Help with debunking a creationist claim

[purple_kathryn]

Hello science minded people (well evolution related science anyhow)

I've just had some one on my twitter feed post a link to this

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/05/the_fantasy_wor071901.html

The Fairyland of Evolutionary Modeling

Which seems to be using this study

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7449/full/nature12142.html

Adaptive dynamics under development-based genotype–phenotype maps

to show evolution can't have happened.

Now they use the term "darwinian scientists" which immediately made me suspicious anyway. But given that neither myself nor the person who posted the link are particularly well informed scientifically I'm wondering how best to tell him it's bullshit.

Apologies if there is already a thread about it, I did a very brief search but nothing came up (it could of course be on the old forum as the study was published a year ago)

 

[Keith&Co.]

It's quote mining. They don't discuss whether or not the model does what it set out to do. They don't show that any of the assumptions were poorly chosen.
But it doesn't completely replicate the whole of evolutionary theory, so they say it fails.
Eric H was doing this on the old forum. Set a new goal for completed research and then show that it failed to reach that goal.

Just ask your friend what the researcher's goal was and whether or not they met THAT, not the critics' stretch-goals added after the fact.

 

[purple_kathryn]

Cheers!!

I was reading it that way myself

I suspect he's being a bit "hit and run" but its good to ask these things for my own information

 

[Jokodo]

I only glanced over that "evolutionnews" blog entry, but enough to tell that they didn't read the Nature paper in an honest attempt to understand it (which I read more of, but don't have access now). And also, they don't understand a thing about modelling.

The paper itself is actually quite cool. It's about the question of how constrained adaptation is by developmental pathways. The more constrained, the further the resulting phenotype can be from global fitness maximums, and the less confident we can be deducing past selective pressures from phenotypes - if the phenotypes can not be assumed to be the best possible solution to a set of selective pressures, they don't constrain plausible selective pressures as much as they would otherwise. If it is highly constrained, that of course doesn't mean adaptation doesn't happen - if it did, we'd have to through our parameters out of the window because there's plenty independent evidence that it does, both in the wild and in the lab.

What the paper does is give us a yardstick to gauge how close to "perfectly adapted" we can expect organisms to be as a function of properties of the genotype-to-phenotype mapping (developmental pathways, essentially), and the phenotype-to-fitness mapping (the "fitness landscape"). Of course there isn't going to be any mention of fossils, or whether adaptation actually happens - those are notcontested questions.

(If you don't have access to the Nature paper and it sounds like you might profit from reading it, some forum members with links to academia might be unscrupulous enough to discreetly commit a copyright violation on your behalf.)

 

[Mageth]

The creationist site makes a big deal out of "virtual" - either deliberately or unintentionally mangling/equivocating its usage in the context of computer simulation with a common usage your average Joe might think of. (I'd bet it's deliberate). In a similar way that creationists misuse "theory" from science as in "it's just a theory." Here they are ignorantly saying "It's just virtual!"

Example: "That's why they make a glaring admission in explaining why they couldn't be realistic, but had to go virtual:..."

 

[Eric H]

Keith&Co.;
It's quote mining. They don't discuss whether or not the model does what it set out to do. They don't show that any of the assumptions were poorly chosen.
But it doesn't completely replicate the whole of evolutionary theory, so they say it fails.
Eric H was doing this on the old forum. Set a new goal for completed research and then show that it failed to reach that goal.

The problem is not evolution, I believe that if evolution happened, it could not happen without God, life needs a purpose and a designer.

 

[Mageth]

The problem is not evolution, I believe that if evolution happened, it could not happen without God, life needs a purpose and a designer.

Seldom have I seen someone pack so much wrong into one sentence. There's at least an argument from ignorance and a special pleading fallacy in there...

 

[Keith&Co.]

