In a month (February 18-19), the annual Home School Science Fair is taking place at the Har Mar Mall in Roseville. I will of course be attending this year and will report to those of you who cannot make it.
Remember these students will be primed to go, they are told to:
1. Know your material.
2. Be confident.
3. Communicate well.
4. Be thorough.
5. Pray your exhibit will witness to non-Christian visitors.
So you know there should be some quality science taking place.
Just to be clear, the Home School Science Fair is brought to you by the Twin Cities Creation Science Association TCCSA(emphasis mine). The TCCSA science fair motto: Unlike Some Science Fair Sites We Are For Real! Unlike Many Secular Educators We Teach The Scientific Method! (emphasis theirs)
I have become aware of something during my recent blogument with a wallcreationist. Actually it was a comment left on defense of the creationist's position that really nailed down an idea I had floundering in the back of my mind. But I think a little background is necessary for those who haven't been reading some of myrecentposts. The issue started over bad use of probability and ended up coming back repeatedly to the origin of life.
I pointed out that biologists do not propose that cells simply poofed into existence from a bunch of precursors. This was in response to creationists, who suggest that biologists think this, and then laugh at the ridiculousness of such a proposition. A creationist, who chose to rear his delicate sensibilities, then accused me of being a doody head for suggesting that creationists make such accusations. He then accused biologists of thinking that cells just poofed into existence. (Rinse and repeat.)
I realize that the creationist doesn't understand biology, although he thinks he does. This leaves him having to insist that biologists must accept the fact that cells poofed into existence fully formed if they accept evolution, because that's the way he conceptualizes what's going on. Based on his limited (extremely limited, I might add) imagination, the only thing he can come up with is POOF, therefore that must be the only possible solution to the problem. This is the 'if the only tool you have is a hammer, all problems look like a nail' fallacy.
So this is kind of where things were percolating and then I saw this comment:
I think you've entirely missed CH's point: Per "evolutionary" dogma---which doesn't allow any "teleology"---the ONLY way that a cell (=life) can come about is from "scratch", else something would be "swimming around in that warm little pond before evolution got going."
It's your point of view that forces the issue; not the non-Darwinian perspective.
Again, this person has an understanding (a profoundly incorrect one I should add) of what is going and decides that this is 'the only way' things could possibly happen. You know because nature never figured out really cool surprising ways of doing things.
Drakea pretending to be a female wasp in order to get pollinated by a male wasp that is just trying to get laid.
So, now we have two potentially independent people who have the same misconception that the first cells poofed into existence. Want to see an independent representation of this kind of 'thinking'? Here's a Bananaman example. Bananaman argues that evolution can not be true because the first female elephant to evolve would need to mate with a male elephant that has not yet evolved. Again the underlying assumption is that the first female elephant evolved by poofing into existence, and of course Bananaman let's us know this is absurd. (Although Bananaman is perfectly fine positing a magic megalomaniac poofed elephants into existence.) These utterances led me to wonder where this misconception comes from. I think it's because people intellectually require that things have a beginning and an end. But why do we have this intellectual bias?
Babies are not born with an understanding of object permanence, the idea that when a toy or person can no longer be sensed it no longer exists. Hence peek-a-boo can be fun or terrifying depending on the newborn. An understanding of object permanence develops within a couple of months, although peek-a-boo can still be a fun game, mostly because infants enjoy watching their parents make fools of themselves. So maybe object permanence is hardwired into our brains and that explains the need to have things poof into and out of existence.
However, I think there is another reason, at least in the US, and that is Christianity. Well not Christianity so much, but the Bible and Genesis in particular. Even if your children are not attending church regularly, they live in a Christian culture, which they cannot readily escape. Children are indoctrinated at a very young age that the Earth, Sun, Moon didn't exist and then...God poofed them into existence. One minute, no celestial bodies; next minute, they're all there. We indoctrinate infants that animals, plants, people didn't exist and then...God poofed them into existence. One minute, no giraffes; next minute, giraffes. It won't be for another ten or so years before we start teaching them that things came from earlier things, which may have been much different. I think the problem is that early in childhood we plant the seeds of an intellectual framework that becomes so deeply intrenched in our psyche that it is easy to be unaware of it as adults. Except the real world doesn't work that way. Consider the mountain. Has that mountain always been there? Did it just poof into existence? Some think the answer to both questions is 'Yes,' but the answers are of course no.
One way a mountain can form, or at least a mountain range, is when two tectonic plates slam into each other. As the plates collide, they can push each other up or one plate can be pushed up over the top of the of the other. This is an incredibly slow process, by human standards of time.
