He doesn’t need to know about or acknowledge antibiotic resistance. But the researchers who develop antibiotics sure know.
There are several definitions of evolution. Like a chamelion it changes. So the definition itself evolves, but that definition is not the type of evolution which is significant. In other words, if a mere change in allele frequency happens in all species, without the common ancestor, then we have evolution without the common ancestor. But no biological evolutionist understands evolution to be limited to mere allele changes within various species. Yet the definition you give would allow such an understanding. So such a definition is deceiving, used in a double minded way. Yes, biologists do use the term in such a way, but, the implicit understanding is that it is not limited to any parameters, that it persists from the genesis of life to the development of all the life species we presently find today.
So while that definition is often used, it is incorrect, since if limited merely to a change in alleles, then it would ascribe to itself that dog breeding, cattle breeding, salmon breeding, and horse breeding are all evolution. This type of semantics is deceptive, since we are not talking about all kinds of generic evolution, but a specific pattern of evolution which includes the idea of a common ancestor generating diverse species and families merely through more or less random mutations and natural selection (selection by nature) and/or population isolation.
Therefore, even though such a defintion is used, it is wrong. It is particularly wrong because it does not really define what evolution is, but only describes a small aspect of the larger assumed process. The fact that no one argues that changes in alleles take place does not make such a definition legitimate, since obviously many people do argue that evolution has not happened on the macro scale. It would be like defining acceleration as the use of fuel.
it was a theoretical question
And I gave you a factual answer.
You seem to have missed my point, probably because I didn’t express it very well. Yes, that definition could be misleading. That’s why I pointed out that evolution includes not only the small changes in genetic makeup within a species, but also the grand sweep of change over the history of life on Earth. The definition isn’t intended to convey the essence of evolution, or everything that’s included in evolution; it just tells you where change stops being considered evolution.
They are evolution. When biologists talk about the origins of dog breeds, for example, they talk about their evolutionary history (see here for example).
This is both abusive and wrong. Real biologists do indeed use the stated definition, implicitly or explicitly, to distinguish what is and what isn’t evolution. They don’t do it to deceive (who would they be trying to deceive?); they do it to describe what evolutionary biologists study.
The idea that extinction is not an evolutionary event is certainly not universally held. David Raup had an influential paper on precisely this topic. Given that the paper is freely available, I think the discussion would be advanced by addressing it directly.
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Two different processes of evolution, natural selection and genetic drift, can and do lead to fixation of alleles. A fixed allele is the sole allele remaining for that locus in a population. The loss of alternative alleles is an evolutionary phenomenon. The proffered example of the loss of red hair color could only be non-evolutionary if it had no heritable component. If red hair color was due to one or more alleles at one or more loci, and its disappearance from the population was because those alleles failed to be propagated into the new generation, that would indeed be an evolutionary event. It is an indication that other, alternative alleles have correspondingly increased their frequency in the population, which must necessarily be the case if the traits in question are derived from the expression of genes.
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I don’t know if I am being obtuse, or simply unclear. When we are talking about a definition of something, we need the definition to be inclusive. Processes involved in evolution are not themselves evolution. For example, breeding would be involved in evolution. Color is involved in evolution. Size, prolificy, hair length, feathers are involved in the theory. But hair is not evolution, and color is not evolution. When you have a definition, you cannot define the entire process by merely one aspect of the process. This is why I said that you can not define acceleration as the use of fuel, even though acceleration of a vehicle certainly would use fuel.
This distinction is important, especially when discussing evolution with those who do not accept the macro evolution position. Mutations are necessary for evolution, but mutations are not themselves evolution. Selection would be necessary for evolution, but selection by itself is not evolution. If you only had a change in alleles, but it stopped within the parameters of a species, and never changed a subgroup of a species into a different species, would you still say you had evolution? If the world was only 1000 years old, and the change in alleles only happened for the last 100 years, would you still say you had evolution?
If you defined acceleration as the use of fuel, then a situation where a vehicle is idling, using fuel, would be called acceleration. If you define a house as space to live, then a green lawn could be a house. A definition must be complete.
They deceive themselves. If a mechanic studies engines, that does not give him the right to call a fuel an engine, just because he also studies fuels and how they work in an engine.
Of course, extinction is part of life, and evolutionary theory addresses extinction. But there is a big difference between saying that extinction is evolution, and that extinction has been part of evolutionary change. If for example, you have five types of wolves, and one type of wolf, the red-haired wolves, becomes extinct, how is this evolution. No new species. No new development. No progression in any direction. Only a loss of options. If this is evolution, then it makes the word meaningless. A word cannot mean everything and nothing at the same time, but sometimes it seems that this is how evolution is defined.
