Evolution in the Fast Lane

[Sukerkin]

Some comments I heard recently about how 'Evolution' is not a 'fact' not only brought home to me how many people do not parse the distinction between a theory and a fact {there very often is not much of a difference} but also reminded me of some very interesting research that I found out about not too long ago.

The thread title is how I term this phenomenon in my own head as it, to me, expresses how the accumulation of small mutations can lead to the development of a 'highway' for much bigger and more rapid changes.

Here's an article on the matter:

http://nanopatentsandinnovations.blogspot.com/2011/06/leaky-genes-put-evolution-on-fast-track.html

I also heard just yesterday about an algorithm developed by a Iranian born genetecist that can track the 'flow' of evolutionary changes in the human genome. This article isn't about that directly but it will suffice as a place holder until I track it down again:

http://www.terradaily.com/reports/Tracking_Evolutions_Footprints_In_The_Human_Genome_999.html


EDIT: Here is the very cool young woman who developed it:

http://www.absoluteastronomy.com/topics/Pardis_Sabeti

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pardis_Sabeti

 

[Ken Morgan]

Theory is simply a way of explaining how something works, not that it isn’t true.

I guess gravity isn’t real either as we have a theory of gravity.

 

[Carol]

If the Bible is the 100 percent literal word of God as we know it in modern English, then there should be just as much vigor to enforce the sins of mixed cloth in Leviticus and the honor type killings in Deuteronomy as there is Genesis 1:1

Or to put it more kindly (and to show how other churches approach the matter), if we can accept that honor killings and mixed cloth prohibitions are perhaps not the way to live, then we can also accept that the way Genesis is written may have borne well to the disciples of the day, but progress has shown additional information.

 

[CanuckMA]

If the Bible is the 100 percent literal word of God as we know it in modern English, then there should be just as much vigor to enforce the sins of mixed cloth in Leviticus and the honor type killings in Deuteronomy as there is Genesis 1:1

Or to put it more kindly (and to show how other churches approach the matter), if we can accept that honor killings and mixed cloth prohibitions are perhaps not the way to live, then we can also accept that the way Genesis is written may have borne well to the disciples of the day, but progress has shown additional information.

Well... I refrain from wearing mixed cloths.

 

[aedrasteia]

Theory is simply a way of explaining how something works, not that it isn’t true. I guess gravity isn’t real either as we have a theory of gravity.

spooky co-inkydink, Ken. Our lunch conversation today was centered around the mechanism(s) through which scientists differentiate among hypothesis, theory and law. Gravity is presented as a 'law' - I've never seen it described as a 'theory of gravity' - and all of the most known contributions of Newton are presented as aspects of 'laws of motion, thermodynamics', but we also have 'scientific theories'. And mathematics: chock full of 'constants', theorums, ratios. Physics/chemistry : Einsteins Theory of Relativity, Quantum theory... Laws of motion, chemical bonds, attraction...

Hey, Twin Fist - makes me wonder a bit ? (no disrespect or sarcasm intended here)
is there anything of a scientific nature that you personally consider/accept as a 'fact' ?
how did you get to that acceptance?

DNA structure, organization, activity, effect on cell differentiation? the existence of atoms or molecules? energy as wave and/or particle?

i googled, looked at the discussions w/in Wikipedia and elsewhere and finally ended up considering that it is the entire approach we call 'scientific method/science approach' that is suspect, misunderstood and often actively dis-liked and dis-trusted.

very poor basic education in scientific method for most of us.. Yet people who disavow evolution trust vaccines, blood typing, DNA evidence, paternity testing. so much of our lives rests on 'science' we don't understand and many of us (i'm guessing) distrust. How does that work??

i'm going to keep mulling this over. I welcome and ask for help from better educated people here, on the question of scientific method, science theory, law, hypotheses etc,
many thanks.

 

[Carol]

Well... I refrain from wearing mixed cloths.

Most Christians don't...the very folks that are lobbying for teaching the book of Genesis in biology.

Sorry for the bad example, I didn't mean it to be disrespectful.

As an engineer and a Catholic its so frustrating to me that 100 years after the monkey trials it is still a challenge to teach our kids science in science class.

 

[CanuckMA]

Most Christians don't...the very folks that are lobbying for teaching the book of Genesis in biology.

Sorry for the bad example, I didn't mean it to be disrespectful.

As an engineer and a Catholic its so frustrating to me that 100 years after the monkey trials it is still a challenge to teach our kids science in science class.

I know.

No disrespect felt at all.

I just wanted to highlight that not everybody interprets the teext the same.

