Reflectorites
On Thu, 11 May 2000 21:18:42 -0400, David Bradbury wrote:
DB>As a frequent "lurker" I want to thank you ... and your many friends
>(Brassfield, Clark, Wein, Lundberg, MikeBGene, Jones, et al) for almost
>more intellectual stimulation than this old retired engineer can handle.
As this is AFAIK Dave's first post to the Reflector, a welcome to him.
DB>Upon graduation from U.of Mich. in 1949 I was a convinced (and
>outspoken) "believer" that evolution was a proper and sufficient
>scientific explanation for the origin and diversity of life on planet
>earth.
It is interesting how often evolution is couched in religious terms,
i.e. "believer". One shouldn't have to *believe* a scientific theory-
one should *know* it. If one has to believe it, then arguably it is not
science. Or if it is science, then other things that are believed
should not necessarily be arbitrarily exluded from science.
DB>Some 20 years later I encountered a public challenge by Dr. John J.
>Grebe (then Dir. of Research, Dow Chem. Co.) to the evolutionary gurus
>of the day who were championing the elevation of evolution from
>hypothesis to theory in public school textbooks. Namely, he offered
>$1,000 to "anyone" able to present any first example of scientific
>evidence, or mathematical model, of a quality sufficient to justify this
>upward reclassification. Finding this offer was still open, I set out
>to collect this "easy" money (worth upwards of $10,000 today). After
>only a few weeks of reference search, I began to sense that perhaps Dr.
>Grebe was perhaps not quite as reckless as I had initially presumed,
>but kept digging and corresponding. It was a number of years later
>that I finally had to reluctantly concede that all the "evidence"
>available consisted of unverifiable interpretations, extrapolations,
>extensions, assumptions, etc. I could find NO physical (or
>mathematical) evidence establishing that random mutations and natural
>selection could/would generate the appearance of new genetic
>information in a pre-existing gene pool as required to produce changes
>associated with macro-evolution.
Good point. While *some* increases of information (in a technical
Information Theory sense) may be generated by gene duplication, and then
random mutation and natural selection, this has not been shown to be of
sufficient quantity, quality or timeliness, to " produce changes associated
with macro-evolution".
And example I use is one of our local newspapers "The Sunday Times".
Say 100,000 identical copies of it are produced. There is only 1 bit of
information content for the whole 100,000 copies.
Now suppose one copy had a misprint "The Sundry Times". This would be
another 1 bit of information. It might even have some `survival value' in
that the word "Sundry" means something else (as opposed to "Sundxy".
But AFAIK not even the most ardent Darwinist would seriously propose
that this tiny increase in information, extrapolated over millions of years,
could ever write even a newspaper, let alone something different like a
book.
DB>Worse yet, all the physical experiments (bell jars, etc.) and
>mathematical analysis (Wistar, etc.) appeared to confirm the loss of any
>new potentially beneficial DNA coding was so in excess of its chance
>formation, that its postulated accumulation was so unlikely as to be
>impossible. I still clung to the hope that given enough time, the
>necessary accumulation of useful code could/would somehow manifest
>itself. Even this straw had to be abandoned upon recognition that the
>longer the preponderance of 90+% decay of potentially useful DNA in a
>gene pool proceeded, the greater was the certainty it would overwhelm
>the less than 10% possibility of it accumulating as required. Time
>wasn't an answer. Indeed, it was in actuality a further serious hurdle.
Another good point. Hoyle's point is that the DNA replication mechanism
could not work at all in organisms higher than bacteria, were it not for the
"exquisitely complex" model of sexual reproduction with crossover:
"In a budding model or a binary fission model [as exists in bacteria-SJ], in
both of which progeny inherit the genetic structure of a single parent, the
situation appears unpromising. Rare favourable mutations in such models
cannot free themselves from the more frequent unfavourable ones, because
an offspring to whom a rare favourable mutation occurs is inevitably
saddled with all the unfavourable mutations which have afflicted its
parental line. To have any hope of success the neo-Darwinian theory must
therefore appeal to a reproductive model quite different from the model
mostly adopted by single-celled organisms. This is already an immense
climb down from what is usually claimed for the theory. Gone is its
"obvious" status. Only if a model can be found that contrives to uncouple
the selective properties of one gene from another, permitting the occasional
good mutation to survive and prosper in a sea of bad mutations, can
evolution be made to work at all. How exquisitely complex the model
needs to be to achieve such a remarkable result will be discussed in the next
chapter." (Hoyle F., "Mathematics of Evolution," 1999, p.10).
