Creation vs. Evolution

[Warthaug]

Not to be argumentative...and maybe you could possibly shed some light on this, but doesn't evolution rely most heavily on mutation?

Yes and no. Mutation is the source of new variability, but the rest of evolution doesn't rely on that.

That said, in the absence of mutation evoution can only go so far, as without mutation you'll eventually remove all variability and have nothing left to work with.

Or are we going to have to define our terms here? In other words, if you (plural, general) define evolution simply as a change in allele frequencies over time, then I would completely agree 100% that evolution has, does, is occurring. But that's not what the "debate" is about really is it?

Evoluiton is far, far more than changes in allele frequency. Its a combination of mutation, selection (natural, sexual and other), and drift.

Punctuated equilibrium has apparently fallen out of favor in recent years hasn't it?

Quite the opposite. PE is now a central aprt of evolutionary theory. That said, the PE arguments of the 70's and 80's were mountain-outof-mole hill type arguments. Long story short, evolution doesn't go at one speed. PE is simply periods of faster-than-normal evolution.

Our technology has even got to the point where we can scan the genome and identify regions which evolved during periods of PE, verses slower "darwinian" evolution.

Genetic drift is really just an outcome of evolution isn't it? It doesn't explain the "how" of evolution.

Not really. Drift is what happens in the absence of strong evolutionary forces. Basically, drift occurs where there isn't a lot of selective force to weed out genes. So instead of new mutations getting rapidly "screened" by natural selection, and "good" genes becomming rapidly dominant, you instead get most mutations surviving selection (as selection is weak), and the genetic changes that occur withinthe population are due to chance - some genes just become dominant, even though they have little/no advantage. It is that "random" change in gene frequqncies that is drift.

Let me give you a definition of evolution that I think drives this debate...Natural selection acting on mutations of the DNA of a single-celled prokaryote over millions of years producing the complete diversity of life we see today.

That is not a definition of evolution. Evolution (biological evolution) is one of two things:

1) Evolution is a physical, obervable process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations
2) A scientific thoery which describes why we see #1 occuring

The "version" you quote is one spread by the creationist movement, as a method of driving a wedge between people and evolution. It is completely wrong - evolution need not lead to more complex forms. Only better adapted ones. In fact, bacteria remain the predominant for on life on our planet - us multicellular organisms make up just a tiny fraction of 1% of all life on earth. Or, in other words, the vast majority of evolution has not lead to more complex life, but rather altered simple life into differen't, but still unicellular, life.

That said, the process of unicellular life giving rise to mutlicellular life is a near-certanty, and is well supported by a large host of evidence. We've even observed the change from unicellularity to multicellularity in the lab (in C. vulgaris).

Bryan

 

[Warthaug]

Sorry Bryan, but after reading the entire link, including the baseball analogies, you are incorrect to state that Gould was referring to "the misunderstanding of the general public of how evolution works."

Strange, as that was the topic of Goulds statement immediatly preceeding the quoted text:

STEPHEN JAY GOULD: That’s how we always draw the history of evolution, from amoeba to human, or from crouch chimpanzee to upright white male in a business suit, thereby encoding other biases of that culture into the process, but evolution isn’t that. Evolution is--


DAVID GERGEN: Okay. Now what is it?
STEPHEN JAY GOULD: Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion...

Clearly, Gould stated what, in his mind, evolution was not, and then went into what evolution is. And, yes, clearly Gould stated that life began "necessarily about as simple as it could be, because life arose spontaneously from the organic compounds in the primeval oceans."

Gould then goes into how the bacteria is as simple a life form as there could possibly be and that simple fluctuations would necessarily produce more complexity. It is that thought process that flies in the face of what Gould seems to think the public thinks (which is that evolution is directional, intentionally producing more complex things). Of course the end result is the same, though, isn't it...that evolution, because it supposedly started with the simplist of living things, does in fact produce more and more complexity.

