As an evolutionary biologist, it is very important to me to have a rigorous definition of “evolution.” The word “evolution” ultimately derives from the Latin verb “evolvere,” which means “to roll out” and referred to the reading of scrolls. In colloquial English, “evolution” refers to “progressive change.” This is what we mean when we talk about “the evolution of politics,” “the evolution of the media,” “the evolution of military power,” “the evolution of stars,” etc.
Now “progressive change” is of course the original meaning of “evolution” and is why development was the first process in biology to be called “evolution.” It is also the reason why “evolution” was later applied to the origin of species. At that point biologists considered the origin of species to be a progressive process where “lower” species changed into “higher” species. When biologists realized that the origin of species was not a progressive process, they still kept the term “evolution” to refer to the origin of species. Instead of coining new terminology, they kept the old terminology but changed its meaning, dropping the connotation of “progression.” As a result, the biological meaning of “evolution” diverged from the colloquial meaning of “evolution.” Many problems in scientific literacy can be traced to this divergence. Ironically, when people use “evolution” with out any specifics, they usually refer to biological evolution.
Creationists, who tend to be scientifically illiterate especially about biology, often take the colloquial connotation of “progression” to extremes. For instance, it is very common for them to think that evolution covers everything from the origin of the universe to mankind. That is that evolution is a progressive process in which nothing changed into man. Of course this is completely wrong; science recognizes no such process, progressive or otherwise. Even when creationists realize that evolution is not such a grand universal process, they still commonly mistake the origin of life (abiogenesis) for evolution. It is a very popular tactic to “criticize evolution” by arguing against a natural origin of life. However, such tactics further demonstrate biological illiteracy. There simply are no common processes between the origin of life and the diversification of life. No single explanation will cover both. (I am using “life” here in a broad sense: imperfect replicators.)
Now I am getting to my point: what is evolution? Well, evolution is both a fact and a theory. The fact of evolution is that characteristics of populations of organisms change over time. The theory of evolution explains this fact by identifying processes that produce such change. Such processes include mutation, selection, genetic drift, migration, isolation, and inbreeding.
I published an overview article of the definitions of evolution sometime back in NCSE Reports. Here’s the URL:
http://www.ncseweb.org/resources/rn[…]_30_1899.asp
I am one of those illiterate Creationists. You better go back to school and find out what it takes for a postualate to become a theory. Evolution is only a postulate. It does not qualify as a theory because it cannot be falsified. I’m suprised that someone as high sounding as you didn’t know that!
Please be so kind as to show me the evidence you have that one species has ever changed into or given birth to another species. In 5000 years of history I can show you millions of billions of examples of species only propagating their own kind. Can you show me one species changing into another? The old Groucho Marx line is appropriate. “Should I believe you or my own eyes.” Since we all came out of a pool of primordial slime, I give you the periodic table… please produce life from it. Having trouble? Being a “biologiacal” evolutionist you should know that the odds of human DNA coming together accidently are somewhere near 1x10 to the 50th power against. Since 1x10 to the 25th power is statistcal impossibility, that means it is 1x10 to the 25th power past impossible for humans to have evolved accidentally. Since the fossil record show 80% of all species have gone extinct already, long ages work against the possibility. The longer we are around the harder it is for a species to exist without the aid of intelligent design.
For evolution to have happened you will need hundreds of millions of transitional forms. Can you point these out in the fossil record for me? I have seen charts that start with a cow. Then a miraculous arrow points to a whale. Cows becoming whales. Can you provide any transitional evidence of this happening? Do you REALLY believe cows turned into whales?!!!
Lastly, I find evolutionists fall somewhere between two ends of a spectrum. At one end you have the ignorant. They don’t know or understand the science behind the debate. At the other end are the humanists who see the real complexity of life and know evolution could not have taken place. The reason they still toe the line is because the alternative is too horrible for them to contemplate. That is a Creator God who will hold them accountable for their action and inaction. They stay in an existential denial and talk about “spacemen populating the earth”. No embarrassing scientific facts to deal with there.