When we look at a mountain, we are looking at a snapshot in time. So when did that mountain begin? When the plates first meet, there is no mountain. As the plates are colliding or moving past each other, the land is rising, but still there is no mountain, although some hills are probably formed. Part of the problem with the question 'when did that mountain begin?' is an issue of language and the imprecise nature of words. What is the definition of a mountain? How much higher does it have to be in relation to the surrounding land to be a mountain? 500 feet? 1000 feet? Everest is ~29,000 feet. How steep does it have to be? If the elevation changed 1 inch every half mile, it would be a long, ~174,000 miles, but relatively easy walk to the top of Everest (not factoring in the reduction in oxygen here). For our purposes, let's simply say that a mountain is a land mass that rises 500 feet above the surrounding area with a minimum slope of at least 15°. When that land mass was 499 feet, it was not a mountain. When it was 499.5 feet, it was not a mountain. When it was 499.75 feet, it was not a mountain. When it was 499.999 feet, it was not a mountain. But when it gained that extra 0.001 feet (~1/100th of an inch), it instantaneously became a mountain. So I guess it did just poof into existence.
Even in the artificial world things don't poof into existence. Cars are a given in this day and age. A couple of hundred years ago there were no cars. When did the first car poof into existence? Again there is the issue of language. We make ultimately arbitrary decisions on what defines a car, does it have to have four wheels? Does it have to run on gasoline? Let's say yes to both of these questions. Is the Model T the first car? No, there were earlier versions of cars. There were wind-powered cars developed hundreds of years earlier. The engines in early gas powered cars were derived from earlier engines invented for different purposes. If we take any of these early cars and say that this is the first car, ergo cars poofed into existence at this point, then someone can readily show us something earlier and legitimately argue that this is the technology that is derived into the 'first' car, ergo cars did not poof into existence.
What about life? Some argue that life begins at conception. While the genetic contingent that represents you did not come together until your parents got busy, that does not mean you poofed into existence. Did your life begin when that sperm burrowed it's way into the egg? or was it when the calcium flux occurred that prevented other sperm from burrowing their way in? or was it when the sperm nucleus fused with the egg nucleus? Were the sperm and egg not life and if not, when did they die? If the fertilized egg represents life poofing into existence, does that mean identical twins are each a half life or did life poof into existence independent of fertilization? Don't even bother to ask about asexual organisms. Maybe you think these ideas are ivory tower philosophical musings, but remember a fair number of political elections are based on these musings (usually by people that don't bother musing too much).
The point I am trying to make here is that at least some creationist thinking about evolution is locked into the creation framework. God poofs things into existence. Therefore, evolution poofs things into existence. But evolution is not simply a rebranding of the Christian God concept. No more than understanding electro-magnetism is a rebranding of the Zeus concept. They are not equivalent. This makes it nigh impossible to discuss evolution with determined creationists. They are intellectually wired in a way that makes common ground an undiscovered country.
The creationist mindset impedes understanding things in historical terms. When the human decision is made for when God did his poofing, that's it. There can be nothing earlier. That mountain was always there, cars were invented de novo, and life began at conception. It's quite sad actually when you think about all the things we understand in this universe and how this knowledge is not available to the creationist.
(Grade A-F, no E's)Title-AuthorAdditional thoughts
B+ The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo by Stieg Larsson Reasonably good story which I flew through in a couple of days. Mostly enjoyed the cultural differences reading a book written by a Swede and taking place in Sweden and translated into English.
D- Science and Religion edited by Gary B. Fergren The subject of a blog post, but really a book containing mostly apologetics with a bonus chapter on Intelligent Design.
A Watchmen by Alan Moore & David Gibbons Just a great story.
B- The Lightning Thief by Rick Riordin Interesting retelling of Greek Mythology in a modern age. Definitely for kids, but I prefer the classics.
B The Measure of the Magic by Terry Brooks Enjoyed it, but the ending wrapped up a little too quickly and neatly.
B A Dance with Dragons by George R. R. Martin Good storytelling, but the plot needs to start moving forward.
C Harriet Spies Again by Louise Fitzhugh Meh
B A Feast for Crows by George R. R. Martin A reread in preparation for A Dance with Dragons
A Parasite Rex by Carl Zimmer Only Zimmer could get you to commiserate with life threatening parasites.
B The Escapement by KJ Parker
C Harriet the Spy by Louise Fitzhugh A read this as a kid and read it to my kid. I remembered it a lot differently.
A The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt by Edmund Morris Excellent book. Did you republicns were not always insane?
B+ The Passage by Justin Cronin Good story, especially the first half. Recommended reading by a server at a pub I frequent.
D The Lost Symbol by Dan Brown Kind of liked it the first time I read it when it was called The DaVinci Code.