Keith&Co.;
It's quote mining. They don't discuss whether or not the model does what it set out to do. They don't show that any of the assumptions were poorly chosen.
But it doesn't completely replicate the whole of evolutionary theory, so they say it fails.
Eric H was doing this on the old forum. Set a new goal for completed research and then show that it failed to reach that goal.

The problem is not evolution, I believe that if evolution happened, it could not happen without God, life needs a purpose and a designer.

Eric, i was talking about your constant refrain that the Nilsson Pelgar paper did not answer questions you wanted it to answer, but were clearly not any part of the purpose of the research.
It's an unfair response to the paper's actual stated goals and the results they got. Kind of a strawman, really, trying to knock the paper down, but really attacking an effigy of the paper.
Which is what they're doing in the OP.

 

[Eric H]

Keith&Co.;
It's quote mining. They don't discuss whether or not the model does what it set out to do. They don't show that any of the assumptions were poorly chosen.
But it doesn't completely replicate the whole of evolutionary theory, so they say it fails.
Eric H was doing this on the old forum. Set a new goal for completed research and then show that it failed to reach that goal.

The problem is not evolution, I believe that if evolution happened, it could not happen without God, life needs a purpose and a designer.

Eric, i was talking about your constant refrain that the Nilsson Pelgar paper did not answer questions you wanted it to answer, but were clearly not any part of the purpose of the research.
It's an unfair response to the paper's actual stated goals and the results they got. Kind of a strawman, really, trying to knock the paper down, but really attacking an effigy of the paper.
Which is what they're doing in the OP.

The Nilsson Pelgar paper leans more towards goals and intelligent design, although you may look at this from another perception. If you read through the eight steps they talk about 176 incremental steps from a flat light sensitive patch to a hemisphere, one it has reached this optimum shape, it talks about another 362 steps towards a different radius. more optimum shapes and goals are set and worked towards.

The Nilsson Pelgar eye would not work without any goals, hence it is not a good argument for evolution with no goals. I know their claimed objective was limited to finding the number of generations for eye geometry to evolve, but people like Dawkins are using these examples on the BBC, and hinting eye evolution is no big deal.

 

[Valjean]

The Nature article's explanation of the limitations of the computer modeling doesn't discredit it. It just clarifies its parameters. The experiment wasn't an attempt to prove or disprove evolution theory. It was an exploration ofcertain genetic mechanisms.
The modeling doesn't in any way discredit the fact of evolution, and I'm sure you'll find its authors remain firm "evolutionists."

The Evolution News authors don't even seem to understand the mechanisms they criticize:

Keep in mind that the Darwinian evolutionists' burden is to demonstrate that natural selection actually produced novel, innovative structures, the classic examples being an eye or a wing. It's not convincing to look at existing eyes or wings and simply assert that they evolved by unguided processes.

Do they really believe biologists consider evolution an "unguided" process?
Water doesn't need conscious, purposive guidance to find its way downhill.

The problem is not evolution, I believe that if evolution happened, it could not happen without God, life needs a purpose and a designer.

What evidence do you have for this, Eric? It sounds like an argument from personal incredulity and a fallacy of agency.

Evolution theory explores the natural mechanisms by which change can occur over time.

Why does life need either a purpose or a designer?

 

[sdelsolray]

…I believe that if evolution happened, it could not happen without God, life needs a purpose and a designer.

Ah yes, "I believe". How convincing. Your statement seems to demonstrate that you have a need to have reality comport with your religious beliefs. You accomplish this by projecting religious faith into reality, creating a hybrid fantasy/reality. To accomplish this you must avoid rational thinking and instead rely on irrational thinking, specifically logical fallacies, of which the argument from incredulity is most frequently employed.

 

[Keith&Co.]

The Nilsson Pelgar paper leans more towards goals and intelligent design,

Same thing they're doing in the OP. Rather than dealing with the research itself, force alternate content into it. Find 'faults' that are nothing of the kind, claim failures just because it doesn't do something it was never designed to do.

Someone built a highway from Boise to Salt Lake City, and you're pointing out that it doesn't help people get to Boston.