It can produce more complexity, I never denied that, but what Gould was pointing out (and what you apparently missed) is that this is not due to the intrinsic nature of evolution - evolution does not nessitate a progression to more complex forms. The starting conditions - very simple life - made it impossible (at first) to get simpler, but since then all bets are off. Later on in the interview, Gould makes this important point:

"Once there were only bacteria. Now there are humans, but that’s not the result of an intrinsic defining central drive. It’s just a kind of random movement away from a necessary beginning at maximal bacterial simplicity. That’s all it is"

Again, sorry Bryan, but you are wrong to try to spin Gould's words of stating that life arose spontaneously from organic compounds as anything other than his belief.

You really need to read a little of the science - snippets of Goulds statements hardly express the degree of evidence that such an event did infact occur.

Nor I "spin" anything that way, you've mis-read what I said, or mixed up my postings (I am replying to about 3 different people here). The origonal point I was making was to correct the claim that Gould (and other evolutionary biologists) saw abiogenesis and evolution as the same process. Clearly he does not, as in this interview he explicitally stated that they are two, sequential processes.

Yes, abiogenesis and evolution were two distinct entities, but Gould himself clearly made the "necessary" connection between

Of course there is a connection, just like there is a connection between the big bang and evoltion. You need the big bang to create the universe, and with no universe there is no evolution. Likewise, with no abiogenesis there is no life, and therefore no evoltuion.

The point you are missing is that either the big bang, or abiogenesis, could be wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that we see evolution occuring today. In other words, the events leading upto the formation of life are required, but the specific nature of those events is irrelevent - life behaves as life behaves regarldess of what led upto its existece.

Bryan

 

[coachpill]

Bryan>>>>"Yes and no. Mutation is the source of new variability, but the rest of evolution doesn't rely on that"

So evolution is just a change in allele frequencies then.

I would tell you that "the rest of evolution," as you state it, is nothing more than natural selection occuring on already present genes.

Again, the focus of the debate is over mutations occuring in a single-celled prokaryote (the simplist of living things according to Gould) eventually evolving, over millions of year, into a human (to just go ahead an jump to the crux, I suppose)

Bryan>>>>"...in the absence of mutation evoution can only go so far, as without mutation you'll eventually remove all variability and have nothing left to work with."

Agreed

Bryan>>>>"PE is simply periods of faster-than-normal evolution."

Ok. I would even say that some articles seem to link that strict gradualists are still quite amazed how changes in species can occur so quickly. I'm just wondering why certain popular introductory college biology texts have no mention of it anymore. But I get what you are saying.

Bryan>>>>"It is that "random" change in gene frequqncies that is drift."

Sure, the bottleneck effect and the founder effect...Genetic drift is also dependent upon small population sizes because the liklihood of some random characteristic becoming the abundant characteristic increases...I get all that. But genetic drift does not introduce new genes, it only acts on the already present genes. Therefore it has not role in the discussion of how a single celled prokaryote evolved into a human via mutations of the DNA over millions of years (billions...3 or so actually)

Bryan>>>>"That is not a definition of evolution. Evolution (biological evolution) is one of two things:

1) Evolution is a physical, obervable process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations
2) A scientific thoery which describes why we see #1 occuring"

So according to #1, evolution is the directly observed change in allelic frequencies of organisms over time. And #2 is the theory of how it happens (the possible label of neo-Darwinism could be used here).

So since #1 limits us to directly observable phenomena. I get it. I actually prefer it. And if that was the case, the debate, from my point of view, would be over. However, we all know that the debate is about what I mentioned before (prokaryote to human evolution...not directly observable)

Bryan>>>>"That said, the process of unicellular life giving rise to mutlicellular life is a near-certanty, and is well supported by a large host of evidence. We've even observed the change from unicellularity to multicellularity in the lab (in C. vulgaris)."