B Lord Brocktree by Brian Jacques
A The Physics of Superheroes by James Kakalios All around good time reading. Makes a number of important points about science and society along the way.
B The Towers of Midnight by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson This story has to end soon. Although the books have gotten better.
C+ The Gathering Storm by Robert Jordan and Brandon Sanderson
C Knife of Dreams by Robert Jordan I read the first 7,8,9? books about 10 years ago and got sick of them. Started strong and then nothing happened to drive the story forward for about 5 books so Knife of Dreams sat on the shelf until this year.
A- The Greatest Show on Earth by Richard Dawkins Great book on evolution (Not quite as good as The Ancestor's Tale). Some new ways of thinking about evolutionary concepts for me.
C Evil for Evil by K. J. Parker
A The Hobbit by J.R.R. Tolkein Great book I read to my son, who of course loved it.
A Why I Am Not a Christian and Other Essays on Religion and Related Subjects by Bertrand Russell Wow! and people say the New Atheists are mean and horrible. I guess they don't like Russell much either.
A Jesus, Interrupted by Bart D. Ehrman Great description of the New Testament and issues therein. B- Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire by J.K. Rowling The beginning of what I like to call the whiny years in the Harry Potter universe.
B Shadowheart by Tad Williams I've always thought Tad Williams was a good story teller, same applies here.
26 books this year (again). Only 6 were books I read to my son this year. Of the remaining 20: 13 were fiction for fun (holy crap no Terry Pratchett this year, must rectify that in 2012), 1 was biography/US history, 3 were philosophy/religion, and 3 were science (2 were biology).
I hate to send traffic to a creationist but so it goes.
I wrote, what I thought, was a thoughtful response to a question I was asked regarding math and evolution and creationists. This, not surprisingly, raised the hackles of a creationist who wrote a series of obsfucated posts in response.
In my original post, I pointed out one creationist argument against the theory of evolution misuses probability. The argument goes like this: using these assumptions, the odds of life originating is infinitesimally small therefore god and Jesus and homosexuals can not visit each other in the hospital. Of course the creationist does not ever say 'using these assumptions'. Instead the creationist uses definitive sounding statements that allow them to move unquestionably to calculating odds. Creationists often use the number of atoms in the universe as the biggest big number and then show the odds (calculated incorrectly) against evolution happening being greater than that biggest big number. Ergo god-->Jesus--> no gay hospital visits. One point of my post was to show that it is trivial to get an infinitesimally small odds number using common examples, like flipping a coin or playing the lottery. However, I note, quite clearly IMHO, that the assumptions creationists use in these situations are bullshit. From this one post (that had more in it than this), creationist Cornelius Hunter wrote his series.
Post #1 Cornelius tries a different example. Instead of dealing with the fact that creationist assumptions are pure fiction, Cornelius takes a different tact. Poker and scrabble. See the odds of three players each getting an amazing poker hand at the same time is a really small number therefore evolution can not be true or the odds of pulling out scrabble tiles in order that spell out CONSTANTINOPLE is a really small number therefore evolution can not be true. So if flipping a coin or the lottery are not sufficient evidence, then poker and scrabble will be? Poker and scrabble did not even exist 10,000 years ago, therefore the world can not be that old (if I understand Cornelius' way of thinking). The problem isn't getting small numbers. That's easy, I brought up two ways and now we have two more. The problem is the assumptions creationists make, they are not reality.
Post #2 Cornelius doubles down on the stupid. Cornelius spends most of his post rewriting the story of Darwin and Kelvin and the age of the Earth that I wrote. Ultimately he arrives at this conclusion:
In any case, geology soon extended the age of the earth into the billions of years, and evolution’s requirement for long time periods, so it seemed, was fulfilled.
So Cornelius is accepts that the Earth 4.5 billion years old. Except he doesn't or he does I get confused. You tell me, here's what he writes next (emphasis mine).
It is now known, however, that evolution has nowhere near the eons of time it requires. Indeed, the time windows available are even less than those allowed by William Thomson, which themselves were unacceptable to the evolutionists. This falsification of evolution’s expectation does not derive from the age of the earth, but rather from the fossil record. We now know that, even with billions of years of earth history, the major events in the fossil record take place in time windows that are no longer than a few tens of millions of years or even less.
William Thomson (Lord Kelvin) had the age of the Earth at 20-40 million years, not 4.5 billion. So how old do you think the world is Cornelius?
