Re: Meandering along

Post #134,521 by deSitter 1/9/04 12:33:29 PM Reply	Re: Meandering along First, there is no "theory of evolution", the way there is a "theory of the electron" or even a "theory of continental drift". Evolution is a principle - that genetics operates in jumps due to random mutations, to produce life forms that are better adapted to survival in a particular environment. The better adapted life is more robust and more likely to pass on beneficial mutations to later generations. This is so simple and so perfectly explanatory that there is no serious doubt about it. An actual theory of evolution would require the ability to predict what sorts of mutations would occur and be favored in a given population. As far as I know (and I'm very weak in biology) this does not exist. To make an analogy, evolution is to biology as vorticity is to weather. -drl
Post #134,528 by ChrisR 1/9/04 1:09:07 PM Reply	Which touches on a different concern I've had.... This is so simple and so perfectly explanatory that there is no serious doubt about it. In a totally different direction, I've always had the concern that Darwin & Evolution have been elevated beyond the significance they deserve - exactly because it elicits such a defensive response from religious fundamentalism. Sometimes I cringe when I see scientists explaining behavior attributable to "evolution" that I don't see as being any more meaningful as attributing that behavior to an "all powerfull force". Creationism is a non-starter for myself (as it is for many - if not most with a Catholic background (due in some measure to Tielhard)). But the attributions to evolution seem a bit overcompensating in the other direction. The weakness to evolution is not that it can't disprove creationism, but that it's usefullness in modeling (and thus prediction) are not excatly concise.
Post #134,533 by deSitter 1/9/04 1:22:31 PM Reply	Exactly! The differences between men and apes are far less significant than, say, between sea lions and deer, because men and apes live in similar environments. As far as I'm concerned, the mechanism of evolution is irrelevant to the argument against creationism. The latter is wrong because it is not useful, the way the epicyclic explanation of planetary motion is not useful. Science works because it rigorously discards rigid, useless concepts in favor of flexible, useful ones. I don't understand why religious people who at least pay lip service to science are incapable of asking the right question - what exactly is it about men, who are after all animals, that makes them special? What border was crossed that enabled men to become aware? It's not just a matter of being more clever. Even bees are clever. -drl
Post #134,586 by ben_tilly 1/9/04 4:11:04 PM Reply	Your knowledge is insufficient When evolution is combined with game theory, it can make concrete predictions about what behaviours we expect to see in which populations, and why. One of the first non-trivial predictions of this form was detailed by Edmond O. Wilson, and it involved the treatment of ant larvae depending on gender, and depending on whether the workers or queen were in control of the colony. (The workers are normally in control, except in slaver ants, and there only if there are few workers and many slaves.) Because of a quirk of ant genetics, 2 daughters share 3/4 of each other's genes, while a daughter only shares half with a parent, child or full brother. Hence one expects favourtism towards sisters, and IIRC game theory predicts that they will get fed more by a ratio of 3/1. This prediction is born out in observation. The queen, of course, has no reason to favour one over the other, and so when she is in control you expect an even ratio. And in slaver ants, the treatment of larvae varied as expected. Incidentally this quirk is why ants and bees tend to form colonies. The daughters do a better job of passing on their own genes by helping mom have more daughters than by having their own daughters. The result is a colony with one queen, hordes of sterile daughters, and a smaller number of fertile sons and daughters. If you talk to people in fields like ecology and animal behaviour, the ability to make predictions like these directs a lot of their research. (There are other ways that evolution matters for prediction. For instance research on the role of genetic diversity in rapid evolutionary responses was utterly critical to figuring out how to breed better crops in the "Green Revolution" that started in the 60s. But those results are about theories of how evolution might progress, and are not consequences of its having progressed for a while.) Cheers, Ben "good ideas and bad code build communities, the other three combinations do not" - [link\|http://archives.real-time.com/pipermail/cocoon-devel/2000-October/003023.html\|Stefano Mazzocchi]
Post #134,591 by deSitter 1/9/04 4:18:42 PM Reply	Fascinating - I stand corrected! As I said, I'm very weak in biology :) -drl

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