Can you give a "layman's" account of this? Possibly a document that I could read? It sounds like an awesome experiement. Understand that I have no direct access to database journals or subscriptions so if you could reference something that "everybody" could reach, that would be great. Again, it sounds like a fascinating experiment!

Thanks for everything!

 

[coachpill]

Strange, as that was the topic of Goulds statement immediatly preceeding the quoted text:

STEPHEN JAY GOULD: That’s how we always draw the history of evolution, from amoeba to human, or from crouch chimpanzee to upright white male in a business suit, thereby encoding other biases of that culture into the process, but evolution isn’t that. Evolution is--


DAVID GERGEN: Okay. Now what is it?
STEPHEN JAY GOULD: Evolution is a process of constant branching and expansion...



It can produce more complexity, I never denied that, but what Gould was pointing out (and what you apparently missed) is that this is not due to the intrinsic nature of evolution - evolution does not nessitate a progression to more complex forms. The starting conditions - very simple life - made it impossible (at first) to get simpler, but since then all bets are off. Later on in the interview, Gould makes this important point:

"Once there were only bacteria. Now there are humans, but that’s not the result of an intrinsic defining central drive. It’s just a kind of random movement away from a necessary beginning at maximal bacterial simplicity. That’s all it is"



You really need to read a little of the science - snippets of Goulds statements hardly express the degree of evidence that such an event did infact occur.

Nor I "spin" anything that way, you've mis-read what I said, or mixed up my postings (I am replying to about 3 different people here). The origonal point I was making was to correct the claim that Gould (and other evolutionary biologists) saw abiogenesis and evolution as the same process. Clearly he does not, as in this interview he explicitally stated that they are two, sequential processes.



Of course there is a connection, just like there is a connection between the big bang and evoltion. You need the big bang to create the universe, and with no universe there is no evolution. Likewise, with no abiogenesis there is no life, and therefore no evoltuion.

The point you are missing is that either the big bang, or abiogenesis, could be wrong, but that doesn't change the fact that we see evolution occuring today. In other words, the events leading upto the formation of life are required, but the specific nature of those events is irrelevent - life behaves as life behaves regarldess of what led upto its existece.

Bryan

Got it.

 

[Warthaug]

Hence your insistence that abiogenesis and evolution are separate beasties...I get it...thanks for taking the time.

No, that is not why I insist they are separate things. I insist they are separatethings, as they are separate things.

Evolution does not "care" where life came from - it could be from a primordial soup, from delivered to earth by aliens, and yes, even created by god - it does not matter. Regardless of how life started, it is evolving. That is not a matter of opinion - we see this evolution occuring every day, often without looking for it.

Just as an example, I do biological research for a living. As a regular part of my research I'll delete, add, or modify genes to understand their function. Often, this is deleterious to the cells/organisms I work with. As a consiquence, evolutionary processes will often remove or alter these changes to make them less deleterious.

So in my work, evolution actually presents a problem - the changes it causes can really screw up my experiments.

The opposite is also true - abiogenic processes do not "care" if they lead to life. All they do (if they make it that far) is determine the initial characteristics of life. After that, evolution takes over, and takes its own path.

Bryan

 

[redacted]

TIME OUT. The quoting mess is making this impossible to follow. But it is a little funny seeing both coach and warthaug disagreeing with themselves.

 

[Warthaug]

Bryan>>>>"Yes and no. Mutation is the source of new variability, but the rest of evolution doesn't rely on that"

So evolution is just a change in allele frequencies then.

No. Changes in allele frequencies are one potential product of evolution, not evolution itself. Products of evolution include:

1) New genes
2) New alleles
3) Change in frequency, or elimination, of genes
4) Change in frequency, or elimination, of alleles
5) Stasis (no change)
6) Reorganization (shuffling) of the genome
7) Duplication of genes
8) Changes in gene expression, without formation of a new allele
9) Neutral mutations
10) Expantion/contraction of non-encoding DNA
11) Horizontal gene transfer
12) Nearly any combination of the above (obviously 5 cannot occur in conjuction with the others)

I'm sure I'm missing a few potential outcomes there, the list seems short to me...