I don’t know where you are in the spectrum but I would guess you are somewhere in the middle. Not completely ignorant but not smart enough to know the difference between a theory and a postulate. You have a very merry and blessed Christmas.
Ever hear of blending inheritance?
My favorite example of speciation are mosquitoes in the London Underground, which show not only reproductive isolation from the surface population but distinct morphology and genetics. More examples are noted in this webpage or any decent college biology book.
Too bad evolution is not an accidental process. But hey while you are on a roll I should point out that every particular order of cards in a shuffled deck has the probability of 1 in 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000 or 8x10-67 of occurring. According to your logic a shuffled deck can’t exist.
I’m not a museum or a paleontologist, but I can point you towards some excellent information on the topic, including information on whale evolution.
LOL I always chuckle when a creationist calls me ignorant about biology.
” That is a Creator God who will hold them accountable for their action and inaction. “
Yeah. That’s logical.
“All you have to do is look at this wonderful creation, to believe there is a God”
I can’t believe anyone would ‘want’ to believe evolution. it’s stupid. I’m only 15 and I could prove evolutionists wrong. it takes more faith to believe in evouloution than creation. i dont see why they waste their time trying to prove evolution when its already been disproven so many times. Evolutionists need to wake up to the real world, face the facts & admit their wrong. they are all cowards who are running away from God, by unsucessfully trying to prove He doesn’t exist.
God created the heavens and the earth and he made man in his own image,evolution might try to prove that there is no God but he does not care because,he has always regreted why he made man,for example,you as a teacher teaches a student that 1+1 is =2 and tomorrow the student says that his mother told him that 1+1=2 but you told him that 1+1=1 how will you feel,just like sophie said, you are cowards that are trying to prove that God does not exist but the time will come when you people shall meet with him face to face and he shall remind you of your iniquities.please repent,i am also 15 years old and i see his manifestation in my life.may God forgive you all in jesus name.
Hello Reid
i am currently doing an assignment on cladograms and evolution in high school, and i am saying that a turtle is more evolved than a koala. I would apreciate your help if you could help me or direct me to any sites, also when i mean evolved i mean that it shows better charaterisitics and survival. Could you please email me soon, as it is due in 3 days and i have been searching so far for 1 week straight or you could leave the comment here.
P.S sorry for posting here, didnt know where else.
Igor,
I have several reservations about your project as you have explained it.
1) Koalas are a single species (Phascolarctos cinereus), while turtles are a group of species (order Testudines). Comparing the two is like comparing apples to oranges.
2) “More evolved” is a concept that evolutionary biologists frown upon because it relies on the “progressive evolution” concept that I discuss as wrong in the above post.
3) I suggest that instead of talking about how one is more evolved than the other, you should talk about the different adaptations that Koalas and say Loggerhead sea turtles have to survive and reproduce in their environments.
I am surprised it has taken someone this long to catch this, but then again, I am a Math major. (And no that doesn’t mean I am going to argue numbers here all day with anyone). First off let’s clear something up for everyone about the 1x10^-50 number that has been thrown around everywhere. It is not a constant (there is no specific Law that says that a probability less than 1x10^-50 will never happen), but the “Law” does say to use common sense given the situation and that an extremely small number (such as 1x10^-50) can be chosen if it is reasonable with the situation to say that if the probability is less than this, it will never happen realistically because the conditions will never be satisfied in the finite amount of time required for the experiment (we are not given infinite time for things to happen, sorry–amino acids and proteins do have a very short life span if not given the perfect conditions.) So there is a little lesson on “Borel’s Law” (yes, it is actually a “law” and it is published–there are actually two books by Borel. See this website for more information on this discussion about Borel’s law (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/abi[…]orelfaq.html)
Using what I just told you let’s look at something that was said earlier on the board:
Reed said: “Too bad evolution is not an accidental process. But hey while you are on a roll I should point out that every particular order of cards in a shuffled deck has the probability of 1 in 80658175170943878571660636856403766975289505440883277824000000000000 or 8x10-67 of occurring. According to your logic a shuffled deck can’t exist.” on Dec. 7, 2004.
