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Member (Idle past 1433 days) Posts: 20714 From: the other end of the sidewalk Joined: |
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Author | Topic: Why creationist definitions of evolution are wrong, terribly wrong. | |||||||||||||||||||||||
Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Hi RAZD,
Creolution: - is the progressive development of more complex lifeforms from simpler ones by various suggested mechanisms. Evolution: - is the change in frequency of hereditary traits in breeding population from generation to generation. ... and see how "creolution" compares with evolution in their ability to explain the diversity of life around us and what biologists study: *snip table*
Except that definition of biological evolution doesn't explain a single one of those things. You've omitted all the bits that make the Theory of Evolution powerful. Yeah, evolution can be summed up using changes in allele frequency, but the Theory of Evolution can't. The Theory of Evolution includes (most importantly) natural selection as a mechanism of change, and it includes common descent. The Creationist definition is weak, because it includes increasing complexity in the definition, which the ToE does explain and does predict but it isn't required or directional. But implying you can boil evolution down to change in allele frequency and still retain it's extraordinary explanatory power is simply untrue.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
The change in hereditary traits in breeding populations from generation to generation does not explain the observed changes Peppered Moth populations? Really? Correct, a change in hereditary traits is merely an observation. To explain the observed changes in Peppered Moth populations you have to invoke natural selection.
Yes, but here we are talking about the process of evolution. The theory of evolution and the science of evolution are applications of this process as part of the explanation of the diversity of life. The definition of the process of evolution does not need to provide the "extraordinary explanatory power" of the theory of evolution, it just needs to explain the difference between one generation and the next: the hereditary traits expressed in the populations have changed. Sure, but to suggest that this tiny part of evolution is equivalent to the majesty of the ToE is equivocation. Hideous, ugly, equivocation. And it's downright disingenuous to suggest that it's meaningful to use it as the definition when arguing with Creationists. Only the most naive of creos would claim that genetics are static across generations; what they're arguing with are the grander claims of evolution.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Hi RAZD,
The course defines Biological Evolution per se much as you do, but it goes on to define the Theory of Evolution to include such things as common descent and natural selection. The problem I have with your definition of evolution is not the definition itself but the equivocation of this small, trivial part with the whole of the Theory of Evolution. When we talk about evolution, we're not usually meaning it in the trivial sense of population change but rather talking about the grand spread of the Theory of Evolution. Arguing that Creationist definitions are wrong because they're talking about the Theory of Evolution and you're talking about the narrow definition of evolution as mere change is sophistry, and doesn't advance the argument. And, sure, if you want to include all of evolution you can't sum it up in a sentence or two. But that's just the way it is.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
But evolution isn't a small part of evolution, it's all of evolution. What else has ever happened that one could describe as evolution? You'll note I said it was a small part of the Theory of Evolution. And it's the theory of evolution Creationists are talking about.
It's not everything we know about evolution, but it is all the evolution there is. And an example of evolution would still be evolution if it was Lamarckian or front-loaded or Darwinian, and it would continue to be evolution even if it turned out that common descent was the veriest piffle. Exactly why it's equivocation. You'll note the claims RAZD makes for evolution's explanatory power (in the post I replied to ). The simple change definition of biological evolution has no explanatory power. To respond to a faulty Creationist definition such as "Evolution, as it is strictly interpreted in technical terms, deals with the suggested mechanisms for the progressive development of more complex lifeforms from simpler ones" which is clearly talking about the ToE with a definition that applies only to a tiny, tiny part of the ToE - the part of least interest - progresses nothing. It's simply a debating tactic; a cheap one that obfuscates the very thing we're trying to defend.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
Hi RAZD,
Does that answer your criticism? Yeah, it's a better definition.
Looks to me like he is talking about the science of evolution, starting with an attempt at a general definition of evolution. I can insert the above definition of evolution into this paragraph and it makes sense: I think your distinction between the science of evolution and the ToE is one I'm not making. As I see it if he'd omitted the bit about strict technical terms, what he gave wasn't a bad description of evolution. Evolution does deal with the development of complex forms from simple forms and that is a major part of why it's such an important part of our scientific knowledge. Now, of course, simple-to-complex is not directed, nor is it monotonic or unbounded but it does, and has, happened, and is critically important to scientific explainations of life on Earth. And I don't really see the point in attacking an article which is such pure, unrelenting bollocks on this point.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
As I've said before, I'm not arguing that your definition is wrong per se but that you're equivocating on the meaning of evolution and doing so in a way that is unhelpful to the debate.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
I thought microevolution produced speciation. Yes, that's correct: microevolution produces speciation, speciation is macroevolution.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
which means there is no such thing as microevolution and macroevolution just evolution Only if there's also no such thing as an inch and a mile only distance.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
last I checked the the words were only used by creationists. They aren't units of measuring anything and have no use as words in science. Something can't "macroevolve" It evolves. The terms are used by scientists, just not a great deal - mostly because they don't form natural categories. Although I suspect the Creationist abuse of the terms has helped drive them to the margins.
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Dr Jack Member Posts: 3514 From: Immigrant in the land of Deutsch Joined: Member Rating: 8.3 |
There remains debate whether microevolutionary trends suffice to account for macroevolutionary patterns. For example, it is difficult to see how microevolution can account for the distribution of marsupials or the rise of oxygen metabolising organisms. Gould and Eldridge have (bizarelly, IMO) claimed that special explaination is required for phyla.
Now, personally, I'd argue that treating largely scale processes as deserving of a crudely divided category along speciation lines such as micro/macro but it's not an entirely closed question.
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