Evolution is something quite different altogeather. It is either:
1) The process which produces the above effects, via mutation, selection and drift, or
2) The scientific thoery which explains why we see #1 occuring.

I would tell you that "the rest of evolution," as you state it, is nothing more than natural selection occuring on already present genes.

\

That the bulk of scientific evidence would show that you are wrong. We know, for a fact, that each and every human on this earth carries an average of 3.75 point mutations not found in their parents. Likewise, more recient technology has allowed us to characterize the number of a different type of mutation, called an indel. Due to the newness of this technology we don't have a wide-spread screen of the human population, but small studies have found that the average joe has 7-12 indels not found in their parents. The rates in which we humans form other types of mutation - chromasomal reorganizations, gene duplication, etc - is also being characterized. We know the later forms of mutation happen often enough to be observed frequently "by accident"; the only outstanding question is exactly how often is "often". Heck, even selection is frequently been observed - the arise of HIV-resistant phenotyppes amoung Ughandan hookers being a new-ish example.

Likewise, the formation of new alleles, genes, and yes, even species has been directly observed by science. In fact, the first proven evolutionary events were speciation events - something which drove a counter theory (called mutationalism) for many decades. We've observed new genes and alleles form in nature, seem them be selected, even driven the whole process artificially in the lab, and characterized those kinds of changes in, and inbetween, tens of thousands of species.

The simple reality is yes, we do mutate. And those mutations undergo selection. That is not opinion, that is fact, based on numerous scientific investigations.

Again, the focus of the debate is over mutations occuring in a single-celled prokaryote (the simplist of living things according to Gould) eventually evolving, over millions of year, into a human (to just go ahead an jump to the crux, I suppose)

Hardly. The debate is simply that we have an observed phenomina (evolution) which occurs through a well-described, observed, and understood mechanism. One of the products of this process is the accumulation of genetic material, resulting in increasingly complex organisms.

You (by which I mean creationists) do not like what that implies for your literalistic interpretation of the bible. As such you've tried to re-define evolution into two groups - one group which you want to be false (increasing complexity) and one which you'll conede as it doesn't harm your faith too much.

Problem is, those two things are not separatable. The former (large-scale changes) is mearly the product of the later (small-scale changes) occuring over long periods of time. Likewise, all of the events along that road are known to occur - increases in genetic material/complexity, mutations, selection, single cell to multicell transisitons, speciation, etc, etc, etc. Each and every one of those has been directly observed in nature and/or in the lab. Likewise, both the fossil and genomic record contains the expected "fossils" of that evolutionary process.

Bryan>>>>"PE is simply periods of faster-than-normal evolution."

Ok. I would even say that some articles seem to link that strict gradualists are still quite amazed how changes in species can occur so quickly. I'm just wondering why certain popular introductory college biology texts have no mention of it anymore. But I get what you are saying.

I'm curious which text you are looking at. As I mentioned earlier I do some university-level teaching, and the several text's I use to prepare my lectures do include PE as part of their section on evolution.

If I had to guess (and assuming you are right about "several popular" texts lack mention of PE) is that we no longer treat PE as something
special" or "different" in evolution. Evolution simply does not go at one set speed, PE just happens to be the name given wqhen "high gear" was first noticed.

Bryan>>>>"It is that "random" change in gene frequqncies that is drift."

Sure, the bottleneck effect and the founder effect...

No, those arequite different. Bottlenecks occur as a result of intense selection, not an absence of selection. Founder effects is a consiquence of a bottle neck - you can only work with what makes it through the period of intense selection.

Genetic drift is also dependent upon small population sizes because the liklihood of some random characteristic becoming the abundant characteristic increases...