Cornelius says nothing here but make grandiose statements with no backing. So the major evolutionary events occurred in tens of millions of year. What is a major evolution event and how long do you think it will take? Presumably he is talking about the Cambrian explosion. I ask you, how long should it have taken and based on what to you make these calculations? A lot of diversification can happen rapidly. After most dinosaurs died out (65 million years ago), mammalian diversification exploded over 10 million years or so. Flowering plants had a massive diversification over about 40 million years. Changing body types is quite trivial, here's what selection (albeit man-made aka artificial) did in a couple of hundred years without knowing much about what we were doing.
Given the opening of new niches due to the extinction of most dinosaurs, nature can have a grand old time selecting for variants better suited to aboreal life, marine life, underground life, open plain life, etc. Want another example, compare marsupials in Australia to mammals in North America. Species occupying similar niches evolved similar characteristics. Selection is a powerful process providing the raw material (genetic diversity) is available. You want a major event in evolution, screw small changes in body plan. Go with something really major like the first eukaryotic cells! Bacterial-like cells first show up about 3.8 billion years, it took almost 2 billion years before the first eukaryotes showed up! That must have been a major fucking hurdle. It was another billion years before complex multicellular life is observed (major event?). From the time simple animals are observed it's only 400 million years to get all the animal diversity we see today. All the hard stuff was already done in the first 3 billion years of life. So while the Cambrian explosion is impressive in its macroscopic visual appeal, it probably represents little from the standpoint of major evolutionary events. (I am using 'major' as in difficult).
His penultimate paragraph (the last is simply playground "Im telling mommy' rhetoric) contains some gems (emphasis mine):
But of course this is all wrong. If evolution is true we must believe it performs its uncanny miracles much faster than 4.5 billion years. The creation of life, the origin of fantastically complex cells, the creation of biology’s myriad designs, new species arising, and yes giraffes could not have evolved over billions of years. They could not have evolved even over hundreds of millions of years. It all must have happened much faster, in what are sometimes referred to as evolution’s “Big Bangs” where evolution leaves the equilibrium and for some reason becomes punctuated.
It all happened much faster?!?! What the hell does that mean? Doesn't Cornelius realize billions (X,000,000,000) is larger that hundreds of millions (X00,000,000)? Oh look, Cornelius uses words he heard before like 'punctuated' and 'equilibrium'. It's almost like he knows something about biology. Here's an interesting point, Cornelius often makes the case that evolutionists say there are no problems or issues in evolution and then pulls punctuated equilibrium out of his ass hat. Here's an issue that is not resolved in evolutionary biology. Regardless I posted this still unaddressed comment in response to this post.
"You state that 4.5 billion years isn't long enough. How long is? How to you come to that conclusion? What is the evidence to support your conclusion. Here's evidence from scientists, not creationists, molecular genetics, using established mutation rates, comes up with ~3.5 billion years for the last common ancestor. Earliest fossils are ~3.5 billion years bacteria. Seems to fit within the 4.5 billion year time frame.
Your evidence is what? Nah Ah, ergo Jesus?"
Post #3 Cornelius makes up bullshit scenario to show evolution wrong. Remember at the beginning of this post I mentioned assumptions creationists use but never define as assumptions? They tend to be along these lines: one day there were a bunch of chemicals in a pool of ichor, lightening hit said pool, and WHAMMO a fully formed cell containing all the information and proteins needed to survive was formed. I stated repeatedly that no scientists worth their salt thinks this is what happened. What is Cornelius' response (which includes a quote from me in blue)?
So chemicals did not come together to form the first cell?
I don’t want to get into a discussion about the origin of life in this post,
Because the absurdity of the creation myth would rapidly become apparent. It would be a tremendous miracle—the spontaneous formation of the first cell, and all life thereafter.
See that comma at the end of my quote? Want to know the whole sentence was? Let me simply put up Cornelius' response again with my sentence intact.
So chemicals did not come together to form the first cell?
I don’t want to get into a discussion about the origin of life in this post, but I do want to stress that I have never seen the absurd idea that cells just poofed into existence fully formed from scratch except by creationists.
Because the absurdity of the creation myth would rapidly become apparent. It would be a tremendous miracle—the spontaneous formation of the first cell, and all life thereafter.
It is Cornelius who has an absurd (I wonder what made him use that word absurdity) creation myth. You know a talking snakes that has legs, genetic bottleneck of two (really one) people, women being the downfall of all mankind, all that fun stuff. He is stuck on the idea that scientists think a cell just poofed into existence, regardless of what we say, he refuses to accept it and keeps harping the same lie over and over.