But there is yet another chicken and egg problem. How a primitive asexual
bacterial system without sexual reproduction with crossover could itself
originate the "exquisitely complex" system of sexual reproduction with
crossover "beggars the imagination":
"The first is that the usually supposed logical inevitability of the theory of
evolution by natural selection is quite incorrect. There is no inevitability,
just the reverse. It is only when the present asexual model is changed to the
sophisticated model of sexual reproduction accompanied by crossover that
the theory can be made to work, even in the limited degree to be discussed
in Chapter 6. This presents an insuperable problem for the notion that life
arose out of an abiological organic soup through the development of a
primitive replicating system. A primitive replicating system could not have
copied itself with anything like the fidelity of present-day systems.... With
only poor copying fidelity, a primitive system could carry little genetic
information without L [mutation rate-SJ] becoming unbearably large, and
how a primitive system could then improve its fidelity and also evolve into
a sexual system with crossover beggars the imagination." (Hoyle F.,
"Mathematics of Evolution," 1999, p.20).
But even with that "exquisitely complex" system of sexual reproduction
with crossover which "beggars the imagination", it only works at the level
of micro-evolution. It "does not work at broader taxonomic levels" and
therefore "cannot explain the major steps in evolution":
"To anticipate the eventual outcome it will be found that, subject to the
choice of a highly sophisticated reproductive model, the theory works at
the level of varieties and species, just as it was found empirically to do by
biologists from the mid-nineteenth century onward. But the theory does not
work at broader taxonomic levels; it cannot explain the major steps in
evolution. For them, something not considered in the Darwinian theory is
essential." (Hoyle F., "Mathematics of Evolution," 1999, p.10).
DB>In all my lurking, I'm still looking for some (any) example of
>scientific evidence of sufficient merit to qualify biological evolution
>as a valid 'scientific' theory --- but to no avail. Perhaps having
>outlined my quandary as above, others in this Reflector might share
>whatever helpful wisdom they feel might help me clarify/solidify my
>thinking.
[...]
I expect that Dave will have to wait a long time. I have been on this
Reflector for the last 5 years debating with evolutionists (theistic and
atheistic) on almost a daily basis, and I have yet to see them offer "some
(any) example of scientific evidence of sufficient merit to qualify biological
evolution as a valid 'scientific' theory."
The only reason evolution survives at all is that evolutionists regard the
alternative, special creation (i.e. any form of supernatural guidance and/or
intervention), as "incredible":
"If so, it [natural selection] will present a parallel to the theory of evolution
itself, a theory universally accepted not because it can be proved by
logically coherent evidence to be true but because the only alternative,
special creation, is clearly incredible." (Watson D.M.S., "Adaptation,"
Nature, August 10, 1929, p.233).
Steve
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"Dr. Waddington recognizes a trend or tendency in evolutionary changes;
so do I. Now, when statesmen control human affairs so that they move
towards a definite end, we say that a policy is being pursued. Do not the
trends and tendencies we note in evolutionary changes represent a policy,
although no council meeting has been held and no written draft ever
prepared? I hold that the factors which control evolutionary events are so
regulated as to produce automatically the direction of change, giving all the
appearance of a devised policy. Mr. Robertson and I agree that man has
been evolved, but whereas he regards man's evolution as a result of chance,
I see ill it the successful result of a trend or policy which affected
progressively the development and equipment of the human brain. The
brain, from being an instrument fit for anthropoids, passed on to a state in
which the range of feeling, understanding, and of manipulative skill,
became fit for men. To ask me to believe that the evolution of man has
been determined by a series of chance events is to invite me to give credit
to what is biologically unbelievable." (Keith A., "Replies to Critics," in
"Essays on Human Evolution," [1946], Watts & Co: London, Third
Impression, 1947, p.217).
Stephen E. Jones | sejones@iinet.net.au | http://www.iinet.net.au/~sejones
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