 

[aedrasteia]

Love this table Laws/theory named after people:
go here:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_scientific_laws_named_after_people

please report your favorite - ok, maybe only the science geeks wanna do this

my favorite? Zipf's Law (Linguistics) for George Kingsley Zip.
and the ever popular Sapir-Worf hypothesis (OK, also linguistic anthropology - what can i say - we're all geeky for _something_).

no martial arts 'laws' - 'theories' ???

 

[aedrasteia]

oops, Sapir-Whorf, not Sapir-Worf (unless Klingon spelling...)
sorry.

 

[Sukerkin]

I've always had a soft spot for Heisenberg's Uncertainty Principle and Planck's Constant .

 

[Sukerkin]

I just want to point out too that I didn't open this thread to 'have a go' at religious people, it was just that an earlier conversation brought to the surface of my mind all those long debates I've had with my father about Evolution versus Creation. In those endless 'rounds' he has consistently shown that lack of a grasp of what the scientific method actually embodies, as aedrasteia pointed out above. That 'theory', 'belief' and 'fact' are terms that have very definite meanings in rational thought, where a postulate stands and falls by the evidence for it (and most particularly against it).

Evolution has very strong evidence for it's validity as a theory, with natural selection as it's main 'engine' and the algorithm I mentioned above is a lovely, easy to demonstrate, illustration of how you can actually track changes in our own racial genotype.

 

[Twin Fist]

Hey, Twin Fist - makes me wonder a bit ? (no disrespect or sarcasm intended here)
is there anything of a scientific nature that you personally consider/accept as a 'fact' ?
how did you get to that acceptance?

lots

simple measuring stick too

is it:
observable
measurable
recreatable

till it is all 3, it is just an educated guess.

Like the movement of electrons in the flow of electrical power. We can recreate it, we can measure it, but we cant really observe it. so we dont really KNOW how it works, we just know that it does.

I am no luddite, i just know the difference between theory and fact

 

[Sukerkin]

:chuckles: Considers explaining the concept of MVArs ... that usually makes people gibber :lol:.

 

[Ken Morgan]

Well... I refrain from wearing mixed cloths.

Can someone explain to me why mixed cloths are bad?

 

[Sukerkin]

I think that it is symbollic of 'mixing seed' - possibly a tribal 'purity' taboo. But my religious education was long ago .

 

[Ramirez]

I am no luddite, i just know the difference between theory and fact

so the sun doesn't work by nuclear fusion? We can't observe that directly, we've never landed any probes on it. The first law of thermodynamics can't be observed either so please produce your perpetual motion machine.

How about gravity? It's not a fact? Ever observe it? In fact , (Jeff Cuffee can correct me here if I'm wrong) , we don't know how gravity works, there are two competing theories, but there is a mechanism by which evolution works.

 

[Sukerkin]

Aye, how Gravity operates is at present not certain. Newtonian physics works pretty darned well in the macro-scale three-dimensional (well, four-dimensional really) localised region but it does not satisfactorily explain just what is going on. So that theory fulfils the predictive requirements of evidence but does not satisfactorily explain the phenomenon. Quantum Gravity on the other hand ...

...

... I'd be much happier explaining MVArs :lol:.

 

[Ramirez]

maticulous research

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18211884

[URL="http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21599770"]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21599770

[URL]http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19918081[/URL][/URL]

 

[Sukerkin]

Good articles but come on Ram, give the man a break on the spelling error - I reckon he posted from a 'phone, never the easiest of things to do for those of us of a 'certain generation' .

 

[Bill Mattocks]

A law is what we see happen. A theory is what we devise to try to explain it. Just because the law is obvious, that does not mean that theory explaining it is correct.

Gravity? Oh, we understand that well enough. Right? But the theory behind it? Not so much. In fact, of the four fundamental forces, gravity is one of them. However, there are some theories that propose that there are more than four fundamental forces. Nothing is settled, it's all up for grabs. That doesn't mean gravity doesn't exist, or that it will stop existing, but one cannot say that the theory concerning gravity is a fact. It isn't. However, it works well enough to support our current uses, and it will do until we come up with a better one. You can prove that gravity exists. You cannot prove why it exists; not at the present time.

With regard to evolution, it's not difficult to understand. Organisms that reproduce introduce errors in copying over time, and introduce new combinations through crossbreeding. These changes are mutations. Mutations might, through chance, convey an advantage in survival or reproduction or both. Weeds in the Midwest which are becoming resistant to the weed-killer 'Roundup' are evidence of evolution. Weeds, like other living things, change over time. Apparently one or more of those changes conveyed a resistance to Roundup. Those weeds tended to survive and reproduce. Evolution just isn't any big deal. When living things copy each other long enough, eventually they may make a mistake in coding.