting to a certain conclusion, then this does not logically imply anything about the truth or falsehood of that conclusion. It merely implies that you can’t be relied upon as an unbiased evaluator. It implies that your admitted bias must be taken into account when deciding how much we can rely on your position for deciding the truth. The testimony of a biased witness (such as the defendant) is weakened by definition, and any outlier scientist who is apparently motivated by his religious position to disagree with the general conclusion of his colleagues should be dismissed as a reliable authority. Doesn’t mean he’s wrong; it just means the layman would be demonstrably unreasonable if he looked to this expert instead of to the majority view when making up his own mind.

Bren, it is rare to argue that we should not follow consensus, but in fact that is not what I am arguing. In fact I said it might be reasonable to do so. And it might also be reasonable not to do so. It may be reasonable to find people doing both, on opposite sides of the argument. That is what I basically was saying. There is justification for both. In the end, however, consensus is the opinion as to whether something is right, or whether something works, or whether something will work, or whether it cannot work.

Gravity is not true because of consensus. The world is not round because of consensus. Bacteria do not cause disease because of consensus. The light bulb was not invented because of consensus. Yet, if the consensus is that bacteria can cause disease, it seems reasonable to believe that bacteria can cause disease. But if the consensus is that the world is flat, it is better not to join in the consensus. If the consensus is to use leeches to cure most illnesses, then it is better not to join the consensus. If the consensus is that the appendix is a vestigial organ with no function, then it is better not to join the consensus.

It had been for centuries the consensus that farmers should till the soil to grow a crop. If we only went by consensus, we would be stuck in that “scientific” paradigm forever. However, today we find farmers conserving moisture, reducing soil erosion, and growing better crops with less fuel, without using tillage.

It had been the consensus for ages that man could not fly. Today that consensus has been destroyed by planes, jets, ultralites, and hang gliders. The point is that consensus can be used as a show-stopper. Scientifically, that is simply not valid.

When we come specifically to evolution, then we see a lot of consensus. We also see misdirected predictions. However, this does not invalidate evolution per se. Any theory, and any scientist could make inaccurate predictions. But when looking at why the predictions were made, we begin to understand the limitations of the theory. It seems to me it can predict everything and nothing at all at the same time.

Obviously, we can predict where we find some fossils. This is based on where we actually find fossils, the layers, formations, etc. But the theory proponents assume that mere similarity of formations and layers cannot lead to the same predictions as the theory, regardless of what you call them. On the other hand, the theory has believed various fossils to be extinct; the coelecanth fish is an example of that… it was prehistoric, and presumed extinct due to lack of fossils in many layers, but then found still existed in real life. So this reveals a basic flaw in the interpretations of fossils in general which is based on the absence of fossils in some layers. We know that the absence of fossils cannot prove absence of species. We have proof of that. Therefore it cannot be used as a foundation for the theory. Yet it continues to do so, by consensus.

The theory predicts vestigial organs and non-functional dna. True? True. However, some “vestigial organs” were found to be very useful, and therefore cannot be called vestigial. True? True. On what basis then do we judge whether an organ is vestigial? There must be a criteria outside of the theory itself, otherwise it is no proof of the theory, and no evidence to support the theory. How do we know whether we have enough knowledge to judge whether it is actually vestigial or not? Often we know what we don’t know, but sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know.

Do I think that evolution is brainwashing? Not always. Not intentionally. But in a consensus situation it probably is to some extent. Especially for the non-expert. I do not believe there is a conspiracy… it’s just a consensus. I do not believe that the consensus is there to disprove God. I also don’t know how Sarfati sees himself, and it is really not relevant to the truth of the points he makes.

Your conclusion that a biased or motivated scientist is unreliable, is generally unjustified and incorrect. If not incorrect, then motives could be attributed to everyone. The main motive is who would want to be judged as an outlier? Who would want to be judged as “not mainstream”? Who would want to be accused of being one of those accursed creationists? Peer approval is a huge motivator for the consensus and the status quo.

Some will say that if you prove evolution wrong, everyone will praise you and give you the nobel prize. They will say that science corrects itself, as in the case of the discovering that many proposed ape to human intermediates were not so, and that Haeckle’s drawings of embryos were false, or that several vestigial organs were not vestigial, and then use that as proof that evolution is not inviolable. Hopefully they are right, that it is subject to critique and evaluation. But the emotional attachment to it goes far beyond mere science. So in that sense I agree with you, the motivations can make it less credible.

