Is evolution proven science or theory

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by MR2

No need to be making personal attacks about Trappers hairline.

Unfortunately, that does explain a lot

No need to introduce logic.

There, ya go - spoiling all my fun.

You two play nice.

We are, Mommy!!

[GratefulCitizen]

Originally Posted by Trapper John

So GC, if you are not sure what evolution theory is how is it possible to opine about it?

That being said, I think we are talking about this definition: "Evolution is the organic change in the inherited characteristics of biological populations over successive generations." Often this is extended to be more inclusive and to attempt to explain the Origin of Life, a viewpoint I share.

As to the second part of your post, I assume that you are referring to the properties of a good hypothesis (theory) - (1) Consistent with the observed known and (2) Predictive with predictions that are experimentally testable.

I contend, as do the vast majority of scientists, that Darwin's theory is consistent with the observable known (e.g. fossil record, structure and function of species genome, etc.). That's condition 1.

As to condition #2, (predictive with predictions that are experimentally testable), that is more problematic for evolution of species because of the time required to test the most obvious prediction. I'll have to get back to you, in say 1 million years or so on that one.

However, there is ample evidence for micro-evolution and co-evolution as has been cited elsewhere in this thread. In fact it was co-evolution that gave rise to the divergence of the plant and animal kingdoms (see discussion re: Lynn Margulis).

But before you jump on the difficulty surrounding condition #2 as a reason to discount a the Theory of Evolution, consider the same difficulty (for different reasons) with the General Relativity Theory and the Standard Model of the Universe. These theories meet condition #1 and still we have not tested all of their fundamental predictions largely because the technology to do so is still in development. This does not, by any stretch of the imagination, invalidate the value in either. Nor does it invalidate the Theory of Evolution.

So far, as I said in my earlier post, no credible evidence has established proof that the null hypothesis (the Theory of Evolution is not correct) has come to light. Until that time comes, then it must stand as the best explanation of what is known, i.e there is no reason in logic to replace it with an alternative theory.

But let's do the mental experiment and say that some evidence does come forward that the Theory of Evolution cannot explain. Let's also attempt to replace it with ID and let's apply these same conditions to ID and ask (1) is ID consistent with the observed known and (2) what predictions are made from ID that can be experimentally tested? In our mental experiment let's assume condition #1 is met (Personally, I don't believe it can be given the preponderance of evidence so far, but in the mental experiment I am suspending my disbelief).

Now the question is, what predictions are made from ID that can be experimentally tested? I think the answer to that question is none. I think you will see the conundrum and therefore a logical impasse is reached.

My point is that any attempt to apply logic to ID is folly. ID is a matter of Faith and as I said in the earlier post, when you look at the origin of life, whether it's through the lens of science or Faith, we ultimately come to the same point.

We are all children of Nature/God - so Act accordingly.

In an earlier post, I also stated that ID isn't science.
Anything attempting to support "first cause" directly is a matter of postulation (faith), science is the cause and effect which comes later.

Concerning "disproving" evolution and falsifiable predictions:
In evolution, all new evidence gets explained after discovery.

A theory should be able to be somewhat specific concerning what new evidence will be found.
A theory also should be specific concerning what new evidence will not be found.

The lack of falsifiable predictions tends to move evolution away from "theory" and into the realm of "conjecture".
I have no problem with evolution presented as a conjecture (Still confused as to what exactly "evolutionary theory" is...).

Conjecture isn't theory and theory isn't a law of nature nor a fact.
Evolution certainly has broad use in science, but should be presented for what it is.

There are significant distinctions among the ideas of fact, hypothesis, theory, scientific law, conjecture, postulate, and proof(theorem).
Too often those distinctions are blurred.

I am not making accusations.
Just pointing out what I believe to be the root problem with the whole debate about evolution.

[98G]

This is a great thread. University of California Museum of Paleontology has compiled a decent collection of papers regarding “where we are in the theory.” It is extensive, so here is summary of some points from paleontologists which may be useful.

The strict biological definition is "a change in allele frequencies over time." By that definition, evolution is a fact. Common descent is not a proven fact. The theory that all life arose from one common ancestor is not the theory of evolution, but it is a fraction of it (as well as several different theories). The theory of evolution says that life evolved and it also includes mechanisms, like mutations, natural selection, and genetic drift, which go a long way towards explaining how life evolved. That framework is accepted in science as a way to sort and understand data. Scientific method needs a paradigm.

