Re: Texas : Master's degree in creationism

[Charlie Bell]

On 28/12/2007, at 1:23 PM, Nick Arnett wrote:
>
> Except... that a species often isn't clearly delineated.

Arse, I meant to mention this in my other reply.

http://scienceblogs.com/evolvingthoughts/2007/01/species.php

John Wilkins has a nice piece on species concepts here.

Charlie.
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Re: Texas : Master's degree in creationism

[Charlie Bell]

Hola!

I've reordered Nick's reply slightly, 'cause I want to deal with this  
bit first -

On 28/12/2007, at 1:23 PM, Nick Arnett wrote:
>

>
> I hope nobody here has imagined that I disagree for a moment with the
> historical reality of evolution.

Nope! I was just laying it out again, 'cause Henry bloody Morris  
bloody III gives me the shits and I have to have a rant to get it out  
of my system. :-)

>  My only doubts, which aren't really even
> doubts, but a belief that there are significant discoveries yet to  
> be made,
> are about the mechanisms at work.

Yep. I've been meaning to write a slightly more detailed post about  
possibilities in that area, and I'll try to get to that again sometime  
soon. I think the main point is that we know a lot about the most  
common mechanisms of evolution, but there are plenty of less common  
ones that play their parts. And while evolution itself is pretty well  
understood, the dynamics of communities that act as boundary  
conditions to selection pressures, or even as catalysts to selection  
pressures, are less well understood. As I've alluded to before.

Right, that dealt with, back to the meat.

> :
>
>>
>>
>> 4) Over enough generations, different selection pressures applied to
>> different parts of a population (or even just drift, if the  
>> geographic
>> range is significantly larger than the geographic range of family
>> groups), causes enough accumulated change to prevent those  
>> populations
>> from breeding if they cross paths, at which time they are said to  
>> have
>> speciated.
>
>
> Except... that a species often isn't clearly delineated.  IIRC,  
> there are
> many species, oops, kinds of seagulls that can interbreed with those  
> who
> live nearby, but they can't interbreed with the ones that are  
> further away.

That's actually not an exception to what I wrote.

What you're describing is a "ring species" (you're thinking of Black- 
backed and Herring Gulls around the Arctic Circle probably), and  
that's an example demonstrating exactly what I said - at the extremes  
of range, if you introduce members of those populations to each other,  
they cannot (or will not) interbreed. That you can trace a chain of  
interbreeding populations across the extent of the range, from one to  
the other is simultaneously proof of concept (you're demonstrating  
that these two populations are related), and irrelevant (that there  
are intermediates traceable between the two ranges does not make these  
two populations any less distinct).

Species concepts are fuzzy, because life is fuzzy. Different species  
concepts are applied to eukaryotes and prokaryotes, and to sexual vs  
asexual organisms. Plants can be different again.

None of that takes anything away from my paragraph above, which is the  
basis of speciation (which is really just a barrier to reproduction).

>
>
> And there are animals that are pretty much unable to breed for  
> physical
> reasons -- dogs whose physiologies are so different that it just  
> doesn't
> work.

Yes, and if some disaster were to befall every dog breed except Great  
Danes and Chihuahuas, that would be a speciation event. :-) Your point  
is valid, and shows how tricky defining species can be - there are  
whole groups of beetles of which the member species can only be told  
apart by the shapes of the male and female genitalia, which fit  
together like lock and key. So why are separate dog breeds not  
regarded as species? The main reason is because it would not be useful  
to do so - we know most breeds happily make mongrels, and we know that  
on the whole, crossbreeds are healthier than pure breeds (hybrid  
vigour vs inbreeding). So we know that all these dog varieties are  
maintained by the artificial breeding and eugenics programs of the  
Kennel Club, and if that were taken away, dog variability would  
naturally decrease in some ways.


>
>
> I don't mean this just to be picky.  I'm not sure what significance  
> to give
> the second point, but the first one is pretty hard to deal with from a
> creationist standpoint.  I don't recall anything that says God  
> created a
> continuum of similar creatures.

No, it's pretty non-specific. It does say that rabbits chew the cud in  
both Leviticus and Deuteronomy, mind. So possibly not the best source  
for accurate biology.

>  But creationists consistently
> under-estimate God's abilities.


As well as refusing to define what a "kind" actually is. And, indeed,  
knowing anything about actual science. Or telling the truth. "Lying  
for Jesus" should be their motto.

>
>
>>
>> incorporated into the neo-Darwinian synthesis of Mayr,
>>
>
> Ernst Mayr!  I've been trying to remember his name.  When I was in  
> high
> school, learning genetics (on my own -- it fascinated me), Mayr  
> spoke at the
> college where my dad taught.  I got to meet him.  I remember that he  
> had the
> audience try to roll their tongues and explaining that it was an  
> inherited

Re: Brin:World Building Wiki

[Max Battcher]

Did you look at Orion's Arm?  It has a couple of the things you mention:

http://www.orionsarm.com/

Trent Shipley wrote:
> I am going to launch a world building wiki.  The working name for the project 
> is "Red".
> 
> Since world building shares a lot with encyclopedias I'm planning to use 
> MediaWiki.
> 
> I haven't decided on GFDL or Creative Commons license yet.
> 
> The wiki will not be an Uplift site.
> 
> These are the features that I'm thinking of as part of a fairly 
> Luddite "cannon".
> 
> --Only STL travel is possible.  No FTL, no worm holes.
> --No reactionless drives.
> --No antigravity.
> The main means of travel is by beam riding ships weighing a few grams and 
> made of computronium.
> --Most forms of sophonce do not rely on quantum states
> Therefore, mental states can be non-destructively copied.
> --The galaxy is entirely colonized.
> Therefore we are millions of years in the future.
> -Therefore humans are extinct.
> -Therefore economic ecology is very post-singularity.
> --Fermi was right.  All "life" is Terragenetic.
> --Sapient beings who are any distance up the eco-econ trophic levels live a 
> LONG time.  
> Interstellar correspondence is reasonable, even at light speed or slower.
> --There are many unimaginably smart sapients
> --The island nature of each star means that an eco-econ tends to involution.
> Stellar habitats tend to convert matter into huge Dyson swarms.
> --Dyson swarms use as much solar energy as possible.  
> --Solar systems look like big, cold spheres from the outside.
> --Eco-econs suffer from relative scarcity.
>   
> Feedback is sought.  I'm wondering if this cannon is going to be too 
> unpopular.  Maybe no one will play with me.
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Brin:World Building Wiki

[Trent Shipley]

I am going to launch a world building wiki.  The working name for the project 
is "Red".

Since world building shares a lot with encyclopedias I'm planning to use 
MediaWiki.

I haven't decided on GFDL or Creative Commons license yet.

The wiki will not be an Uplift site.

These are the features that I'm thinking of as part of a fairly 
Luddite "cannon".

--Only STL travel is possible.  No FTL, no worm holes.
--No reactionless drives.
--No antigravity.
The main means of travel is by beam riding ships weighing a few grams and 
made of computronium.
--Most forms of sophonce do not rely on quantum states
Therefore, mental states can be non-destructively copied.
--The galaxy is entirely colonized.
Therefore we are millions of years in the future.
-Therefore humans are extinct.
-Therefore economic ecology is very post-singularity.
--Fermi was right.  All "life" is Terragenetic.
--Sapient beings who are any distance up the eco-econ trophic levels live a 
LONG time.  
Interstellar correspondence is reasonable, even at light speed or slower.
--There are many unimaginably smart sapients
--The island nature of each star means that an eco-econ tends to involution.
Stellar habitats tend to convert matter into huge Dyson swarms.
--Dyson swarms use as much solar energy as possible.  
--Solar systems look like big, cold spheres from the outside.
--Eco-econs suffer from relative scarcity.
  
Feedback is sought.  I'm wondering if this cannon is going to be too 
unpopular.  Maybe no one will play with me.
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Re: Texas : Master's degree in creationism

[Nick Arnett]

On Dec 27, 2007 5:37 PM, Charlie Bell <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

>
>
> 4) Over enough generations, different selection pressures applied to
> different parts of a population (or even just drift, if the geographic
> range is significantly larger than the geographic range of family
> groups), causes enough accumulated change to prevent those populations
> from breeding if they cross paths, at which time they are said to have
> speciated.


Except... that a species often isn't clearly delineated.  IIRC, there are
many species, oops, kinds of seagulls that can interbreed with those who
live nearby, but they can't interbreed with the ones that are further away.

And there are animals that are pretty much unable to breed for physical
reasons -- dogs whose physiologies are so different that it just doesn't
work.

