James Frank Solís

05 March 2007

10:10 AM

In response to this posting,

Lorin writes:

If evolution is not a science because you can't perform species changes in a laboratory experiment, then astronomy is not a science either: you can't drag stars into the lab to find out how to hatch a supernova.

In fact, biologists do perform experiments that provide solid evidence for speciation. Out of 15-35,000 genes in animals, only 6-14 of them determine the entire body plans of animals, and we can study their history in the lab: when they arose, how thry [sic] have changed over hundreds of millions of years. We convict thousands of people of murder on far less circumstantial evidence than we have for major species changes.

When you compare theories, look at the results. For example a recent Scientific American article (1/07, pp50-57) reports the construction of RNA switches for detecting chemicals and controlling pathogens. The authors said they started this research from a study of the history of primitive RNA molecules that have evolved in a surprising way. Try even imagining a useful result from intelligent design: "This bactreial flagellum was designed by an intelligence." OK; so what? What could anyone do with that? That is the only type of result that ID has ever even told us they might be able to come up with, maybe. Sure looks like a dead end to me.

I respond:

If evolution is not a science because you can't perform species changes in a laboratory experiment, then astronomy is not a science either: you can't drag stars into the lab to find out how to hatch a supernova.

You’re really not dealing with my argument. I didn’t say that evolution is not a science because we can’t perform species changes in a laboratory. For one thing we probably can perform such changes in a laboratory, but (a) those experiments would not be tests of the theory of evolution (or at least the mechanism of evolution) and (b) those species changes would be changes by design, not by means of natural selection. And for another thing performing species changes in a laboratory would not give evolution any scientific credibility; for that work would not be a test of natural selection, would it?

What I said was that you cannot perform an experiment on the origin of a species (specifically by means of natural selection). The origin, however it happened, has happened. You tell me how you go about repeating the origin of one species from another. By definition you cannot because you won’t be around long enough to observe all the minute changes which, when added together, are supposed to result in that new species. You may as well suggest to me that we can perform an experiment to test a given theory of the fall of the Roman Empire.

With respect to astronomy, I wonder how it escaped your notice that in comparing evolution and astronomy you attempt a comparison of a theory (i.e., evolution) with a branch of the sciences (i.e., astronomy). It’s almost as if one might argue that if superstring theory is not science then neither is meteorology, or some such thing. No matter. I’ll deal with what you’ve written. No, you can’t drag a star into a laboratory to find out how to hatch a supernova. But at least one can presently observe stars in the heavens, including supernovae. Think about one of the ways in which supernovae are discovered: astronomers look through telescopes, in the present, and compare what they see to earlier observations, especially photographs. Also, given that we now know (not by speculating about the past, but by recorded observation and analysis) that neutrinos are produced in great quantities by supernovae explosions we can use neutrino detectors to find them. This much does not tell us how to hatch a supernova, but from observing stars that have not gone supernova and comparing them with stars that have done, or by comparing our (present) observations of supernovae with photographs taken pre-supernova, and by spectral analysis, we can get an idea of what conditions precede a star’s going supernova. We have done so, and do have an idea of what conditions precede a star’s going supernova. We don’t, therefore, need to bring a star into a lab to find out how to hatch a supernova. We can just about watch a star go supernova to see how to hatch a supernova. We cannot watch one species evolve from another.

In fact, biologists do perform experiments that provide solid evidence for speciation. Out of 15-35,000 genes in animals, only 6-14 of them determine the entire body plans of animals, and we can study their history in the lab: when they arose, how thry [sic] have changed over hundreds of millions of years. We convict thousands of people of murder on far less circumstantial evidence than we have for major species changes.

I think I know which experiments you are referring to, but I can’t be certain since you didn’t cite them. But note that your argument here assumes the very issue at bar: that the ‘history’ being studied in fact took place. Note also that the question of when these biological artifacts arose assumes a geological theory, again assuming the very thing at bar. How they have changed over ‘hundreds of millions of years’ – again assuming the theory, for you cannot study how they have changed over hundreds of millions if they haven’t changed over hundreds of millions of years. Besides, considering how many people it turns out were falsely convicted on the basis of circumstantial evidence, do you really want to go there?

When you compare theories, look at the results. For example a recent Scientific American article (1/07, pp50-57) reports the construction of RNA switches for detecting chemicals and controlling pathogens. The authors said they started this research from a study of the history of primitive RNA molecules that have evolved in a surprising way.

You seem to have overlooked the fact that in talking about the construction of RNA switches you are talking about the construction of such switches by design, in the lab, by intelligences no less. And your position isn’t rescued by the fact that the authors started their research from a study of the history of primitive RNA molecules that have evolved in a surprising way. If you and I are disputing the scientific credentials of evolution you ought not to attempt to validate those scientific credentials by pointing to the results of work which was done by assuming those credentials. In other words, you oughtn’t to beg the question. You ought to demonstrate that the work of constructing those RNA switches could not also have been done by someone who simply examined the structure of RNA – today-- and hypothesized how such switches could be constructed quite apart from any question of how those structures came to be, whether by evolution or by design. In other words you need to demonstrate that evolution is a necessary pre-condition for the construction of such switches.

I haven’t yet read the Scientific American article you cited. But I have read other work on RNA switches. I don’t see that the work could have been done only if evolution is true. Ptolemaic astronomy was, as we now know, false. That did not prevent Ptolemaic astronomers making some accurate predictions about the movements of bodies in the heavens. That evolutionary theory – somehow – served as the background for the RNA work you mention tells us relatively little about its scientific credentials.

Try even imagining a useful result from intelligent design: "This bactreial flagellum was designed by an intelligence." OK; so what? What could anyone do with that? That is the only type of result that ID has ever even told us they might be able to come up with, maybe. Sure looks like a dead end to me.

As I’ve just pointed out, the construction of RNA switches you just discussed isn’t a useful result of evolutionary thought, unless of course you can demonstrate that a relation of necessity holds between evolutionary theory and these RNA switches. These RNA switches did not come about as a result of natural selection, or any other mechanism of evolution. Not only that, but when you compare theories be sure to compare comparable assertions. The evolutionary assertion which would be comparable to ID’s "This bactreial [sic] flagellum was designed by an intelligence” would be "This bactreial [sic] flagellum evolved by chance mutations over millions of years.” In response, let me just quote you: So what? What could anyone do with that? Sure looks like a dead end to me.

Of course, I’m not sure why you wanted to compare for me evolution and ID: I said I’m sceptical of the scientific credentials of any theory of origins, which includes both evolution and ID.

Labels: Duty to Reply, Philosophy of Science, Science

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