Want to ask me how the first cell showed up? Well, I don't know. I've read a few things about some ideas and work that is being done to address these ideas, but frankly I don't know. But do you know what? That doesn't mean Cornelius gets to make up any old shit he wants and say that's what happened. Here's a big difference between Cornelius' world-view and mine. My world-view allows us to ask questions and test those ideas to gain a greater understanding, I could know a lot more about the current thinking on the origin of life if I spent time reading up on it. Would I be able to tell you exactly what happened? No, but I could tell you what the people thinking the hardest about it are finding out. We don't know everything, if we did we would stop. Cornelius' world-view is that the Bible (as he interprets it) is correct and the universe must fit into that tiny little corpuscle of his imagination. He is intellectual stagnation. What has he offered to explain the diversity of life on the planet? What evidence does he have to back up those ideas? Mostly, he seems to spend his time making glib inaccurate posts that misrepresent evolutionary thought. I'm sure that appeals to his readers, but it kind of pisses me off that he lies (commandment IX). (In his defense he doesn't use swear words like those I've used in this post including bullshit, ass, shit, and fuckwad, oh wait I didn't use that word I just thought it....crap....double crap. Someone get Cornelius a couch to faint on.)
OK, hopefully everybody has a copy or access to a copy of Charles Darwin's Origin of Species. Although it is not in the book, I am reading the 6th edition based on the fact it has Chapter VII Miscellaneous Objections to the Theory of Natural Selection. Those of you reading earlier versions will not have this chapter. Alright, this week I'm reading 'An Historical Sketch' and 'Introduction' and will get a post up Sunday. I look forward to your thoughts and comments regarding these readings when the post is up.
I put up a post the other day in response to a question I was asked. It must have been one of my better ones because it has raised some creationisthackles. Of course there are significant issues with comprehension, which doesn't surprise me based on their understanding of basic biology.
First to come at me is Cornelius Hunter who seems to get the vapors when adults use bad words like dumbass, which he writes as dumb***. I mean really? See, in this make believe world writing things like 'fuck' is bad, but writing things lke 'f@ck' is acceptable. The meaning is not important, its the order of the letters that imparts some magical power, like CONSTANTINOPLE.
Cornelius starts by using the example of a poker game where each person has an amazingly strong hand. He then states that everyone know the hand was rigged. This is another example of an inappropriate 'what are the odds?' scenario I addressed in my previous post. I'll let him speak for himself.
For instance, evolutionists claim that all the evidence supports evolution. Amazingly, they say there is no contradictory evidence, no scientific problems to deal with. When I first heard this argument I was astonished. But when you are certain you are right, then any and all arguments must support evolution.
What is this contradictory evidence? Does poker constitute evidence? Show me where a scientist has said there are no scientific problems to deal with.
'But when you are certain you are right, then any and all arguments must support evolution.' is laughable coming from a creationist. Pot, Kettle?
You can see an example of this claimherewhere an evolution professor calls some mathematicians dumb***** (while issuing several other profanities) and assures his readers that he is “unaware of any general concerns with the theory of evolution that is not steeped in religion.” One reason the professor makes this monumental scientific blunder is a fundamental yet typical misunderstanding of our second principle above.
I stand by that claim. We do not understand everything, unlike you apparently. This is why we still do research and continue to ask questions. How much do selection and drift contribute to the evolutionary process? How do genome duplications promote speciation? But these are not general concerns with the theory. Instead of handwaving on your fainting couch about my f*cking word choices, tell us a general concern with the theory of evolution that is not steeped in religion?
While it was obvious to most of us that the poker game was rigged, evolutionists make another one of their losing arguments to get around the problem.
Is that your concern, the theory of evolution does not fit with your cute analogy? Well unfortunately your analogy sucks (I hope sucks is ok on his delicate sensibilities). Cornelius quoted my points using the lottery to show how trivial it is to get big probability numbers for his readers, he then did the sweet little trick of using that against me.
There you have it. The creationist is wrong again. All of biology isn’t improbable any more than winning a million jackpots. All outcomes are equiprobable so a royal flush, CONSTANTINOPLE, and yes evolution, are not at all unlikely.
Of course, he left off this little part of my post that is kind of relevant.
The assumptions used to make the calculations regarding evolution in the first place are suspect (wrong is a better word, fraudulent is the best word because those making these arguments have had it explained to them before). For example, the assumption in these types of calculations is that there were a bunch of chemicals and then WHAM these chemicals came together to form the first cell. First, no scientist worth her salt has ever made such a claim, although a lot of creationists have. I don’t want to get into a discussion about the origin of life in this post, but I do want to stress that I have never seen the absurd idea that cells just poofed into existence fully formed from scratch except by creationists. Irony alert: creationists think life zapped into being en masse by god, but ridicule biologists for thinking cells zapped into being en masse by evolution (even though biologists don’t think that).
I pointed out that scientists don't think life is like the lottery system (or his poker analogy). However, he ignores that and continues to suggest scientists do think that and then uses that to tear down evolution. That's called a Straw Man fallacy. The person who continually does it is an *sshole, I mean asshole. (I'll point out profanity is not in the commandments, but lying is.)
Second, to come at me is the Discovery Institute. It makes me a little sad that the traffic coming to AbC from the DI, the flagship of the creationist movement, is less than from Cornelius. The sadness is that I may send a couple of page views their way.
Anyway, the DI post is nothing but a rant that seems to be written be someone who will may be institutionalized soon.
An anonymous professor at the University of Minnesota writes a blog that came to our attention because he tries to knock down not an actual argument for intelligent design but the most simplistic parody, provided to him not by any actual ID advocate but by an unnamed female friend whom he quotes:
It's pseudonymous, not anonymous and why does that status of my friend's identity matter? Also, if you read the post (or at least didn't lie about it), then you know I was not knocking down an argument for ID. I was answering a question asked by an 'unnamed' friend. Oh wait, it's right there in that sentence you wrote. So you're upset I responded to a thoughtful question someone asked me?
Replying under the title "Evolution: Time Is on Our Side," the professor-blogger not only doesn't write under his own name but is cagey about what department he teaches in -- though he says he has "a background in Biochemistry and Molecular and Cellular Biology." The blog itself is called, promisingly, "Angry by Choice."
How is it cagey? It says right in the about section available in the top right corner of every page of my blog "Oh, the opinions expressed here are my personal viewpoints and not those of my employer, family, or dog." Yes, my blog name is promisingly named Angry by Choice, like yours is promisingly named 'Evolution News and Views'. Unlike my blog, which actually has attitude that I choose to use as my voice (hence the name), your blog is a creationist mouth piece. I love the suspicious style used by this anonymous writer on a website that does not allow commenting.
Then there's a paragraph that tells their readers I made fun of them (I didn't mention the DI at all, though I did mention creationists), suggests they have rebuttals to my points, and then hits us with none of those rebuttals.
Maybe Dr. Angry is ticked off because he couldn't cut it at the U. of M.'s elite Morris campus, where our buddy PZ Myers teaches. Even PZ seems more familiar with the Darwin-doubting arguments he derides than this fellow does, and surely everyone knows that if you want to refute an idea convincingly you need to go to a sophisticated presentation of it and argue against that. To make things really easy for Angry, we suggest that he do a word search here at ENV for the phrase "probabilistic resources."
Really? I love the insult me, the entire UMN-Morris campus, and Professor Myers at the same time. You guys are precious. Regardless, let me grant that their 'probabilistic resources' are correct (they aren't, this is simply for the sake of argument). Go to the post in question and read the first part. Initially there was a mathematical argument to think the Theory of Evolution as proposed by Darwin was not correct. However, that mathematical argument was subsequently shown to be based on incorrect assumptions. The ID movement argues that their math nullifies all evidence that supports the Theory of Evolution, from fossils to genomics to observations of populations over time. Isn't it possible that maybe, just maybe, their assumptions are wrong (they are).
Finally, DI ends with this.
But we're not holding our breath. This is how these folks always respond to probabilistic arguments against Darwinism (or materialistic origin of life scenarios). They implicitly treat the prior probability of alternatives such as ID as being vanishingly close to zero. Therefore, something like Darwinian evolution must be true, since we're here. So whatever the improbability, the actual proves the possible, and there's only one possibility worth considering. Which just goes to show that no argument is sufficient to persuade the committed materialist. It doesn't follow that there aren't good arguments available for the open minded.
See, they suggest I do something (and presumably every scientist that understands evolution) and then come back at them. They then assume I won't and conclude that no one ever will. I understand that position. They have made the same arguments for decades, been responded to numeroustimes, and ignored those responses. It makes sense they assume everyone else acts the same way.
Although in this case they are right. I don't have the time or the emotional energy to read their crap now, although Behe's Darwin's Black Box is on my shelf of books to read. I suggest they or their readers look a the ruling on the Kitzmiller vs. Dover trial on teaching Intelligent Design.
A friend of mine asked me the following ‘I just learned that mathematicians assert (not necessarily in an argument to support God) that there hasn't been enough time for the theory of evolution to be viable. I'm making an assumption you have been aware of this given your profession and scientific mind and I'm curious of your take on this.’
My initial response was along the lines of ‘I don’t have time for a substantive response at the moment but the short answer is that some mathematicians are dumbasses.’