You have yet to offer any reason at all for thinking that they deceive themselves. Can you find a single evolutionary biologist who thinks that evolution doesn’t include large-scale changes? If not, what are you actually talking about? I cannot any substance to your complaint here.
That’s exactly the point isn’t it. When evolution is defined merely as a change in alleles in a persistant population, it is missing the biggest thing that most biologists believe, which is the large scale changes. What kind of a definition is it that misses the most significant thing? The so-called definition of evolution being a change in frequency of alleles in a population that persists over time, is not actually a definition at all. It is merely the beginning stage of evolution, like one step is the beginning of a walk. Yet, we would not define a walk as taking one step. So we know that they don’t actually believe that a change in alleles is the definition of evolution, yet they use it sometimes as a definition. Incorrectly. Your not seeing this illustrates the problem.
One small change in alleles in a population would not equate to the concept of evolution that is being considered. Would someone who believes all species were created separately by a designer, but who agrees that since creation of all these separate species, there have been some changes in alleles within the populations of four of these species…, would he be called an evolutionist? Would he be considered to believe in evolution? If not, why not? After all he has clearly believed in a change in frequency of alleles within a persistant population. He has met the requirements of the definition.
Wow. It is not hard to understand why the discussion stopped with this post. I scarcely know what to say.
Yes, one “step” is the beginning of a walk. One step is also what happens in the middle of a walk. More steps happen while the walk is reaching some distant location far from where one started. Walking involves steps. Lots of them. There is nothing “mere” about a step. Walking involves lots of steps. (Film at 11.) And throughout the walk, steps are taken. Every one of those steps takes one to a different place. This is where the “Micro-evolution happens but not macro-evolution” mantra is repeated, but good luck trying to get those who repeat that mantra to identify the barrier which at some point makes one more step in a particular direction impossible. (No, the Kruger-Dunning Effect is never that specific. KD demands ambiguity and lots of important points never addressed.)
Johnz’s denial of the science—by denying one of the standard definitions—is painful to watch. Shall we decide that all of the university textbooks are wrong and the world’s PhD’s have failed to understand what the amateurs denying the science from the side-lines supposedly see so very clearly? (I doubt it. But that’s just me. I’m skeptical in that way.)
I used to read a lot of the comments under various anti-evolution books’ reviews at Amazon.com because a number of prominent scientists from various universities used to hang around there. They would brilliantly and informatively inviscerate the arguments of some of the more dogmatic non-scientists who had very little understanding of what evolution is and how its processes operate. Dr. David Levin, who teaches evolutionary biology to medical school students at Boston University would lose patience every now and then and write something usually along the lines of this: Denial is not an argument. Failing to understand the basics of evolution is not an argument. The argument from Personal Incredulity is a logic fallacy. Denying the basic terminology and definitions of the science is not an argument. And most of all, the denials in general of the uninformed outside of the academy looking in on the academy and complaining, ‘You guys are doing it wrong.’ is not just erroneous. To put it bluntly, the science academy doesn’t care what the amateur critic thinks he/she knows but doesn’t. Science is not a democracy. To put it even more bluntly, uninformed opinions about the science from those outside of the academy just don’t matter to the academy. It matters for the future of a society of informed voters and policy-makers but it doesn’t change the science one bit. So let’s not kid ourselves.
Such posts under the Amazon book reviews always produced a lot of anger from the young earth creationists who frequented those threads—but after the professors posted explanations and instructive URLs, there was nothing else to be gained by conversing in circles. Watching such confrontations reminded me of my office hours after a major exam. There would always be a line of students determined to argue why their wrong answer on the exam actually deserved full or at least partial credit. I was always willing to award more points if they could make a good case, especially if there was real ambiguity in the exam question or problem scenario. But there were some who would argue a point endlessly and so I had to eventually draw the line and blow the whistle on a lost cause: “No. Your answer on the exam was just plain wrong. It was wrong when you took the exam and it is still wrong today. Exhaustive determination will not change the fact that your answer is wrong and that you demonstrated a complete failure to grasp the concept. The next step is for you to re-read the textbook. And again. And again, until you understand the material. I’ll help if you have questions but denying is not grasping and it certainly isn’t learning.”
Much has been said about the denial of absolutes in our day. So I will stop now and avoid adding to the verbiage.The irony becomes overwhelming.
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ANY change in the gene pool of a life form IS evolution.
Some changes in the gene pool occur because of favorable fertility or survival rates triggered by a new variant.
Some changes occur because a new ecological situation favors what used to be a less beneficial variant.
Some changes just change (because of a mistake or corruption of the DNA process) - - and do not affect fertility or survival.
ANY change is evolution - up, down or sideways.
George
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Yes. And as this thread illustrates, one is doomed to going in circles when one tries to explain evolution to those whose arguments are stuck at “No, that’s not evolution” and “All of the scientists are wrong and those of us outside of the science academy see their obvious errors. Why don’t they listen to us and learn from us amateurs?” It is impossible to get anywhere when non-scientists claim to have shown how all of the scientists are wrong. If evidence doesn’t matter and the meanings of words don’t matter, progress in discussion is impossible.
I had a friend in the math department who was editor of a mathematics journal for many years. He said that he regularly received unsolicited “papers” from amateur mathematicians claiming to have solved some of the greatest math problems of all times. He said that for a while he worked on assembling an FAQ of explanations of why their “solutions” were hopelessly insufficient. Yet he found that sending them anything which challenged their self-congratulations of having allegedly solved what the world’s greatest mathematicians hadn’t only served to solicit more correspondence. Indeed, the authors of those “papers” would then accuse him of “conspiring” to silence them and deprive the world of their amazing, groundbreaking discovery. The more he explained and tried to educate them, the more they insisted that he was driven by “bias” and even jealousy at their obvious mathematical brilliance.
The mathematician told me that he quit responding to the unsolicited papers and no longer sent educational FAQs. When I asked him why, he said, “One day I realized that after over a decade of trying to educate the amateur mathematician authors, not a single one ever wrote back and said, 'Thanks! You really opened my eyes to what I didn’t understand about X. Now I can see why my solution falls far short of solving anything.” The journal editor came to realize that the goal of the adamant authors was not actually to solve a famous mathematics problem and expand the boundaries of human knowledge but to assert their personal significance to an academic world that ignored them. So engaging them failed to educate them and was actually feeding into their delusion that they had solved and understood what all of the world’s PhD’s had not. Nothing ever resolved. The impasse would always remain.
Of course, this is not just a shortcoming of a particular group of individuals, denomination, or group. We as fallen humans are all susceptible to the Kruger-Dunning Effort and letting our worldview blind us to the point where evidence and scholarship just doesn’t matter in changing our minds. It took me years to recognize my own susceptibility to this failure of logic in my thinking when I stray outside of my fields of expertise and became dogmatic that the experienced scholars in such fields were all wrong. (Sadly, and to my shame, it took me a lot longer to figure that out than I would like to admit.)
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Much like the anti-vax folks, right??
Hello John,
I’m not sure what you’re trying to say here. Are you saying that the large-scale differences between say, a whale and a hippo are not due to changes in allele frequencies in the population of their common ancestor? If that’s what you’re saying, to what other differences do you attribute those changes?
The way you’re using the term “change in alleles” suggests that you may not understand the concept very well. Are you aware of the distinction between the terms “allele” and “gene”?
An allele is a form or variation of a gene. So members of a species have a different genome attributes due to the different alleles, but yet have the same types of genes, ie. number of chromosomes, number and placement of genes. A change in frequency of alleles has not changed a species, but merely changes some of its attributes. Therefore there is a difference in alleles between Clydesdales and miniature horses, but they have compatible genomes, and are the same species.
Selecting for an adaptive trait or preferential trait from within a population does not mean that a different species has been created. While it could be considered an intermediate transition from one species to another, it is not itself the essence of evolution any more than breeding, mating, or eating is the essence of evolution, and yet are all required for evolution to take place. To conflate allele frequencies as a definition of evolution is fraudulent.
No.
It is not only not fraudulent, biology textbooks used in universities all over the world define evolution in exactly those terms: evolution is change in allele frequency distributions which occurs over time within a population.
To deny this is to attempt a reintroduction of the popular propaganda fallacy that there is some undefined, natural barrier which “prevents microevolution from becoming macroevolution.” (That argument was lame enough many years and a thousands of tries ago. Today it is not just mindlessly tiresome. It is sad. If you think all of the scientists are wrong, by all means: publish your debunking of that science in a peer-reviewed journal by means of a better analysis of the evidence and collect your Nobel Prize. Seriously. That is how it is done—NOT by calling the careful work of the science academy “fraudulent.”)
(1) If someone wishes to claim “I deny all of the evidence for that kind of evolution (and the Theory of Evolution in general) because it conflicts with my interpretation of the Bible”, I wish them well and I would defend their freedom of belief and freedom of speech. Dr. Kurt Wise is a role model in this regard. He makes clear that he is ready and willing to ignore any and all scientific evidence when it appears to conflict with his traditional interpretations of the Bible. He does not call his scientific peers “fraudulent”.
(2) To call “FRAUDULENT” the peer-reviewed science of the academy which has been published in university textbooks and taught by thousands of Ph.D. scholars of biology after many decades of failed falsification attempts is an INSULT to both their professionalism, scientific ethics, and moral integrity.
To say that you DISAGREE with the science—assuming that you are able to back it up with EVIDENCE and application of the SCIENTIFIC METHOD which can survey the scrutiny of peer review—is fine. But to call it “FRAUDULENT” is to accuse countless scientists, both Christian and non-Christian, of criminality and a kind of moral bankruptcy. It is to assert that they are guilty of FRAUD. (For the record, “fraud” is defined as “wrongful or criminal deception intended to result in financial or personal gain.”)
@JohnZ, I shall hope that I can give you the benefit of the doubt and assume that you have poorly chosen your words. Please confirm that you chose inflammatory wording instead of accurate wording.
Of course, even if you change the word “fraudulent” to “incorrect” or “erroneous”, it hard to overlook the implied (blatant?) hubris which comes with claiming all of the biology textbooks in error and that you have somehow identified (without the slightest solid scientific foundation) a grievous error in the peer-reviewed science which is the product of massive consilience within multiple academic disciplines.
I do understand that such bombast is a common tactic in anti-evolution propaganda. Yet this is the very kind of unrestrained name-calling that so easily drifts and grows from “the scientists are wrong” to eventually become “the godless deceitful scientists are deliberately inflicting their fraudulent pseudo-science religion upon the masses in order to wipe out all knowledge of God.” That is not a slippery slope argument because I can provide clickable links to origins-ministries entrepreneurs who make their living selling exactly that sort of out of control hyperbole.
I won’t bother to list the many other factual errors of your post because (1) others have already posted informative and detailed corrections to your prior postings of these same errors, and because (2) nobody pays me to spend hours writing remedial tutorials for basic evolutionary biology. Indeed, considering that your errors have already been explained to you, a reckless observer might even call your re-posting of them “fraudulent”—but I disagree. I prefer to simply call them erroneous and devoid of that which is defensible in the light of modern science.
As I posted on another thread earlier today, the scientists have already met the burden of proof. If you think them all to be wrong, you are welcomed to accept the burden of proof that is on you to present the evidence and analysis through the scientific method which convinces the academy that you are correct and that they are incorrect. That is how the process works. Calling their definition of evolution “fraudulent”----and thereby accusing them of fraudulent conduct, i.e., criminal fraud—is neither instructive nor conducive to a Christ-like dialogue with scientists.
That’s all I have to contribute to this topic. As one who was once guilty of this same kind of take-no-prisoners denial of evolutionary biology (when I was part of the creation science movement long ago), I exhort you to consider the unnecessary obstacles these kinds of tactics have erected within American academy. I assure you: once erected, the stumbling blocks to non-believers are not easily forgotten by them. I can’t go back in time and reverse the errors I made in exactly these regards. I sincerely wish better for you.
Campus evangelism at most public universities changed markedly between the 1950’s and the 2000’s. In the 1950’s one had to define the meaning of “Christian”. Today one has to spend a lot of time reassuring colleagues what being a Christian does NOT mean! Sadly, even single unfortunate events such as the Bill-Nye vs. Ken Ham debate created entire barricades of distractions, insults, mantras, and sound-bites which have to be overcome before one can even define what it means and doesn’t mean to be a Christ-follower.
I encourage all readers to carefully examine our priorities against the ultimate priority of the Great Commission.
{I apologize for the likely typos brought by the limitations of my present workstation and satellite connection as I relay through an associate in the States.}
Thus, for this definition, evolution is believed by everyone, even by YEC creationists. Convenient. Convenient to have a definition which by definition includes every single position on the planet. Yes indeed. What better example of fraud and manipulation?
I am not talking of “the careful work of scientists”. I am talking about the definition of a concept, or of a theory.
It is similar to defining a Christian as a believer in some type of deity. Is this true, or is it deceptive?
All the rest of your comment is diversionary and equivocation. IMHO.