"Transitional fossils"

This is a sequence of similar genera or families, linking an older group to a very different younger group. Each step in the sequence consists of some fossils that represent a certain genus or family, and the whole sequence often covers a span of tens of millions of years. A lineage like this shows obvious morphological intermediates for every major structural change, and the fossils occur roughly (but often not exactly) in the expected order. There are still gaps between each of the groups -- few or none of the speciation events are preserved. The major point of these general lineages is that animals with intermediate morphology existed at the appropriate times, and thus that the transitions from the proposed ancestors are fully plausible. General lineages are known for almost all modern groups of vertebrates.

This is a set of numerous individual fossils that show a change between one species and another. It's a fine-grained sequence documenting the actual speciation event, usually covering less than a million years. These species-to-species transitions are unmistakable when they are found. Throughout successive strata you see the population averages of teeth, feet, vertebrae, etc., changing from what is typical of the first species to what is typical of the next species. Many "species-to-species transitions" are known, mostly for marine invertebrates and recent mammals (both those groups tend to have good fossil records), though they are not as abundant as the general lineages.

Both types of transitions often result in a new "higher taxon" (a new genus, family, order, etc.) from a species belonging to a different, older taxon. For example, the Order Perissodactyla (horses, etc.) and the Order Cetacea (whales) can both be traced back to early Eocene animals that looked only marginally different from each other, and didn't look at all like horses or whales. But over the following tens of millions of years, the descendants of those animals became more and more different, and now we call them two different orders.

Gaps

1. The first and most major gap, "stratigraphic discontinuities", meaning that fossil-bearing strata are not at all continuous. There are often large time breaks from one stratum to the next, and there are even some times for which no fossil strata have been found. For instance, the Aalenian (mid-Jurassic) has shown no known tetrapod fossils anywhere in the world, and other stratigraphic stages in the Carboniferous, Jurassic, and Cretaceous have produced only a few mangled tetrapods. (One study estimated that we may have fossils from as little as 3% of the species that existed in the Eocene.) This, obviously, is the major reason for a break in a general lineage. To further complicate the picture, certain types of animals tend not to get fossilized -- terrestrial animals, small animals, fragile animals, and forest-dwellers are worst.

Species-to-species transitions are even harder to document. To demonstrate anything about how a species arose, whether it arose gradually or suddenly, you need exceptionally complete strata, with many dead animals buried under constant, rapid sedimentation. This is rare for terrestrial animals. Even the famous Clark's Fork (Wyoming) site, known for its fine Eocene mammal transitions, only has about one fossil per lineage about every 27,000 years. Luckily, this is enough to record most episodes of evolutionary change (provided that they occurred at Clark's Fork Basin and not somewhere else), though it misses the most rapid evolutionary bursts.

In general, in order to document transitions between species, you need specimens separated by only tens of thousands of years (e.g. every 20,000-80,000 years). If you have only one specimen for hundreds of thousands of years (e.g. every 500,000 years), you can usually determine the order of species, but not the transitions between species. If you have a specimen every million years, you can get the order of genera, but not which species were involved.

2. Most fossils undoubtedly have not been found. Only two continents, Europe and North America, have been adequately surveyed for fossil-bearing strata. As the other continents are slowly surveyed, many formerly mysterious gaps are being filled (e.g., the long-missing rodent/lagomorph ancestors were recently found in Asia). Of course, even in known strata, the fossils may not be uncovered unless a roadcut or quarry is built (this is how we have most of our North American Devonian fish fossils).

Documenting a species-to-species transition is particularly grueling, as it requires collection and analysis of hundreds of specimens. Typically we must wait for some paleontologist to take it on the job of studying a certain taxon in a certain site in detail. Almost nobody did this sort of work before the mid-1970's, and even now only a small subset of researchers do it. For example, Phillip Gingerich was one of the first scientists to study species-species transitions, and it took him ten years to produce the first detailed studies of just two lineages.