This represents my more substantive response because I know she is interested in an actual answer. A problem comes from the nature of the question itself. I do not know the context with which these statements of mathematicians came up. Was the discussion with an actual mathematician or is this some second hand remark made by a stealth-creationist. (Although the conversation may not have been directly related to a god concept, I am unaware of any general concerns with the theory of evolution that is not steeped in religion.) What was the conversation that led up to this point? I do not know the answers to these questions, but I have a couple of educated guesses what the context was, but if I am far from the mark my friend can let me know and I’ll add another post if needed.
So my two thoughts on how a conversation related the issue of mathematics and time for evolution can be grouped into the following categories: 1. Historically Inspiring; 2. Tedious Probabilities.
Historically Inspiring (please be this one).
The theory of evolution is a dramatically different beast from that first outlined by Charles Darwin in the 1859 publication Origin of Species. (This is not a drawback of science, it’s a feature. Science progresses.) When Origin of Species was written, geologists had calculated the age of the Earth as 20 - 400 million years old. By geologists, I refer to Lord Kelvin of absolute zero fame. My friend may remember Lord Kelvin from Mr. Daigle’s chemistry class as the person who calculated absolute zero as -273°C or 0°K (the K stands for Kelvin). Anyway, Lord Kelvin calculated how long it would take the Earth to cool to its current temperature if it started as a molten ball and came up with a range of 20 - 400 million years in 1864, 5 years after Darwin published.
Kelvin ultimately settled on a more narrow range of 20 - 40 million years. Regardless, Kelvin believed this was too short for evolution to explain the diversity of life on Earth. You know what, Charles Darwin concurred. Darwin knew that his theory requires that the Earth to be extremely old. In the first edition of Origin of Species, Darwin argued that the time necessary for erosion to form the Weald in England is at least 300 million years (But we would also need to factor in the time to deposit all the material to be eroded among other things, which brings us to an age of billions of years). However, based on Kelvin’s calculations, Darwin removed these arguments from later editions of Origin of Speices and referred to the problem (or Kelvin) as an ‘odious spectre’ in letters. To be clear here, both scientists had data to back up their claims, but Darwin was quite cautious in his claims.
The interesting point is that Kelvin was flat out wrong. Based on what was known at the time, Kelvin’s approach was defensible. However, this was before we knew about radioactivity. The Earth did cool, but it is not simply a loss of heat issue, as assumed by Kelvin. Radioactive decay generates heat, and there is a lot of radioactive decay within the planet. Kelvin thought the Earth’s core was solid and that all heat transfer was by conduction (wrong on both counts).
By making a number of assumptions, which were defensible at the time, Lord Kelvin mathematically derived an age of the Earth that undercut the Theory of Evolution as well as most of geology. However, data was already in existence that suggested the Earth was much older than the age calculated by Kelvin. As more knowledge was gained, it became clear that Kelvin’s assumptions were invalid and thus his calculation wrong. Turns out the Earth is ~4.5 billion years old, which is plenty of time for geological formations to arise and giraffes to evolve. Interestingly, molecular geneticists have calculated that the last common ancestor of life lived ~3.6 billion years ago, which is not long (relatively speaking) after the planet formed. Supportive evidence for these dates comes from the earliest fossils, which are ~3.4 billion year old bacteria.
(Point of reference, Kelvin, a faithful Christian, calculated that only a moron can believe the Earth is a few thousand years old.)
Tedious Probabilities (probably this one)
Another common way to try and use math to disprove the theory of evolution is to misuse probability. The idea is to come up with a probability statement and then use that to show there is not enough time in the age of the universe for life to have occurred. If the odds against an event happening are so huge, it is impossible for the event to have occurred within the time frame the universe has existed. There are two problems with these approaches. First, it is trivial to come up with probabilities that sound impossible for events to occur even those for those events that have already happened. Second, those making the probability statements make assumptions that have nothing to do with biology or reality for that matter.
Making big numbers to impress those not used to big numbers.
Let’s start with a simple probability idea and work our way up. If we get a penny and flip it, the chance of it coming up heads is ½ or 50% (the other possibility being tails of course). The odds of getting heads twice in a row is ¼ (½ x ½) or 25%. Similarly the odds of flipping a coin and having it come up heads and then tails is also ¼. We can take this a little further, the chance of flipping a coin 10 times and having it come up heads each time is 1/1024. 1/1024 is the same as 0.0009765 or 9.77x10-4 or ~1x10-3. It’s about 1 time in a 1000. The important thing here is that the odds of getting any specific combination of heads and tails in 10 flips is about 1 in a 1000. However, if you flip a coin 10 times, you will get a specific combination. I just flipped a nickel 10 times and got T(ails), T, H(eads), T, H, T, H, H, T, H. Was the chance of that happening 1 in a 1000? Well, it was before I flipped the nickel the first time, but now that it has happened the chance that it happened is 100% or 1/1.
