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KoS 
Forum Senior Member 
Joined: May 17 2005 Location: Los Angeles Status: Offline Points: 16310 |
 Posted: September 21 2009 at 18:43 |
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Has anyone read the new Dawkin's book The Greatest Show On Earth?
It's supposed to be a book on evolution for laymen. |
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Dean
Special Collaborator 
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 17:21 |
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I know what you mean Jay, but when I refer to myself as a layperson it is because my knowledge of this particular subject is superficial, my interest-level allows me to skim a selection of texts on the subject and garner some level of understanding from them, but that is still closer to the general populace level than to someone working or studying in that field. Whatever thoughts, opinions, insights and understandings I have are "harmless" and would be dismissed as psuedoscience - all I can be is a passive spectator. However, I will acept that many people equate "natural selection" with "survival of the fittest" - so 100 year "mythology" is probably about right
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer 
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 14:36 |
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Dean, you are an educated, intelligent person. When you talk about yourself as a layperson, it doesn't correspond to the populace at large very well. If I use the word mythology to refer to the stories we tell to make cosmology easier to grasp for the entire populace, the current mythology is at best a story written 100 years ago. Our mythology doesn't reflect science, and I think that IS important.
I was once told an agnostic is someone who "Doesn't know, doesn't care." I've come to learn that most of those people believe it's impossible to know so it's pointless to try. Some times I feel like that. But a better description of me is "Doesn't know, desperately does care."
Where that leads me is chasing alot of windmills I suppose.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 13:33 |
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The state of lay understanding of any scientific principle is running 100-150 years behind the scientific community, so any current thinking has yet to filter down to the masses, which is not such a bad thing given the number of cul de sacs science is prone to wander down from time to time, the filtering is a necessary step to remove the noise. Whether the layman understands the various possible processes of speciation isn't that relevant - it is whether biologists, geneticist and palaeontologists and all those other -ists understands them that is important - science progresses through peer review, not by popular vote. And as this field of science delves deeper into this subject the more convoluted and complex it will become, until at some point in the future someone will be paraphrasing Richard Feynman "I think I can safely say that nobody understands quantum mechanics" and "If I could explain it to the average person, I wouldn't have been worth the Nobel Prize".
What is important to me (as a layman) is not the understanding of all of the processes at graduate level, but the understanding of the general principles enough to sperate probability from improbability, to be able to look at a synopsis of a particular hypothesis and say, 'yeah, that could work' - of course what I can never do is look at it and say 'no, that doesn't work' - all I can say for that is 'that's beyond my understanding'.
I suspect that there is no single theory or process involved here, but an amalgamation of some of them, some of which will be more relevant than others at explaining specific cases, and none of them that can be used to explain all cases. The concept of Evolution proposed by Darwin was based upon the current thinking of 1850 where only one process (natural selection) was needed to explain all that he understood of the diversity of species at the time. Now "evolution" is just a catch-all phrase that covers everything that is not "creation".
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 12:39 |
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Stonebeard really hits alot of points well, and seems to be at a place where I wish more people were...rely on science for what it can provide us, but be aware of its limitations. Working in medicine, large proportions of what we do are cultural, based on an early-mid 20th century philosophy based on an excessive worship of science. The need to gather data and intervene on measurable variables too often overshadows just guiding a human being through their sickness. Many of the choices we make every day cannot be scientific decisions, though we use scientific data to help us. Those distinctions, to me, are important.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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LinusW
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 27 2007 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 10665 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 11:46 |
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But since you're fishing after the difference/similarity between "faith in science you have not fully grasped, yet accepts as fact" and "religious faith"....
...yes, it's problematic. Science isn't static. Science deals with the facts at hand. Science deals with what is most probable at this point in time, with the knowledge we have at our disposal. Scientific truths are always debated, sometimes overthrown. But I'd still say that it's an important qualitative difference, just as you mentioned above. Still worthy some thought. Edited by LinusW - September 21 2009 at 11:47 |
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LinusW
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 27 2007 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 10665 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 11:37 |
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But that's a teaching problem then
 .Or rather:  Edited by LinusW - September 21 2009 at 11:37 |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 11:29 |
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Exactly and then further scrambled by sexual selection. (Which gamete happens to find which gamete)
And yet, again, the lay view of "evolution" has mutation as the primary method of introducing variability into the equation.
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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LinusW
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 27 2007 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 10665 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 11:08 |
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I do see you points. But before moving on I need to clarify that mutation accounts for a small part of the genetic variation in a population. The key factor for that variation is recombination during meiosis  . |
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stonebeard
Forum Senior Member
Joined: May 27 2005 Location: NE Indiana Status: Offline Points: 28057 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 11:02 |
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Yay! (I can respond to that!)
In almost everything relating to religion, spirituality, philosophy and really science too, I can never be strictly sure about my beliefs. I'm willing to take a stance on things, but if you press me, I'll say I'm just not 100% sure. Anything else is just belligerence and disregards that there is very little which we know for certain. Take the soul or spirit for example. I consider myself a materialist (until someone gives me a really persuasive argument against it), and the idea of a soul that transcends human death and body seems unlikely to me for sure. I won't however, completely rule out that such a thing might exist. We may just not know the mechanics of it. The lack of evidence for such a thing entails that we should not believe in it when better supported, materialistic mechanisms for the same emotional/consciencous effects of a supposed soul are available (I presume they are).
