Why should evolution be accepted on authority?

robinrohan responds to me:

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The author I cited wasn't talking about the word "fundamentalism."

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I realize this is a quibble so don't take me too seriously, but I think she was, if only indirectly. The hard-line fundamentalist movement she speaks of did start in the 70s but its roots very definitely go back to 'The Fundamentals'. I brought it up because it's an important point. If you want to understand the fundamentalist movement you must have at least a cursory knowledge of its roots.In other words, we're both right.

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Keep America Safe AND Free!

Ned, you seem to be saying that the fact of imperfect replication combined with another factor I do not quite understand--some kind of "pressure" produced by the environment?--makes evolution logically necessary.Could you clarify that?

Interesting that you used the word "pressure" as I didn't. However, "selection pressure" is a phrase I've seen used.The pressure is natural selection. It has an pressure like affect in that it biases the way in which the population changes so it is not a random walk.Let my try to simplify this as it really isn't as complicated as I made it at first.We have a population of animals, each with some genetic differences. The environment is such that not all can survive and reproduce. Each individual born is different in some minor or not so minor way. A few of the differences happen to have some affect on the chances of the individual reproducing successfully. Thus we have "imperfect replicators" and we have "selection" of them.Now, if the enviroment stays approximately as it is and the population is not perfectly suited to it, is it possible for the population to stay the same over time?If a part of the population is moved to a sufficiently different environment is it possible for that population to stay the same as the original one?If one thinks it is possible I would have to see them explain how that is so.Evolution, under all most all real world circumstances MUST happen.

I think you used the word "pressure" in another post.So it is SEX that is really the driving force behind evolution, not so much mutations?No wonder people are so interested in sex.If there is a little creature that is not divided into genders, but reproduces individually, then evolution would be much slower?

Did I mention sex? Nevermind what I was thinking. I meant mutations actually, since we are different from our parents both because of the mixing up due to sex but also because we all carry a few mutations as well.I don't know for sure but in the short term sex may well supply more of the variation but in the long term it would be the mutations of one sort or another.I'm not sure that "driving force" is best used at this point. I think if you were to use that then it would best refer to selection. I think, at first glance, that makes sense. However, the little beggers though not divided into genders still manage the equivalent of sex in a way. They exchange genetic material which I think can even cross species boundaries.

I suppose evolution has ceased for humans, since we have risen above the conditions of bare survival.

I think that is a misapprehension of what evolution is about. As long as there are traits that afffect the reproductive success then selection can take place.Somewhere, who knows where, I read that humans may have become somewhat domesticated over the last 10,000 years. We may be more docile and smaller brained than we were.We may know be selected for keeping our cool and not getting killed due to road rage, we may be selecting for intelligence and detailed manual manipulation over strength and speed. Any selection that may be going on is not going to be easy to see lost in the many, many things which influence our lives and behavior. But I would be rather surprised if no selection is going on.

Ned, are you talking about "cultural evolution"?

Perhaps you misunderstood me; that's not what we're talking about. Robin is referring to accepting the conclusions of science not on the authority of the admittedly second-hand evidence that customarily accompanies them, but rather, simply because its scientists doing the concluding.My question, then, was this: isn't it better to find ways to present the reports of the evidence in more compelling ways than to tell our hypothetical farmers that they need to shut up and get in line because a scientist told them to?

Crashfrog, there are many degrees to accepting something on authority. The more you know about a subject the less you accept it on authority, although in most cases there will always be some things you accept on authority.The "compelling ways" you mention of convincing our farmer that evolution is a fact is a practical educational matter that interests me, but I don't know what those ways would be.But here is what has happened, perhaps. Our farmer gets up on Sunday morning and goes to church, and there he is told that some evil biology teachers in the local high school are teaching evolution as though it were a fact and leaving out the creationist view. Both, the preacher suggests, are mere "theories."How will the Crashfrogs of this world win this battle? They can't do it with numbers. There are lot more of those farmers than there are Crashfrogs.Now in Europe, I believe, the Crashfrogs would have a lot more respect, but in this country, for some reason, they have less.So I was trying to come up with a rationale as to why the farmer, given his circumstances, should not join a group to petition the local high school to give equal time to creationism in the science class, or to move evolution to the religion class.

Here's the rationale: "Because creationism is not only unscientific, it's also wrong, and here's the evidence that proves it." If that isn't able to convince him, then we don't have anything that will.

The challenge is, Crash, how do you get the farmer to sit and listen.He has invested 100's of hours in listening in Church. He is used to getting very simplistic answers to things.He has a fear that listening to you will send him to eternal torment.Where do you start?

Point a gun to his head and make him listen, take notes, and have examinations at the end. Use this opportunity to beat as much info into him and make him recite them. Eventually, he'll notice that there is something seriously wrong with creationism.

Well, he watches tv and reads the paper. Did anyone see last month's issue of National Geographic? The cover was "Was Darwin Wrong?" The first line of the article was "No."The farmer farms, and so he has to know about living things. Evolutionary strategies come into play every day in his fields as he grows crop and applies pesticides. His pastor may know the Bible, but he doesn't know shit about farming, and if you can approach him from that angle, you've got him.

well, I would have said he was "wrong", at least as it leads to acceptance of authority only. Take the intro course on BIology by Campbell, it opens with a discussion of emergence not transitionals as fact. This is a tragedy for the new student so let me go back to an earlier time. Darwin thought that transitionals would approve his view of modified DESCENT and let me take this as if true, as bird/reptile fossil with feathers as not a fraud etc etc. What seems to support the sense of the authority whether in the philosophy of biology of organcism or the "fact" of evolution, I dont understand how the existence of any one or a number of transitionals leads the popular mind to think that the rates of change are thereby validated!What i dont get is how from a the approval of SOME fossil as accepted by professional evolutionists the people think this gave liscene to think that the forms are malleable to any arbitrary extent but Darwin knew this was a matter of systmatics and why he studied Baranacles. Some how it is wrong to understand change willy nilly on the existence of a fossil or so but common mind can not find mental space generally to seperate change from any change and simply assert evolution as a particular change that I can not find to exist.