I don't mean this just to be picky.  I'm not sure what significance to give
the second point, but the first one is pretty hard to deal with from a
creationist standpoint.  I don't recall anything that says God created a
continuum of similar creatures.  But creationists consistently
under-estimate God's abilities.

I hope nobody here has imagined that I disagree for a moment with the
historical reality of evolution.  My only doubts, which aren't really even
doubts, but a belief that there are significant discoveries yet to be made,
are about the mechanisms at work.

>
> incorporated into the neo-Darwinian synthesis of Mayr,
>

Ernst Mayr!  I've been trying to remember his name.  When I was in high
school, learning genetics (on my own -- it fascinated me), Mayr spoke at the
college where my dad taught.  I got to meet him.  I remember that he had the
audience try to roll their tongues and explaining that it was an inherited
ability.

Here's a quote I just found from him, via Wikipedia:

"*The idea that a few people have about the gene being the target of
selection is completely impractical; a gene is never visible to natural
selection, and in the genotype, it is always in the context with other
genes, and the interaction with those other genes make a particular gene
either more favorable or less favorable. In fact,
Dobzhanksy,
for instance, worked quite a bit on so-called lethal chromosomes which are
highly successful in one combination, and lethal in another. Therefore
people like Dawkins in England who still think the gene is the target of
selection are evidently wrong. In the 30's and 40's, it was widely accepted
that genes were the target of selection, because that was the only way they
could be made accessible to mathematics, but now we know that it is really
the whole genotype of the individual, not the gene. Except for that slight
revision, the basic Darwinian theory hasn't changed in the last 50 years*."

Ahhh... Now I'm thinking Mayr influenced me quite a bit so many years ago.
Those words do a great job of saying where I think Dawkins and his ilk go
wrong.

Nick

-- 
Nick Arnett
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
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Re: Texas : Master's degree in creationism

[Charlie Bell]

On 28/12/2007, at 2:52 AM, Nick Arnett wrote:
>>
>> "Where the difference is, we provide both sides of the story," Mr.
>> Morris said.
>
>
> That's the thinking that really stinks, in my opinion.  Polarizing  
> issues is
> a great way to get attention, gain power and make money.  It's no  
> way to get
> to pursue science or truth.

It's also the new tactic post-Dover. "Teach the controversy". As if  
there is one.

Yes, there are some pretty esoteric discussions at the leading edge  
about how various forms of selection interact and the relative  
strengths of these in various real-life studies, and certainly there  
are ever-changing understandings of how DNA and development tread the  
path from genotype to phenotype, but the basic questions are so  
settled as to be accorded the status of scientific fact.

Those are:

1) There is variability in every breeding population (even populations  
of clones).
2) There are differential survival rates and breeding rates.
3) Over generations, gene frequencies change as a result of those  
differential survival rates.
4) Over enough generations, different selection pressures applied to  
different parts of a population (or even just drift, if the geographic  
range is significantly larger than the geographic range of family  
groups), causes enough accumulated change to prevent those populations  
from breeding if they cross paths, at which time they are said to have  
speciated.

This is simply not in question any more, as this can be proven in the  
lab with flies, nematodes, even mice. The big difference between this  
modern synthesis of biological evolution and Darwin's theories is that  
Darwin had to speculate on a mechanism of heredity. In fact, that the  
mechanism of heredity was not known was both the biggest weakness, and  
the biggest test (a falsification test, if you will).  First the  
mechanics of heredity based on Mendel's experiments, which were  
incorporated into the neo-Darwinian synthesis of Mayr, Huxley,  
Haldane, Fisher et al, and then of a mechanism of heredity in the  
1920s - 1950s (culminating in the confirmation of the Watson-Crick  
model for the structure of DNA, but the chain of discovery goes back  
to the late '20s) which laid the groundwork for modern genetics and  
evo-devo.

The other side of this is how this applies to the history of life on  
earth, and here again the simple original objections to Darwin's  
theory have been answered over and over, mostly the age of the Earth -  
Darwin himself admitted it would take a very long time for his ideas  
to produce the sorts of variety that we see around us. Most of the  
scientific calculations of the age of Earth in the late 1800s came out  
between 20 and a couple of hundred million years, which was a major  
objection to the theory - not really long enough. It wasn't until the  
invention of radiometric dating that this age was pushed out far  
enough, and our currently accepted figure of 4.5 x 10^9 years was  
published in 1956.