Actually, you can get drift in large populations. A new gene/allele does not need to spread through an entier population to "drift" - all it has to do is be inherited. For example, lets say you have 2 kids, and pass on one of your 4 point mutations to both. The frequency of your new mutation has just gone from 1:3,00,000 to 1:1,000,000; and as such has undergone drift as its frequecy in the population has now increased.

I get all that. But genetic drift does not introduce new genes, it only acts on the already present genes. Therefore it has not role in the discussion of how a single celled prokaryote evolved into a human via mutations of the DNA over millions of years (billions...3 or so actually)

Drift does not produce new genes, that much is true. But it has most certnatly played a central role in the evolution of humans. After all, drift plays a role in determining which genes/allels are present when selection occurs. Without drift there would have been different mixtures of genes/alleles present at times of selection, and thus, different outcomes would have been possible. Who knows how many times drift enriched alleles that were needed to make humans, or reduced alleles that would have led us down a different evolutionary path.

Bryan>>>>"That is not a definition of evolution. Evolution (biological evolution) is one of two things:

1) Evolution is a physical, obervable process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations
2) A scientific thoery which describes why we see #1 occuring"

So according to #1, evolution is the directly observed change in allelic frequencies of organisms over time. And #2 is the theory of how it happens (the possible label of neo-Darwinism could be used here).

You've still got #1 wrong. Changes in allelic frequency arebut one possible outcome of evolution, amoung at least a dozen other possible outcomes. Heritable changes are more then justchanges in allele frrequency - it also involves making new alleles/genes, deleting alleles/genes, reorganizing the gemone, changing gene expression, and much, much more. All of those togeather are evoltuion, changes in allele frequency is just one tiny part of a much larger process.

So since #1 limits us to directly observable phenomena. I get it. I actually prefer it. And if that was the case, the debate, from my point of view, would be over.

Only if you restrict yourself to the very limited range of obsrevations you seem to think we have made. The reality is that every step required to convert a single-celled organism into a human has been observed to occur - mutations, new genes/alleles, unicellular to multicellula transitions, speciation, etc.

The directly observed phenomina alone speak greatly towards the progression of single-celled life to man; the fact that inferred evidence - fossil records, genenetic analysis, etc, etc, etc, fit in perfectly with the directly observed evidence addsyet more credance to the argument.

Bryan>>>>"That said, the process of unicellular life giving rise to mutlicellular life is a near-certanty, and is well supported by a large host of evidence. We've even observed the change from unicellularity to multicellularity in the lab (in C. vulgaris)."

Can you give a "layman's" account of this? Possibly a document that I could read?

I don't know about a laymans description; I've only ever seen scientific articles on the subject. The initial study, where the event was observed:

Boraas, M. E. 1983. Predator induced evolution in chemostat culture. EOS. Transactions of the American Geophysical Union. 64:1102.

Here's my best whack at it.

Boraas was growing Chlorella pyrenoidosa in culture, as food for the organism he was actually interested in (Ochromonas). Due to a equipment failiure the Ochromonas ended up mixing (by accident) into the tank being used to grow Chlorella. Within a few days the Chlorella began living as colonies too large to be consumed. Over time these colonies developed into a 8-cell organism. This organism always contained 8 cells, reproduces in a multicellular fashion (i.e. one cell doesn't just bud off and form a new colony; rather, the colony duplicates as a whole), and cannot not survive as single cells. This new multicelllular organism is now known to be a new species (C. vulgaris), and hass been stabally growing for over 20 years (equievelent to ~17,800 generations).

It sounds like an awesome experiement. Understand that I have no direct access to database journals or subscriptions so if you could reference something that "everybody" could reach, that would be great. Again, it sounds like a fascinating experiment!