And i find it hard to believe Dawkins is saying the eye evolution is 'no big deal.' Source, please?
I would believe him saying it's a big deal, but not so big that it demands an intelligent designer...

 

[Eric H]

The Nilsson Pelgar paper leans more towards goals and intelligent design,

Same thing they're doing in the OP. Rather than dealing with the research itself, force alternate content into it. Find 'faults' that are nothing of the kind, claim failures just because it doesn't do something it was never designed to do.

Someone built a highway from Boise to Salt Lake City, and you're pointing out that it doesn't help people get to Boston.

And i find it hard to believe Dawkins is saying the eye evolution is 'no big deal.' Source, please?
I would believe him saying it's a big deal, but not so big that it demands an intelligent designer...

Ok, my apologies, Richard Dawkins said that the eye could evolve very easily and quickly, on this BBC programme, and it comes across as pretty much a fact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/bang/series_3_4/videos/lesson7_evolution_and_eye.shtml

 

[DBT]

life needs a purpose and a designer.

Yet for 3 billion years of microbial life during the Precambrian followed by 500 million years of complex life on Earth including 5 major extinction events there appears to have been no apparent sign of intent, design or purpose?

 

[DrZoidberg]

Hello science minded people (well evolution related science anyhow)

I've just had some one on my twitter feed post a link to this

http://www.evolutionnews.org/2013/05/the_fantasy_wor071901.html




Which seems to be using this study

http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v497/n7449/full/nature12142.html

Adaptive dynamics under development-based genotype–phenotype maps

to show evolution can't have happened.

Now they use the term "darwinian scientists" which immediately made me suspicious anyway. But given that neither myself nor the person who posted the link are particularly well informed scientifically I'm wondering how best to tell him it's bullshit.

Apologies if there is already a thread about it, I did a very brief search but nothing came up (it could of course be on the old forum as the study was published a year ago)

Their main gripe seems to be with that a model isn't reality. Well...duh... that's the point. Just a silly critique. I'd say it's self refuting. So, why bother refuting it. Anybody clever will get it.

 

[Underseer]

The Nilsson Pelgar paper leans more towards goals and intelligent design,

Same thing they're doing in the OP. Rather than dealing with the research itself, force alternate content into it. Find 'faults' that are nothing of the kind, claim failures just because it doesn't do something it was never designed to do.

Someone built a highway from Boise to Salt Lake City, and you're pointing out that it doesn't help people get to Boston.

And i find it hard to believe Dawkins is saying the eye evolution is 'no big deal.' Source, please?
I would believe him saying it's a big deal, but not so big that it demands an intelligent designer...

Ok, my apologies, Richard Dawkins said that the eye could evolve very easily and quickly, on this BBC programme, and it comes across as pretty much a fact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/bang/series_3_4/videos/lesson7_evolution_and_eye.shtml

Quickly and easily? Somehow, I doubt he said that.

 

[Kharakov]

Water doesn't need conscious, purposive guidance to find its way downhill.

You don't know that gravity isn't an example of conscious purposeful guidance. You don't know that EM interactions are not caused by conscious intent. You don't know that strong/weak interactions are not caused by conscious intent.

In fact, you can see that when a human acts, the amount of intelligence and skill that goes into the action determine the precision of the action's coordination with the humans intent. How precise is spacetime curvature? How precise are EM interactions (according to QED)? How precise are strong interactions (according to QCD)?

So basically you have a bunch of very precise actions, and a bunch of clumsy goofballs saying "there is no intent behind these actions" because they (the goofballs) are way too big of clutzes to ever imagine being able to act with such precision consciously. "Ooohohh, because Thad and Grunk no move rock like waterfall, there no higher being moving water, must be mechanical, because Grunk too clumsy and stupid to flow like water, and Grunk smertest cavebeing on ball of dirt.."

 

[Keith&Co.]