The great era of fossil discovery in the late 1800s, and more recent  
discoveries like the Ediacaran fauna and the Burgess Shales have given  
us snapshots in time that allow us glimpses at long-dead creatures,  
and piece together relationships between major groups. Molecular  
genetics has confirmed most of those (and thrown up a few surprises  
too).

The main point is, on one side we have an established science, which  
has an incredible amount of experimental and observational support. If  
there was any major controversy over whether evolution happens, it was  
in the 1800s, and evolutionary theory has emerged from intense  
scientific scrutiny for 150 years as the best explanation for the  
variety of life on earth and the mechanisms for how those changes occur.

That doesn't mean that it's fixed. But there is nothing else that  
comes close. There is no other side to the story. Morris, and the  
likes of Behe and Demski etc, the Discovery Institute, they all want  
the public to believe that they have an alternative. They simply  
don't. "Irreducible complexity" was the closest they've come to a  
theory, and that has proved, under scrutiny, to be no problem for  
evolutionary theory.

Morris says that on one side there's all this evidence, but on the  
other side the earth could be 6000 years old and we should tell people  
that. Well, that question is settled - it was settled when Huxley and  
Wilberforce debated, it was settled at every discovery of the 20th  
century, it was settled in Dover.

Nick, you're absolutely right. It's about power. It's about  
controlling what people know and think. It's about ignoring the truth  
and writing their own reality. And that way lies fascism. Hopefully  
the corrective power of the people through elections will steer the  
States away from that path, but the combination of business interests,  
lobbyism, and the religious right has the capacity to make America a  
very scary place, and the Demo

Re: Texas : Master's degree in creationism

[Nick Arnett]

On Dec 27, 2007 7:08 AM, William T Goodall <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
Misleading headline and misleading subject to this thread... the "Institute"
remains unaccredited.  At an unaccredited school, anybody can teach
anything.  There's no "green light" here for issuing a *real* Masters
degree.  One advisory panel has recommended that a coordinating board allow
the "Institute" to pursue accreditation.  If there's a green light ahead,
there's a huge mountain that has to be crossed before reaching it.


>
> "Where the difference is, we provide both sides of the story," Mr.
> Morris said.


That's the thinking that really stinks, in my opinion.  Polarizing issues is
a great way to get attention, gain power and make money.  It's no way to get
to pursue science or truth.

Nick

-- 
Nick Arnett
[EMAIL PROTECTED]
Messages: 408-904-7198
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Texas : Master's degree in creationism

[William T Goodall]

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/12/19/education/19texas.html?_r=1&ref=us&oref=slogin

"HOUSTON — A Texas higher education panel has recommended allowing a  
Bible-based group called the Institute for Creation Research to offer  
online master's degrees in science education.
The action comes weeks after the Texas Education Agency's director of  
science, Christine Castillo Comer, lost her job after superiors  
accused her of displaying bias against creationism and failing to be  
“neutral” over the teaching of evolution.

The state's commissioner of higher education, Raymund A. Paredes, said  
late Monday that he was aware of the institute's opposition to  
evolution but was withholding judgment until the Texas Higher  
Education Coordinating Board meets Jan. 24 to rule on the  
recommendation, made last Friday, by the board's certification  
advisory council.

Henry Morris III, the chief executive of the Institute for Creation  
Research, said Tuesday that the proposed curriculum, taught in  
California, used faculty and textbooks “from all the top schools”  
along with, he said, the “value added” of challenges to standard  
teachings of evolution.

“Where the difference is, we provide both sides of the story,” Mr.  
Morris said. On its Web site, the institute declares, “All things in  
the universe were created and made by God in the six literal days of  
the creation week” and says it “equips believers with evidences of the  
Bible's accuracy and authority through scientific research,  
educational programs, and media presentations, all conducted within a  
thoroughly biblical framework.”

It also says “the harmful consequences of evolutionary thinking on  
families and society (abortion, promiscuity, drug abuse, homosexuality  
and many others) are evident all around us.”"

-- 
William T Goodall
Mail : [EMAIL PROTECTED]
Web  : http://www.wtgab.demon.co.uk
Blog : http://radio.weblogs.com/0111221/

"Those who can make you believe absurdities can make you commit  
atrocities." ~Voltaire.

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