3. Even when they are found, they're not popularized. The only times a transitional fossil is noticed much is if it connects two noticably different groups (such as the "walking whale" fossil reported in 1993), or if illustrates something about the tempo and mode of evolution (such as Gingerich's work). Most transitional fossils are only mentioned in the primary literature, often buried in academic papers later referenced already collapsed to the genus or family level. The two major college-level textbooks of vertebrate paleontology (Carroll 1988, and Colbert & Morales 1991) don't even describe anything below the family level. Many of the species-to-species transitions were described too recently to have made it into the books yet.

What paleontologists do get excited about are topics like the average rate of evolution. When exceptionally complete fossil sites are studied, usually a mix of patterns are seen: some species still seem to appear suddenly, while others clearly appear gradually. Once they arise, some species stay mostly the same, while others continue to change gradually. Paleontologists usually attribute these differences to a mix of slow evolution and rapid evolution (or "punctuated equilibrium": sudden bursts of evolution followed by stasis), in combination with the immigration of new species from the as-yet-undiscovered places where they first arose.

There's been a heated debate about which of these modes of evolution is most common, and this debate has been largely misquoted by laypeople. Virtually all of the quotes of paleontologists saying things like "the gaps in the fossil record are real" are taken out of context from this ongoing debate about punctuated equilibrium. They are arguing about how often evolution occurs gradually.

• Gingerich, 1980, who found 24 gradual speciations and 14 sudden appearances in early Eocene mammals;
• MacFadden, 1985, who found 5 cases of gradual anagenesis, 5 cases of probable cladogenesis, and 6 sudden appearances in fossil horses;

One good thing about scientific method -- it accepts new data and allows for a theory to be disproven. I am attaching a table regarding types of evolutionary work (non-Darwinian, Darwinian and Neo-Darwinism). One bad thing about accepted theory, the paradigm will occasionally obfuscate the new data and reject it unconsciously -- but not for long. Science is competitive.

[Dusty]

Show me the monkey.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by 98G

One good thing about scientific method -- it accepts new data and allows for a theory to be disproven. I am attaching a table regarding types of evolutionary work (non-Darwinian, Darwinian and Neo-Darwinism). One bad thing about accepted theory, the paradigm will occasionally obfuscate the new data and reject it unconsciously -- but not for long. Science is competitive.

Thank you for posting this. A very, very good summary of the status. Even if Dusty still wants to see the monkey.

[MR2]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Show me the monkey.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2iiPpcwfCA

[Sdiver]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Show me the monkey.

Here ya go .... http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YryIuBxzomA

[Trapper John]

Dusty- Watch MR2s vid and have 3-4 of the of SDiver's suggestions and you'll see the monkey alright.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by DocIllinois

Truth be told! This is why I prefer a scientific lifestyle. Part of the scientific method is accepting the fact that we have gaps in knowledge, and that that's not only acceptable, but desirable.

Unless you are working in one of those knowledge gaps. Boy does that get ugly sometimes!

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by DocIllinois

Then it comes down to who has a better presentation for the grant committee.

Talk about a demonstration of the ugly side of human evolution.

And that is not enough. Get a copy of "Catching Cancer" (available on Amazon.com). Excellent read by a first rate author - Claudia Cornwall. I knew Barry Blumberg and have spoken at length with most of the scientists she interviewed. Their stories are enlightening but are only the tip of the iceberg.

The best analogy I have - it's a UW Op in every aspect.

[98G]

Originally Posted by DocIllinois

Truth be told! This is why I prefer a scientific lifestyle. Part of the scientific method is accepting the fact that we have gaps in knowledge, and that that's not only acceptable, but desirable.

That is the gap in the thread and the discussion. Evolution theory isn't faith. It is just our filter theory to sort data until it doesn't work -- then it is altered. We don't have to believe in it. But if a job requires someone to know how or why something mutated, then they see if the theory helps to explain, exploit or affect it. Making it a political discussion can turn it into a belief. While this is not a thread on religion, The Catholic Church has a formal position on evolution that may be of interest:

Science is and should be seen as “completely neutral” on the issue of the theistic or atheistic implications of scientific results, says Father George V. Coyne, director of the Vatican Observatory, while noting that “science and religion are totally separate pursuits.” ... Pope John Paul Paul II, he adds, told the Pontifical Academy of Sciences in 1996 that “new scientific knowledge has led us to the conclusion that the theory of evolution is no longer a mere hypothesis.” http://www.catholic.org/national/nat...y.php?id=18524