So, I try to look at the actual statements and evidence being presented. Why does a theory sometimes make wrong predictions. Are there other possible answers for natural phenomena. Is there only one way to interpret the data. What about conflicting data. Are the assumptions correct. Are they reasonable. I do not accept everything every creationist expert says, just because he says it. It must make sense to me. I do not accept every criticism of evolution theory, but I must say that many of them are valid criticisms.

Let me say first that this has been one of the better discussions on our site that I’ve seen. Good thoughtful stuff.

I’ll ramble a bit about truth and reasonableness. I’d guess that all of us accept that truth is absolute. Whether a consensus proclaims it or not, the truth of the matter is settled by its conformity to reality. But reasonableness is a different matter. There have been examples produced above in which someone one was wrong, but we’d judge him to be reasonable in his beliefs (and conversely, someone who might have had true beliefs, but we’d judge him to be unreasonable). Reasonableness is not an absolute relation to reality the way truth is; it is largely relative to the other things that I believe. And because we don’t hold all beliefs with same degree of certainty, we might talk about degrees of reasonable (whereas we don’t say there are degrees of truth).

So, for the YEC who is absolutely certain that Bible must be interpreted in their way, it is not entirely reasonable for them to accept evolution. It is in this sense that motives are relevant. If my motive is to preserve a certain belief (or system of beliefs), then there will be an effect on what I deem to be reasonable. Quine said our beliefs face the tribunal of experience corporately, not individually. To get a YEC to accept the evidence for whale evolution is not simply a matter of laying that evidence on the table. To accept it would affect many other beliefs.

And here we’re getting into Thomas Kuhn territory. There are paradigms that shift, and they are analogous to conversion experiences. It is coming to see things differently. We see “as” according to the other things we accept. I’m not so pessimistic and Kuhn and Feyerabend about our ability to judge competing paradigms. But I do think it is more complicated than is typically acknowledged.

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Hi John T Mullen,

I should clarify one point - by test, I did not mean an experimental procedure of some sort - I meant a simple way of reading (some) scientific papers that use the term ‘evolution’ in the discussion. For a systematic approach, I have in the past referred to an approach that is often termed mega-data analysis. In this approach, people have examined correlations, using a large data base, between the data they consider relevant, and a fundamental tenet such as natural selection. I have quoted one or two papers on this site that deal with such an approach - these papers were an attempt to quantify things such as natural selection (a god correlation of >0.9 would be weighty support for NS)- from memory, I think the correlation coefficient was poor (<0.6). Such a result is, scientifically, indicative of very weak correlation and would not be found imo (nor considered acceptable) for any “law” of science. Normally the conclusion would be that NS cannot be considered a “law” found in nature. Yet we have few, or none, atheists or EC or TE people discussing such results, and instead they are ignored.

I can use popular statements to also point out the ideological bias displayed when discussing the “science” of Darwinism - for example, press statements have been made which date(s) of so called human ancestors are revised further back in time, based on stone tools - I watched an interview of a prominent bio-scientist who was dogmatic concerning this claim, because these artefacts were argon dated. As a scientist, I felt embarrassed, for the simple reason that he blatantly equated the time these were fashioned and/or used as tools, with the age of the stones themselves. Clearly the stones may have been turned into tools 100 years ago, or millions of years ago - argon dating cannot possibly show this. Yet this so called prominent expert was not even hesitant about his claim.

Again, you feel that gaps in Darwinian thinking need to be filled - on this I disagree with you. My feeling is a new paradigm will replace Darwinism, and this will be based on science and scientific theory, and the semantics of Darwin will be relegated to history. The time for this to occur is prolonged by the stubborn ideological positions taken by many atheists, theists and bio-scientists. I agree however, that making a distinction between an ideological statement and a scientifically valid one, is difficult. Nonetheless reasonable discussions will help.

Hi JohnZ,

I am very tempted to post a point by point rebuttal, but I think it sets a bad tone (wrote it but saved it and then canned it), so I’ll reserve my thoughts. You have made a number of points for which the response and an explanation of the involved misunderstanding are commonly available on this site and many others; I don’t see any reason to repeat. I will only say that I’m not sure you are addressing the core of the argument being made and the context in which it is valid. Other than that, all the best, and I appreciate your efforts to engage my points thoughtfully.

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In the hope that my general comments on meta-analysis are NOT misunderstood, I add one reference that deals with meta-analysis of meta-analysis, that is not anti-Darwnian, or anti-evolution, with the following quote for the sake of clarity:

Meta-analysis of meta-analyses in plant evolutionary Ecology, by Maria Clara Castellanos • Miguel Verdu, Evol Ecol, 2012.

