The Truth About Evolution and Religion

Hi, Kroemer.Welcome to EvC! Just out of curiosity, what does explain common descent, in your view?
And, how are souls and metaphysics related to this?----- I am a professional biologist.I hesitate to agree with your statement as written above, lacking, as it is, any mention of the other crucial component of evolution (i.e. mutation).Did you intend to portray the entirety of the Theory of Evolution with the phrase "natural selection," or were you intentionally leaving mutation out of it?If the former, I request that you stop using the term "natural selection" the way you are, and revert to using "evolution," and submit that you are wrong about professional biologists not saying such a thing.If the latter, then I think you are correct that no professional biologist would say such a thing, but this is such a trivial and unimportant admission, that further insistence on pursuing this line of reasoning will only make you look silly.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Kroemer. We are all saying this.----- You really think so? I just did a database search on ISI Web of Science (peer-reviewed literature search engine) for evolution and complexity in the title. Here is one peer-reviewed paper that I came up with:

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Our results suggest that evolution always guides complexity change, just not in a single direction. We also demonstrate that neural complexity correlates well with behavioral adaptation but only when complexity increases are achieved through natural selection, as opposed to increases generated randomly or optimized via a genetic algorithm.

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Source: Yaeger LS. (2009). How evolution guides complexity. HFSP Journal 3(5):328-339.

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Unfortunately, my university does not have a subscription to HFSP Journal (I’d never even heard of it before today), so I am unable to read anything but the abstract (which includes the above quote).I could provide dozens more articles, if you’d like: my ISI search came up with 277 articles with evolution and complexity in the title.----- You really think so? I googled Gerhart and Kirschner (just those two names, and the word and). Here are some snippits from the very first link that came up:

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Our theory of "facilitated variation" is meant to explain how rare and random mutation can lead to exquisite changes of form and function...

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... The thrust of our argument is that rather few mutational changes, affecting regulatory components, are needed to generate complex innovation...

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... roughly two billion years ago, as the first eukaryotic cells evolved... Genomes got larger, a complex cell cycle arose... These new processes entailed the evolution of many new proteins, which seem to have originated from old proteins of bacteria.

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You can read this whole interview with American Scientist online, because my little snippits do not do it justice: especially read their reply to the second question. You should be able to quickly realize that these guys also think evolution (i.e. natural selection + mutation + ... + etc.) is the cause for increased complexity.-----Regardless of whether your ideas about metaphysics and evolution are correct, you are wrong that professional biologists think evolution does not explain complexity.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Dave. No, it doesn't: their only major changes from the classical Theory of Evolution are (1) giving mutations to the regulatory genes (as opposed to the protein-coding genes) center stage in evolution; and (2) increasing the importance and prevalence of phenotypic plasticity in adaptation of organisms to their environment.They also seem to favor a punctuated equilibrium pattern in evolutionary history, and hint at the idea that phenotype has some sort of feedback effect on future evolution (though I admit my own inability to fully grasp what, exactly, they mean by this).----- And, in doing so, you are not accurately representing what Gerhart and Kirschner propose.In a 2007 PNAS paper, they outline their theory as a four-step process:

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First, as widely accepted, genetic variation arises from recent mutations and rearrangements of the genome and from standing genetic differences arranged in new combinations by
sexual reproduction.

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Second, particular genetic variations then lead to regulatory changes...

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Third, these regulatory changes impact ... the large set of conserved core components functioning in the animal’s development and physiology. New regulation specifies new combinations, amounts, and functional states of those components to act at particular times and places in the animal.

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And fourth, the altered combinations, amounts,and states of the conserved components function to develop and operate a new trait on which selection acts.

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Reformatted and snipped for easier reading

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Pay particular attention to step four: this is ultimately identical to the classical Theory of Evolution, except that it emphasizes the role of regulatory genes in evolution.Like all evolutionary biologists, Gerhart and Kirschner recognize adaptation---via mutation and natural selection---as the vehicle of speciation and diversification. This flies directly in the face of your arguments here.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Roemer. At this point, I need to ask again what you mean by complexity.If you read the 2007 PNAS paper I linked in my last message, you will see that Gerhart and Kirscher argue that several major core processes arose via evolution at four different turning points in evolutionary history. You will then read how they believe that mutations to these core processes and their sub-processes are largely responsible for all the diversity of life.This, to me, sounds like they are proposing evolution to explain the complexity of life. But, perhaps you mean something different by complexity, something other than the core processes and all their variations; in which case I ask you to explain what you mean.This, dear sir, means that they attribute everything about life’s form and function to naturalistic evolution. You could wave it off as mere concessions to the humanist-atheist big men who rule the scientific world in order to get facilitated variation published (as you have), but then you’d be resorting to irrational conspiracy theories to rationalize a personal belief that contradicts observable facts.Edited by Bluejay, : The number four.

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Wounded King. No, I'm referring to this part:

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And of course, protein evolution was very important in the four episodes of pre-Cambrian innovation described previously. For the most part, though, animals since the Cambrian have repeatedly reused the processes and components that had been evolved long beforehand to generate novel traits of anatomy and physiology.

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p 8584, end of the first full paragraph

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Edited by Bluejay, : misplaced bolding

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.

Hi, Wounded King. Oh, I see. You're right: I did say there were four "core processes," and I probably took that from their four periods of innovation in Table 1.I didn't catch that on my first response to you: I didn't even see the first half of your message to me, so I completely didn't know what you were saying. My mind must have been somewhere else this morning.Thanks for the correction: I'm breaking protocol and altering my original post with this information now.----- By the way, you linked to Message 46 (message ID = 258), when I think you meant to link to Message 258: at first, you had me worried that I'd done this on more than one post!

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-Bluejay (a.k.a. Mantis, Thylacosmilus)Darwin loves you.