And yes Trapper John, that gap would not be desirable in most military missions. Grants may get ugly, but they only get lethal metaphorically. Same world. Different planets. I think it was a Larson cartoon.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by 98G

That is the gap in the thread and the discussion. Evolution theory isn't faith. It is just our filter theory to sort data until it doesn't work -- then it is altered. We don't have to believe in it. But if a job requires someone to know how or why something mutated, then they see if the theory helps to explain, exploit or affect it. Making it a political discussion can turn it into a belief. While this is not a thread on religion, The Catholic Church has a formal position on evolution that may be of interest:

And yes Trapper John, that gap would not be desirable in most military missions. Grants may get ugly, but they only get lethal metaphorically. Same world. Different planets. I think it was a Larson cartoon.

Thanks for that insight into the Catholic Curch position. Couldn't agree more. The better we understand the natural world the better we understand God. Science and Theistics are not mutually exclusive - they are in fact complimentary. Great post.

As to the UW environment - what you say is true for an academic. However, operating in an entrepreneurial small business, sometimes I am not so sure the analogy is merely metaphorical.

[98G]

Originally Posted by Trapper John

Thanks for that insight into the Catholic Church position. Couldn't agree more. The better we understand the natural world the better we understand God. Science and Theistics are not mutually exclusive - they are in fact complimentary. Great post.

As to the UW environment - what you say is true for an academic. However, operating in an entrepreneurial small business, sometimes I am not so sure the analogy is merely metaphorical.

Life threatening and livelihood threatening can pull out some similar hypothalamus responses -- but usually not similar end results. Note -- I said usually... We may need a bloodied emoticon added to the line up.

Back to the question of the thread, more from Berkeley (I went a Beach Boys concert there while attending DLI in 1979, so no academic connection). Paraphrasing their educational tools site, the following words have both popular and scientific definitions that are not necessarily in synch.

Function not purpose
The purpose of a hammer is to pound nails. One function of a hand is to hold a hammer. Designed tools have purposes. Structures and behaviors of living things have functions. This is an important distinction in science.

Evidence not proof
We often hear news stories in which the narrator refers to having “enough proof.” This is an example of confusing the terms, “proof” and “evidence.” In addition, the term, “proof,” is used in geometry and in courts of law, but does not belong in science. Scientists gather evidence to support or falsify hypotheses. Hypotheses and theories may be well supported by evidence, but never proven.

Primitive and advanced
The average person might see an opossum as more primitive than a cat. Life forms that are more highly specialized tend to be viewed as more advanced. However, even though opossums retain some conspicuous ancestral features, they are well adapted to their omnivorous habit and are every bit as successful and modern as cats. Saber-toothed cats were even more narrowly adapted than present-day cats and a change in their environment put them on the fast track to extinction.

Theory vs. hypothesis
A theory is an explanation. The validity of a theory rests upon its ability to explain phenomena. Theories may be supported, rejected, or modified, based on new evidence. Gravitational theory, for example, attempts to explain the nature of gravity. Cell theory explains the workings of cells. Evolutionary theory explains the history of life on Earth. A hypothesis is a testable idea. Scientists do not set out to “prove” hypotheses, but to test them. Often multiple hypotheses are posed to explain phenomena and the goal of research is to eliminate the incorrect ones. Hypotheses come and go by the thousands, but theories often remain to be tested and modified for decades or centuries. In science, theories are never hunches or guesses and to describe evolution as “just a theory” is inappropriate.

Believe or accept
“Do you believe in evolution?” is a question often asked in debates. The most accurate scientific answer is, “No, I accept the fact that the Earth is very old and life has changed over billions of years because that is what the evidence tells us.” Science is not about belief—it is about making inferences based on evidence.

[Dusty]

Originally Posted by MR2

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2iiPpcwfCA

Did I say "Show me the monkey who can play tiddlywinks with bones? Chimps can still do that, after all these years.

[Trapper John]

Originally Posted by Dusty

Did I say "Show me the monkey who can play tiddlywinks with bones? Chimps can still do that, after all these years.

You really need to have 3-4 of SDivers concoctions - trust me you will see the monkey