When making these kind of arguments, the person picks a really big number to be awe inspiring, like the number of atoms in the entire universe. The number of atoms in the entire universe is ~1x1081, which is a 1 followed by 81 zeros. Everyone knows the universe is really fucking big (what’s bigger?) and atoms are really fucking small, so it makes intuitive sense that the number of atoms in the universe is probably the biggest big number of them all. So, if you can come up with a probability that is greater than the number of atoms in the universe, it must be impossible right?
Remember when we flipped the coin 10 times above? The odds were ~1/1000 (a 1 followed by 3 zeros) that any specific sequence would come up. Well if we flip that coin 270 times, the odds of it coming up heads every time, or any other specific sequence, is 1/1.9x1081. If I flip that coin every 15 seconds, it will take me just over an hour to get enough flips to get a sequence of heads and tails. If we calculate the odds of getting that sequence ahead of time, we get a number greater than the number of atoms in the universe! Using the creationist logic, then it was impossible to get the sequence of 270 Heads or Tails we just got.
Maybe a more current analogy is in order. Powerball! The odds of a specific set of Powerball numbers coming up is 1/1.9x108 (1 time in 190,000,000 tries. Face it, while someone will win occasionally, you won’t). The odds that the last 3 drawings would give rise to the numbers 13,28,49,51,59, 33; 2,24,46,52,56, 19; 4,19,33,41,59, 9 is 1 in 6.86x1024. However, these numbers were in fact drawn. On Dec 9th the odds were 1 in 6.86x1024 now they are 1 in 1 or 100%. The difficulty with thinking about these types of calculations is that we forget that although any specific event may by improbable, a specific event will happen.
Just to get a number bigger than the number of atoms in the universe, the biggest big number, let’s go back 12 Powerball drawings, which would be drawings that occurred over roughly the last month (11/9/2011 - 12/17/2011). The odds of all the specific numbers being drawn were ~1/2.21x1099 which is more than the number of atoms in the universe by 1,000,000,000,000,000,000 times (1099 - 1081). Ergo, those numbers could not possibly have been drawn! But these odds were only true before the Nov. 9th drawing. Again, the odds today are 100%, because this event already happened. It’s pretty easy generating really big numbers to sound impressive, but just because someone has a big number doesn’t mean he knows how to use it right.
Which leads us directly to the second problem here, the assumptions.
The assumptions used to make the calculations regarding evolution in the first place are suspect (wrong is a better word, fraudulent is the best word because those making these arguments have had it explained to them before). For example, the assumption in these types of calculations is that there were a bunch of chemicals and then ...
...these chemicals came together to form the first cell. First, no scientist worth her salt has ever made such a claim, although a lot of creationists have. I don’t want to get into a discussion about the origin of life in this post, but I do want to stress that I have never seen the absurd idea that cells just poofed into existence fully formed from scratch except by creationists. Irony alert: creationists think life zapped into being en masse by god, but ridicule biologists for thinking cells zapped into being en masse by evolution (even though biologists don’t think that).
The ‘calculations’ I have seen use assumptions like the following. Let’s assume that a cell needs 100 different proteins to survive and a protein is on average 100 amino acids long. (This is great because then the creationist can then honestly state that these are conservative estimates. As far as we know a cell needs more than 100 types of protein to live and proteins average length is more like 300 amino acids. This serves to make the result of the creationists argument that much more impressive.) With these (wrong) assumptions, what are the odds that the 20 kinds of amino acids will randomly come together to form all these proteins simultaneously to allow for a viable cell.
Using these assumptions, which have nothing to do with reality, the following ‘calculations are made. The chance of a single protein randomly assembling is 1/1x20100 the denominator, as you know, is a number bigger than the total number of atoms in the universe. Add in the factor that you need this to happen 100 times (for each protein). It ain’t never gonna happen! CHECKMATE biologists, the theory of evolution is impossible.
Of course, no biologist thinks or suggests that the above happens. But why let reality interfere with your delusions.
To summarize:
There was a legitimate concern about the age of the Earth and whether there was enough time available for evolution to explain the diversity of life (and geology to explain the geological formations around us). This concern was resolved soon after by physicists and geologists.
Probability is poorly understood and can be used quite effectively to convince people of erroneous ideas. This provides a chance to reinforce the importance of critical thinking and skepticism.
It is easy to demonstrate something cannot be true if you are comfortable being a liar. First, misrepresent the position you are arguing against. Second, make up a bunch of bullshit premises you state represent the position in question. Third, show why the position is wrong because the bullshit premises are bullshit.
If that does not address you question, please let me know.
Regardless, if it wasn't clear enough, here is what the Rolling Stones have to say on the matter.