Now, for this quote. Reed, you have said one thing and then concluded another I will only hope to correct this egregious error so that right thinking may be restored. The example is about the probability of being about to pre-determine the sequence of cards that the deck will be in after the deck is thoroughly randomized. For example. What is the probability that after thoroughly shuffled, it will come out EXACTLY like it did out of the box? (that is one of the possibilities). The odds are so against you at ever getting this right that statisticians would at least say that the probability of this event is approximately 0 (it is an impossible event)–some might even say that it is 0 meaning that it is so impossible it might as well be completely impossible.
What example are you referring to? I’m the only one here using the deck of cards analogy, and I can assure you that you have not understood my example.
According to your argument, you can determine if a deck of cards (numbered 1–52) was ordered randomly or purposely by calculating the probability that its ordering would be produced by a random shuffle. Okay.
Assume you are walking in a desert and you find a deck of cards in the following order: 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17, 18, 19, 20, 21, 22, 23, 24, 25, 26, 27, 28, 29, 30, 31, 32, 33, 34, 35, 36, 37, 38, 39, 40, 41, 42, 43, 44, 45, 46, 47, 48, 49, 50, 51, 52. Well the probability of this occurring by chance is 8x10^-67, which is less than your 10^-50 lower limit. Thus you conclude that it was ordered intentionally.
Now assume that you are again walking in a desert and you find a deck of cards in the following order: 17, 15, 37, 41, 20, 25, 45, 44, 3, 31, 52, 24, 22, 21, 26, 40, 7, 9, 46, 2, 50, 5, 49, 4, 28, 6, 34, 11, 48, 32, 35, 36, 23, 27, 30, 39, 42, 8, 1, 12, 51, 19, 43, 29, 16, 47, 13, 10, 14, 38, 18, 33. Well the probability of this occurring by chance is 8x10^-67, which is less than your 10^-50 lower limit. Thus you conclude that it was ordered intentionally.
The fact is we can make the same Borel’s Law argument and get to the same conclusion regardless of what the order of the cards is. Therefore, given the initial logic, the only possible conclusion is that there exists no deck of cards in the universe which has its ordering randomly determined.
We know this is not true, so clearly something is wrong with your initial argument.
If you are still scratching your head over this, try asking your major profs in the math department about Bayes’ Theorem, and its relation to post-hoc hypothesis testing.
“If you are still scratching your head over this, try asking your major profs in the math department about Bayes’ Theorem, and its relation to post-hoc hypothesis testing.”
“Therefore, given the initial logic, the only possible conclusion is that there exists no deck of cards in the universe which has its ordering randomly determined.”
This experiment will work a different way and it will make sense. (I am not actually going to do this). I am going to play a gambling game with you…for you to win. In this example you need only guess one card at a time (instead of guessing the entire order to start off with–though this will change the outcome–but that is OK with me for right now, I only care that you truly understand the concept we are driving at (and I think the money aspect will help). Let’s say I offer $50 if you win, but it costs you a $1 to play (already odds tell you it isn’t worth it, but they are always in the houses favor…the question is, is it possible for you to win? Should you ever put $1 on the table in hope to get $50 back? The statistics tell us that you well never win (that it is not possible to correctly guess the order of a randomized deck without cheating). I hope that helped clarify a little bit. I believe I can relate it more specifically to some examples in biology if you still are confused by anything I meant, but I don’t think we should beat a dead horse (sorry if you find the euphemism inappropriate) if you do understand what I am getting at. Daniel
Daniel,
I’m a statistical geneticist, not a student taking introductory statistics, so you don’t need to rely on money or biology for examples. I understand your argument, that is why I know you are wrong. It is true that it is nearly impossible to guess the order of a randomized deck. But that is irrelevant to the point that I made back in 2004.
The improbability of a single, particular ordering does not mean it is impossible to observe some ordering.
In your game, in order to win one must guess the exact solution to the ordering of cards. However, that is not analogous to how the universe works. In the game of life, there are innumerable number of solutions that allow an organism to reproduce. In addition, there are innumerable number of attempts to find such solutions—think of the billions of billions of organisms on this planet. Furthermore, the selection allows partial, simple solutions to be maintained and build upon by subsequent generations.
Let’s get back to cards. This game is a tournament, involving a million players. There is no way to win the game, but you can lose by elimination. Thus successful players are the ones that stay longer in the game than others. Now in this game, there are a thousand judges, each of whom holds a differently ordered deck of cards. Each player must take their deck of cards and order it in any way that they feel. Now in order to make it to the next round, a player must be in the top 1% of all players, based on how accurate their ordering is to any of the judge’s orderings, although they won’t know where they are right. In the next round, the empty seats are filled by new players, who copy one of the decks of the top 1% of players. All players are then free to make changes to their decks in the new round.
Clearly it is highly likely that out of the initial million players, that some players will have some cards in correct positions and other will have none. Those that have none will have lost. As new players enter and derive new solutions from previously successful ones, they will make changes. Some of these changes will improve their success, others will not. Those that find improvements will stay, those that don’t will leave.
Clearly over time, the population of players will increase the accuracy of their decks. But since the nature of the game is to beat you opponents, and not the judges, there is no reason to expect that any of the judge’s orderings will be found in the population, nor is there any need for the players to do so.
So although it is improbable to guess any particular ordering of cards on a single trial, it is possible to be a better guesser than others, and through descent with modification to improve the guesses.
Now your argument is equivalent to showing up at the billionth round of this game, reading a player’s hand, calculating how improbable it was that said player simply guessed such a successful hand, and concluding that they must have cheated. Clearly such a conclusion is erroneous and irrelevant to how the game is actually played.
Reading in this web site an article where it is said that scientists now date the split between us and the chimps about seven millions years ago (http://www.physorg.com/news9211.html). Then I ask this question “Is evolution the same as division?” if they are not the same and humans split from chimps rather than chimps gradually evolving into humans, then we do not descend from them.
Reed,
You said, “there are innumerable number of solutions that allow an organism to reproduce.” But what about what the conversation was originally about: what are the chances the correct amount of proteins (a minimum of 250) are all in the same location in the same moment, and all are able to survive long enough to produce life, apparently from non-life. The deck of cards is not a reasonable or adequate comparison. You have calculated the probability that someone will guess the correct sequence of cards after a random shuffling of the deck. However, the probability that a sequence will indeed occur is ONE–a sequence will indeed occur. Therefore, when you say “according to your logic a shuffled deck doesn’t exist” your logic itself is misleading. Rather, the likeliness someone will guess the exact sequence of cards in a shuffled deck is so low it is rounded to zero–impossible. In which case, the idea that evolution occurred through a random collection of proteins at the right time is so low it, too, is rounded to zero.
Not to be finnicky, but I also find your idea that “creationists” tend to be “scientifically illiterate” is a grossly inaccurate generalization, and somewhat offensive to me. In the U.S., at least, we have an excellent education system, and it is the law that each citizen attend school until, at least, the age of sixteen. Sorry, I’m not trying to be “all up in your face” about this, but each and every U.S. citizen that goes through this system, at some point, learns the theory of evolution (with the exception of some homeschoolers, I’m guessing, though I was homeschooled for a couple of years, and still learned evolution during that time). Perhaps not in-depth as a statistical geneticist but sufficiently, I would suppose. I am sorry that not every one is privileged to have the same education as you, but I think considering those with a lesser education “scientifically illiterate” is erroneous.
Sorry if my comment is a little scattered–I hope it’s somewhat comprehensible. :)
No offense, Reed, but apparently you don’t hate frickin know-it-alls as much as I do. Dude, you don’t know when to just let it drop.
All the talk about zero probabilaty of chains of amino acids is a load of crap, ok the odds are slim, but running those odds over 4.6 billion years is gonna end up with a result.
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