This ties into my views regarding Dawkins, Harris, Hitchens, and seemingly to a lesser extent, Dennett. I lieu of knowing for certain all these many aspect of life are really the way they seem, I prefer to take a more soft-spoken view of atheism or criticism of religion. I'm usually on the side of the atheists, but I only take the positions with the qualifier that it is on the best evidence available now, and that other views might be right. It's just those views (existence of a body-transcending soul) don't seem to have enough evidence. Dennett, as a philosopher professionally, seems to me to express doubt slightly more than the others. The New Atheists are doing a good job with espousing the critical worldview, but I do think that they do not offer up enough the truism that nobody in the debate stands on 100% solid ground, presumably because casting uncertainity on yourself doesn't help you in debates. Or they could just know a sh*tload more than me (probably true nonetheless).
Edited by stonebeard - September 21 2009 at 11:05 |
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 10:59 |
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I'm making a point that using the word "evolution" for something that just means "changes in genetic frequencies over time" is an extremely poor choice of a single word for a complex process.
Similarly, though natural selection acts and is a significant contributor to allele frequencies, it is probably not the primary large scale determinant of gene frequencies. And mutation is almost certainly not where genetic variation leading to change comes from.
Even you, Linus, who have an understanding of these things, adhere to these concepts because it is part of your cosmology. The parallel between our faith in science and faith in religious systems is something we all need to think about.
From here and other discussions, I do acknowledge the fact that science and traditional religions have major qualitative differences. But the way we deal with our personal philosophy based on cosmologies, whether scientific or religious, bear similarity.
Edited by Negoba - September 21 2009 at 11:00 |
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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LinusW
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 27 2007 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 10665 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 10:19 |
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I think another important point is that natural selection most definitely and strongly is at work on a species level, which not necessarily lead to speciation, but genetic polymorphisms and ecotypes. Just to expand the term evolution.
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LinusW
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 27 2007 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 10665 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 10:12 |
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What's for sure is that geological and biological history plays a big role. Chance events are an inherent part of the evolution theory of today, including allopatric speciation. Evolution is essentially nothing but changes in gene frequencies over time. That's it. The bare essentials. Whatever people read into it is another thing. So everything that changes gene frequencies in a population is evolution.
But what acts upon those changes, and all gene frequencies is still natural selection, which isn't random. If some phenotype accounts for higher fitness, its genotype will increase in the population. Discussing the relative importance of natural selection vs. genetic drift is difficult. It depends on so many factors, and boils down to a case-by-case study. How big is the population? What's the migration rate? It goes down even to behavioural level, since contact between different populations can have many different results. I accept that in some cases genetic drift is more powerful than natural selection, but does it really change anything? To me it doesn't. Evolution of today is a synthesis, not simply "evolution by natural selection". However, natural selection is still a rare, non-random ingredient in evolution and as such extremely interesting. Regarding punctuated equilibrium, even though you didn't like the points of criticism, that's where I stand. |
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BaldJean
Prog Reviewer
Joined: May 28 2005 Location: Germany Status: Offline Points: 10387 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 10:05 |
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stonebeard mentioned that he as an atheist does not see how spirituality enters. that is a very interesting remark indeed; it seems to mean that what atheists really deny is the existence of spirit, not the existence of God. atheists indeed are usually materialists; the believe there is nothing but "solid matter". they could not be more wrong.
first of all, the so-called "solid matter" is not so solid at all. an atom is mostly empty space, through which lots of virtual particles run this way and that. an atom is a process, and indeed all of matter is nothing but that: a process. a process, however, is not material at all. everything in the world is a process. so is our consciousness, of course, or our spirit, to let that word enter the discussion. this spirit is, due to its nature as a process, not material at all. will the spirit somehow survive after we are dead? I don't believe so, since many of the sub-processes which are responsible for its creation end with death. but that does by no means mean the spirit does not exist. it is indeed a stranger notion to say so; how could you utter that statement if it did not exist? |
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 A shot of me as High Priestess of Gaia during our fall festival. Ceterum censeo principiis obsta |
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Padraic
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 09:43 |
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Damn, I knew I should have paid more attention in my Partial DE class.
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Negoba
Prog Reviewer
Joined: July 24 2008 Location: Big Muddy Status: Offline Points: 5208 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 09:38 |
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That quote from Wikipedia is a mishmash of points that took me 10 minutes to parse and I've studied this stuff. The first paragraph and diagram in the actual article make a little more sense. There is a good point about scale, though poorly made. Just like pixilation, if you back up enough it looks continuous, or if you get enough points. I personally dislike Dawkins quite a bit, his belligerent atheism is just the over confidence in his own knowledge I'm talking about. Finally, allopatric speciation is an example of my point...boundary conditions being the determining factor rather than intragroup competition. Edited by Negoba - September 21 2009 at 09:40 |
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You are quite a fine person, and I am very fond of you. But you are only quite a little fellow, in a wide world, after all.
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Padraic
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: February 16 2006 Location: Pennsylvania Status: Offline Points: 31169 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 09:33 |
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http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia_Copyright Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify Wikipedia's text under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License and, unless otherwise noted, the GNU Free Documentation License. unversioned, with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts. |
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LinusW
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: September 27 2007 Location: Sweden Status: Offline Points: 10665 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 09:23 |
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I'll better myself
 . It's just an easy way to add to the discussion without having to write it all yourself.
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Dean
Special Collaborator
Retired Admin and Amateur Layabout Joined: May 13 2007 Location: Europe Status: Offline Points: 37575 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 09:21 |
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we shouldn't really allow large chunks of wiki text here - there are copyright issues - relevant snippets and links are best
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Epignosis
Special Collaborator
Honorary Collaborator Joined: December 30 2007 Location: Raeford, NC Status: Offline Points: 32524 |
Posted: September 21 2009 at 09:16 |
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Say Linus, does the W in your username stand for Wikipedia?
 
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The Evolution and Spirituality Thread
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Negoba wrote: