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The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

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Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#51

Post by mikeash »

barking wrote: post #45
maxerickson wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's not really species at all. Species are convenient labels for populations of similar organisms, but the only test for whether 2 organisms can and will reproduce is to see if proximity leads them to produce fertile offspring. Failing this test doesn't prove that they are not reproductively compatible.

On that basis of that test it sounds like you could not prove that chimps and and gorillas were different species?

Can you prove that frozen custard and ice cream are different types of food?

Of course, by definition they are different types of food, with the dividing line being 1.4% egg yolk solids. But one might notice that this dividing line is completely arbitrary, the universe doesn't care about it at all, and there is in fact a smooth continuum between "ice cream" and "frozen custard" and you can make food anywhere along that spectrum.

Some thing with species. Yes, chimps and gorillas are clearly different species according to how biologists define species. (There is some dispute over how exactly you define a species, because obvious definitions like "groups which interbreed to produce viable offspring" don't always produce sensible results, but chimps and gorillas are far outside the unclear areas.) But that doesn't mean that "species" is some inherent property in the world, it's just a useful device for categorizing it.

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#52

Post by DonHopkins »

barking wrote: post #11
danieltillett wrote: post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The most charitable thing I can think to say is you would find studying evolutionary biology very enlighting.

I don't think that being either helpful or charitable were motivations behind your comment.

Since you're questioning somebody else's motives yourself now, what do you think is wrong about questioning the motives of someone who parrots tired old discredited creationist propaganda, describing it as seemingly sensible? Shouldn't you be as open to criticism as the scientific theories you're criticizing?

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#53

Post by barking »

mikeash wrote: post #49
barking wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The lack of intermediate species was something that i had thought was a big flaw in the theory of evolution. In my question, I don't think that I stated that as a fact but certainly suggested that I thought it was true. As a result of reading the answers on this thread and other internet readings I still believe that there is a lack of intermediate species but I no longer consider that to be evidence against evolutio…

Your concluding statement of "All the species seem very well defined when you'd expect a continuum." reads to me as an unqualified factual statement that happens to be quite wrong. (Depending on how you look at it, either the first or the second part is wrong.) That contrasted with the call for humility from people who actually understand this stuff really does not sound at all like "musings and questions" to me.

You and I appear to ascribe very different meanings to the word 'seem'.

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#54

Post by barking »

DonHopkins wrote: post #52
barking wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that being either helpful or charitable were motivations behind your comment.

Since you're questioning somebody else's motives yourself now, what do you think is wrong about questioning the motives of someone who parrots tired old discredited creationist propaganda, describing it as seemingly sensible? Shouldn't you be as open to criticism as the scientific theories you're criticizing?

Well I wouldn't have 'parroted' it, had known that it as 'tired old discredited creationist propaganda'.

Does that answer your question?

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#55

Post by barking »

splawn wrote: post #50
barking wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes I am sure evidence will win out in the end regardless.

Considering we are 200 years in and have proceeded to continually make discoveries in Biology to the point of engineering technologies that drastically extend our life spans... All without finding anything contrary to natural selection. I would say evidence as far as this topic is concerned has already won out.

I don't think that even the creationists find natural selection controversial.

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#56

Post by DonHopkins »

barking wrote: post #54
DonHopkins wrote: post #52

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Since you're questioning somebody else's motives yourself now, what do you think is wrong about questioning the motives of someone who parrots tired old discredited creationist propaganda, describing it as seemingly sensible? Shouldn't you be as open to criticism as the scientific theories you're criticizing?

Well I wouldn't have 'parroted' it, had known that it as 'tired old discredited creationist propaganda'. Does that answer your question?

Oh, so it is ok to question motives! I'm so relieved. Google and wikipedia will quickly and easily disabuse you of the idea that it's "a big flaw in the theory of evolution". What were your motives for thinking and parroting that there is a "big flaw" in evolution without bothering to look it up, when it's so easy to discover how tired and discredited the "absence of intermediate forms" argument is?

Here's the first google hit with the phrase "absence of intermediate forms" you parroted, a site specifically dedicated to spreading misinformation about evolution -- Gary Bates' Creation Ministries International: http://creation.com/that-quote-about-the-missing-transitiona...

>Gary has been speaking on the creation/evolution issue since 1990. With a background in management and marketing, in 2002, he was invited to join the ministry full-time in Brisbane and eventually became its Head of Ministry. Much in demand for his popular lay talks on creation, Gary and his family relocated to America to serve as CEO of CMI-US. He was also elected to the position of CEO of CMI-Worldwide, CMI’s international Federation of ministries.

http://creationwiki.org/Gary_Bates

>Bates has a keen interest in the UFO phenomenon and wrote the Amazon.com top 50 bestseller Alien Intrusion: UFOs and the Evolution Connection. In July 2009 he was the keynote speaker at the first Christian symposium on the UFO phenomenon held in Roswell, New Mexico.

And here's a more reputable source that debunks the claim you parroted -- National Center for Science Education: http://ncse.com/creationism/analysis/transitional-fossils-ar...

>Fossils with transitional morphology are not rare. Fossils illustrating the gradual origin of humans, horses, rhinos, whales, seacows, mammals, birds, tetrapods, and various major Cambrian "phyla" have been discovered and are well-known to scientists. Explore Evolution's claims to the contrary are just a rehash of older creationist arguments on this point, relying on out-of-context quotes, confusion over terminology and classification, and ignoring inconvenient evidence.

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#57

Post by dragonwriter »

barking wrote: post #3

The black moths could still mate with the peppered variety so they're still the same species just different 'breeds', perhaps, so is this really evolution? I am a layman but one criticism of the theory of evolution that seems sensible to me is the absence of intermediate forms. For example types of ape that could mate with say gorillas and chimpanzees. All the species seem very well defined when you'd expect a contin…

> The black moths could still mate with the peppered variety so they're still the same species just different 'breeds', perhaps, so is this really evolution?

Yes, not all evolutionary changes constitute changes of species.

> I am a layman but one criticism of the theory of evolution that seems sensible to me is the absence of intermediate forms.

An incomplete fossil record (and, given what is known about how the fossil record is laid down, its obviously going to be extremely incomplete even before considering how little of it we've actually been able to access) combined with evolution that is continuous (even if punctuated rather than constant-pace) is naturally going to miss lots of things between many of the things it preserves. That isn't a criticism of evolution.

> All the species seem very well defined when you'd expect a continuum.

There is a continuum; talking about it in any useful way, however, forces us to divide it up into discrete buckets -- taxonomic categories, whether "species" or higher- or lower-level categories -- and, where there are unclear cases, we end up arguing over which bucket they belong in, and how many buckets we should consider there to be.

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#58

Post by barking »

DonHopkins wrote: post #56
barking wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well I wouldn't have 'parroted' it, had known that it as 'tired old discredited creationist propaganda'. Does that answer your question?

Oh, so it is ok to question motives! I'm so relieved. Google and wikipedia will quickly and easily disabuse you of the idea that it's "a big flaw in the theory of evolution". What were your motives for thinking and parroting that there is a "big flaw" in evolution without bothering to look it up, when it's so easy to discover how tired and discredited the "absence of intermediate forms" argument is? Here's the first…

What do you think that my motives were?

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#59

Post by DonHopkins »

barking wrote: post #58
DonHopkins wrote: post #56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh, so it is ok to question motives! I'm so relieved. Google and wikipedia will quickly and easily disabuse you of the idea that it's "a big flaw in the theory of evolution". What were your motives for thinking and parroting that there is a "big flaw" in evolution without bothering to look it up, when it's so easy to discover how tired and discredited the "absence of intermediate forms" argument is? Here's the first…

What do you think that my motives were?

You're more qualified to answer that question than I am, so why are you asking me, instead of telling me your own answer?

What I asked you was why you were questioning somebody else motives, right after complaining that somebody was questioning your own motives? Is it OK to question people's motives, or not? Are you "entitled to ask questions without having our motives questioned" but nobody else is?

Re: The mutation that famously turned moths black during Industrial Revolution

#60

Post by Tloewald »

barking wrote: post #3

The black moths could still mate with the peppered variety so they're still the same species just different 'breeds', perhaps, so is this really evolution? I am a layman but one criticism of the theory of evolution that seems sensible to me is the absence of intermediate forms. For example types of ape that could mate with say gorillas and chimpanzees. All the species seem very well defined when you'd expect a contin…

Species is not a well-defined term in the sense a mathematician understands well-defined. E.g. the usual "ability to breed and create fertile offspring" excludes all organisms that do not reproduce sexually, and does not account for fertile hybrids and "ring species".
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