The Nilsson Pelgar paper leans more towards goals and intelligent design,

Same thing they're doing in the OP. Rather than dealing with the research itself, force alternate content into it. Find 'faults' that are nothing of the kind, claim failures just because it doesn't do something it was never designed to do.

Someone built a highway from Boise to Salt Lake City, and you're pointing out that it doesn't help people get to Boston.

And i find it hard to believe Dawkins is saying the eye evolution is 'no big deal.' Source, please?
I would believe him saying it's a big deal, but not so big that it demands an intelligent designer...

Ok, my apologies, Richard Dawkins said that the eye could evolve very easily and quickly, on this BBC programme, and it comes across as pretty much a fact.

The lesson plan isn't loading for me.
But why wouldn't it come across pretty much as a fact? This IS what science tells us has happened.
What you've told us is that you're overimpressed by complexity and that you find fault in overviews and summaries that don't have the detail you would expect from scientific papers. You haven't yet shown any reason for us to question the science behind the ToE and the various models of eye evolution.

 

[Eric H]

Eric H
my apologies, Richard Dawkins said that the eye could evolve very easily and quickly, on this BBC programme, and it comes across as pretty much a fact.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schools/teachers/bang/series_3_4/videos/lesson7_evolution_and_eye.shtml

Underseer;

Quickly and easily? Somehow, I doubt he said that

You haven't watched the video on the link above.

 

[Keith&Co.]

You don't know that gravity isn't an example of conscious purposeful guidance.

I guess you're right. Technically.
But let's compare the action of gravity to the actions of known intelligences with purpose.
Gravity affects everything the same way. It drags down cheetahs as much as it drags the gazelle it's chasing.
It drags children down to scrape their knees.
It drags bombs down to strike cities.
It drags meteors down to make craters.
It drags lava and ash down to bury Roman resort towns.
It never chooses sides, not letting one army's missiles fly off into orbit so they don't hit the other side.
It never lightens to soften a blow so jumps aren't fatal.
It never varies with respect to the pull. It does vary according to the density of the Earth in our immediate vicinity and our distance from the core. But it never varies for events.
You can't bribe or entice gravity, invoke gravity's nature, enrage or scare gravity away.
It's behavior does not compare much at all with the behavior of conscious beings. Except for monomaniacal beings with an insane degree of OCD, perhaps.
But for the most part, nothing in the behavior of gravity seems to be comparable to conscious behavior.
And nothing tells us that a consciousness is required to install it.
So, yeah, we can't say we KNOW gravity isn't an example of conscious purposeful guidance.
But i just don't see a reason to even suspect that gravity IS an example of conscious purposeful guidance. Other than a 'what if' sort of hypothetical, what?

In fact, you can see that when a human acts, the amount of intelligence and skill that goes into the action determine the precision of the action's coordination with the humans intent. How precise is spacetime curvature? How precise are EM interactions (according to QED)? How precise are strong interactions (according to QCD)?

I fucked my wife and she got pregnant. Should i then find it safe to conclude that any time i see a pregnant woman, i have fucked her?

Humans can express precise behavior as a matter of conscious will. It would be illogical to conclude or even suspect that all precision is therefore the result of conscious behavior.

IF i drop ten marbles on a linoleum floor, the bottoms of the marbles will come to rest PRECISELY upon the surface of the tiles.
Do i attribute this precision to the linoleum or to the marbles?

So basically you have a bunch of very precise actions, and a bunch of clumsy goofballs saying "there is no intent behind these actions" because they (the goofballs) are way too big of clutzes to ever imagine being able to act with such precision consciously. "Ooohohh, because Thad and Grunk no move rock like waterfall, there no higher being moving water, must be mechanical, because Grunk too clumsy and stupid to flow like water, and Grunk smertest cavebeing on ball of dirt.."

No, that's not basically it.
It's kind of a stupid caricature, and a strawman of anything like the thought process that rejects higher beings based on such simplistic and illogical appeals to ignorance.