Natural selection is an important force behind phenotypic differentiation across a wide range of plant traits (Kingsolver et al. 2001; Rieseberg et al. 2002). However, not all traits are expected to be targeted by selection in the same way. For example, traits closely related to fitness, such as life history traits, are expected to experience stronger selection than other types of traits (Merila¨ and Sheldon 1999). Tests of this idea have come to different conclusions, depending on the methodological approach. Kingsolver et al. (2001) compared selection gradients and differentials measured in wild populations across different types of traits, and found that morphological traits were subject to stronger selection than life history traits.”

Also:

On the other hand, these biases did not prevent a quantitative comparison of the effects of different selective pressures, which showed that the strength of responses to selection depends on the nature of selection (biotic versus abiotic factors) but, unexpectedly, not on the type of trait under selection.”

My comments should be understood within a context which shows an absence of a clear and quantitative correlation with a law-like concept termed natural selection. This would suggest that the term “selection” may cover a variety of factors, in addition to and including ecology and populations behaviour. The correlation numbers I gave above are simply illustrative and not a direct number obtained from any source.

hi john t.

you said:

If I had been a non-astronomer living in, say, 4th century (post-Ptolemy) Rome, and some astronomer (whom I grant is an expert) had told me that he has a proof that the sun and planets do not revolve around the earth, and he had showed his “proof” to me, should I still “go by” the geocentric consensus? The answer is… yes of course I should"

i actually do talk about a real fact and not somthing that we cant test. so i will ask you again (this time with a real fact: lets say that this scientist made a spaceship or invented a new method to test this question). do you go in this case by the concensus or by the evidence?

hi brean. lets continue…

you said:

“If evolution didn’t happen, it is quite clear that there would be no reason to expect any congruent phylogenies at all. We shouldn’t see any pattern. Instead, we see a strong pattern (including the nested hierarchies that you seem to want to deny”-

1)show me a specific exmaple and lets check this example.
2)why do you think that we cant find hierarchy in some cars?

you said:

“Actually, we have known functions only for a small minority. How do you make the hop from a minority to all sequences? Please address my actual argument.”

firstly i doesnt said that all of them functional. here is from the article:

"Thewissen’s team found that the bowhead olfactory bulb makes up 0.13 per cent of total brain weight. “It’s similar to macaques and baboons. Those are animals that have a good sense of smell, certainly better than apes and humans,” he says.

“To make the case for whale sense of smell even stronger, a colleague looked for genes in bowhead DNA that code for smell sensors. Half of the genes found seemed to produce proteins, compared with fewer than 25 per cent of smell-sensor genes in toothed whales.”

so this whale may actually smell better then a human.

you said that:

“, please explain why it is rational for a non-expert to deny a consensus (this seems like the more interesting point).”-

you can answer my question above to john t. and then i will show you why.

dcscccc,

We are talking about what we would think in hypothetical situations (which do reveal what we really think about the evidence we have before us), the rationality of our beliefs, and the weight we should accord various types of evidence. There are “real facts” about all of these things, and they are very important, even though we cannot check them empirically. (You seem to think that only empirically testable claims count as “real facts,” but that is exceedingly problematic.) So you may not dismiss these topics by claiming to deal only in “real facts.” That’s just a way of saying you would rather not think about them. And that is, of course, irrational.

You do realize, don’t you, that you have not presented me with a “real fact” as you yourself understand that phrase, but rather with another hypothetical? I will answer your question because I think hypotheticals of this sort are important. But in fact there was no such spaceship, neither of us lived in ancient Rome, and we can’t test any of this.

As I understand your new hypothetical, you want me to imagine this ancient astronomer giving me a ride in a spaceship so that we can take a tour of the solar system and visually confirm his heliocentric theory. Is that right? Well, if that were to actually happen, I would begin to question my own sanity. But even if I were to retain confidence in my apparent sense experience, I would insist that this fellow give rides to the experts of the day to enable them to revise their consensus. That’s because I would then have private evidence (supplied to me by this eccentric and very prescient ancient genius) that would indeed defeat the belief I had formed on the basis of my knowledge of the scientific consensus. That can indeed happen, if the private evidence is bizarre enough. But so what??!! What does that tell us about the confidence that non-experts should place in a scientific consensus in the absence of private evidence to the contrary? Nothing! Or don’t you think so? (I have to ignore your “invented a new method to test” scenario, because the question will immediately arise whether I should regard the new test as persuasive evidence, and that is precisely the sort of thing we need experts to determine.)