It is a facanating accident that we were lucky to catch (I cannot count the number of times I've thrown away a contaminated culture; who knows what I have missed?). . I'll look to see if I can find a laymans source that describes thing in detail. That said, I think the origonal article is available free, in PDF form, from TAGU

Bryan

 

[Soggy]

I am continually amazed at the horrible level of reading comprehension being displayed here. Didn't we all at least have to take the SATs?

 

[Warthaug]

My last reply ran overly-long, and this doesn't really fit, so I'm putting this up as a separate post to which coachpill (or any others) can reply to. In replying, or at least thinking about this, you'll hopefully begin to understand why scientists give creationism such little consideration.

The following are proven facts, and are products of direct observation (not inference):

1) Mutations occur, and produce new alleles
2) New genes can form
3) Selection of alleles/gemes occurs
4) Speciation occurs
5) Genetic drift, population bottle necks, & founder effects exist
6) Morphological change can be a direct consiquence of mutation
7) Biochemical changes occur as a result of mutation
8) Mutation and selection give rise to new traits and biochemical pathways

But wait, there is more. Not only are the above directly observed, multiple times, and recorded in the scientific literature, but each and every event has been confimred using secondary tests - i.e. the generation of new alleles has been confirmed by sequencing the genes of both parents to show that allele did not exist prior to concpetion, etc, etc, etc.

As a consiquence the above 8 points are undeniable facts; the only alternate explanation is that all of those thousands of observations have been generated via falcification; and lets be honest, only in the mind of a paranoid few would a conspiracy involving the millions of people needed to do this be possible.

Now evolutionary thoery explains why we see each and every one of those things occur. In fact, evolutionary theory predicted that we would observe each and every of the above deades, in some cases more than a century, before the above phenomina were first seen. <-- notice the empahsis put here, this is an important point.

So, scientifically speaking, evolutionary theory is both predictive and descriptive, making it very useful for understanding the world.

Lets compare that to creationist "theory":
1) No specific predictions, so we cannot match what we see to what was predicted
2) Does not describe why the above events occur; in fact, it pretty explicitly states the above things should not be seen

That is why creationsim is not taken seriously; it does nothing to allow us to understand how the universe works, and in many cases predicts the exact, polar opposite of what we see occuring in the world around us.

------------------------

So here's where I'm looking for a reply. I challange the creatinists to come up with an alternate explanation for the above facts which:
1) Is based on a literalistic interpretation of the bible/other religious text
2) Gives an explanation of why the above are seen
3) Is predictive (i.e. based on the description, we should expect to see the phenomina listed above)

and I'll give you a little leaway on this one, but:

4) Is not just evolution with god simply playing/guiding the part of selection/mutation.

The reason #4 is added is that such a theory could not be differentiated from evolutionary theory on a scientific basis, as both would predict the exact same results, and differ only in the "source" of those results. Since god is a metaphysical thing, science cannot detect it, any such theory would be considered idental to evolutionary thoery from a scientific stanpoint.

Bryan

Edit: Forgot to add my closing line:

Until creationists can come up with an alternate theory that both explains all of the observation science has made to date about how life changes, and predicts future findings, creationism will always be treated as nothing more then an irrelevent piece of fundamentalist dogma. You can complain that its "naturalistic", "athiestic", or wahtever-istic you feel like, but at the end of the day your name-calling doesn't change the fact that it is the only theory out there which both predicts what we see in nature, and desacribes why we see it.

That is where the science is at - until creationism can do the same you're not even playing the same game.

 

[Warthaug]

I am continually amazed at the horrible level of reading comprehension being displayed here. Didn't we all at least have to take the SATs?

I didn't have to, but I did. Forget my score (it was a long time ago, afterall), but it was good enough to gain acceptance to one rather prestiogious American uni, but not good enough to get a full scholarship.

Hence, why I stayed in Canada. Gotta love socialized education!

Bryan

PS: In case you haven't noticed yet, the reason my score wasn't good enough for a full scholarship is obviously spelling and grammar. Luckily, those are disposable skills for a scientist (that's why journals have editors)