Dear dcscccc, I think you are ignoring the real problem. The original hypothetical, where an outlier expert presents an argument to a non-expert and the non-expert must decide where to place his/her confidence, is the one that will tell us what we want to know about the case at hand (which is about common ancestry). I will try again. Don’t you think that, in the case of the “ordinary” ancient astronomer, a non-expert should defer to the judgment of the consensus of the day (where the “should” is an epistemological “should”)? Isn’t that what you would in fact do in such a case? Tell me honestly, after seriously considering it. I really think there is a clear answer here, and it reveals that non-experts should accept common ancestry on the basis of the powerful consensus in its favor, even though there are a handful of experts who question it. Now, if we have revelation from God Himself that tells us the consensus is mistaken, then yes, we should then deny the consensus. And I take it that you think that’s what we have. But that’s where the problem lies! And that’s why it’s so significant that all the outliers are religiously motivated. Scripture is authoritative all right, but it does NOT require us to deny the consensus on common ancestry. And at that point we need to start looking at biblical scholarship and hermeneutics. Perhaps John Walton (among many others) can help with that.

GJDS,

Thanks. That is interesting, and informative.

I should clarify one point also. I can’t say that I think gaps need to be filled. It’s just that I tend to anticipate that they will, and my reflections on hiddenness lead me there. However, I think I could be quite comfortable with divine interventions designed to cross certain gaps, as long as that hypothesis remains empirically indistinguishable from the hypothesis that there was a “natural path” through biological space. And the latter hypothesis is separable from the Darwinian paradigm.

Dcscccc,

“1)show me a specific exmaple and lets check this example.”

Bren: Instead, here is a chapter describing how it works, since this seems to be new to you (much of what is found in this chapter is new to me as well). Please interact with this if you wish to understand the subject; it seems quite interesting.
http://www.evolution-textbook.org/content/free/contents/ch27.html#ch27-5-1
Given that this describes standard procedures, it is far more informative than any specific example. A key extract: “Phylogenetic analysis enables us to employ more discriminating criteria to identify past LGT events. Here, we can capitalize on the fact that if genes were added to a genome by LGT, phylogenetic analysis of those genes would yield trees different from those obtained for the rest of the genome.” That the natural world tends to sort into nested hierarchies was obvious as early as Linnaeus (presumably earlier as well), and since you can find this in any relevant high school or university textbook, I will leave it to you to investigate.

“2)why do you think that we cant find hierarchy in some cars?”

Bren: Because; a van or a small car can both be ordered with the same ergonomic leather seat or the same airbag from the same company. Two completely different car companies can use the same engine model (I’ve heard that this is the case for my own car). This in spite of the fact that they are very different vehicles with different histories and from different companies. They swap modules depending on specific customer requirements. There is no nested hierarchy and you couldn’t possibly come up with similar phylogenies based on any of their parts. It’s not that there can’t be nested hierarchies to some extremely limited extent (bigger cars tend to have bigger wheels), but comparing parts across the board, you simply find no such pattern. This is how nature should look if not for common descent.

“so this whale may actually smell better then a human.”

Bren: Whales still smell, apparently, because they surface for air and need to sample the environment at that time. Given that the human sense of smell is massively defective compared with dogs or rats (there is a similar but independent loss of OR genes in humans and in whales), they are rather a poor example for you to use. In fact they are independent proof of the very same phenomenon; we also have a large set of apparently non-functional OR genes. This is the point that needs to be addressed.

“you can answer my question above to john t. and then i will show you why.”

Bren: As John pointed out; this is hardly a “real fact”(!) You are inventing a hypothetical situation where you, as an untrained observer, are give new information (assuming it is credible and assuming that you, as a non-expert, are able to assess it) to which none of the experts have access. Obviously (a) you are ruining the premise, which is that you are a non-expert – you are suddenly one of the only living authorities when it comes to the new data and one of the only people who has access to critical information; and (b) this is an absurd situation and does not at all match the reality of which we speak (the creationists are always on about how they have the same data as the evolutionists). If you are the only person on earth with new, credible data that overturns the consensus, then yes, you are obviously rational to follow this lead. Now can we return to the real facts;-)?

Quick correction:

On my May 28th post I said that the evidence needed to firmly establish heliocentric (i.e., Copernican) astronomy as a consensus was not available until the mid-16th century. That should have said “mid-17th century.” After Kepler. I was writing too fast, and I’m sorry about that.