Science vs Values
MSNBC has a decent article by Robert Bazell on the debate over evolution and intelligent design. His main point is we should focus on the values used to make our decisions, a difficult area of medicine when hard choices have to be made.
As I said, it was decent. I think he could have made it a little more clear, however, by discussing the importance of evolution in medicine, as I don’t think many people grasp it. The entire discussion and worry of the bird flu is an issue of evolution.
Science is something very specific. It is a means of understanding the world around us by posing hypotheses that can be tested with experiments or observations. But science can never help us make moral or value judgments like those the new physicians will face.
Serious efforts in biology and medicine can no more ignore evolution than airplane designers can ignore gravity.
It is hard to believe that — whatever the outcome in the many evolution battles — we will stop worrying that the H5N1 bird flu virus might evolve into something easily transmissible among humans.
It is far more difficult to know what moral values should guide our decisions, and perhaps we should put more effort into helping students grasp that reality.
You can’t really say the bird flu problem has anything to do with evolution in the classic sense, because different strains of bird flu are
variations of the genetic information already present. To be an evidence for evolution you would have to demonstrate addition of new
information - to get from amoeba to man requires more information, not just variation of what is in the amoeba. This is different from
airplane designers ignoring gravity.
And here Ray you’ve provided a clear example that you simply do not know what you’re talking about.
Jay, could you explain why?
Yes Ray, I could go into detail myself, but I’m really not interested in spending the time that would take, for the return it would give me. I’m also not interested in having an argument, as our prior discussions give me the impression that you form you conclusions of the natural world not on science but rather your religious worldview.
If you’re interested though, here’s a brief overview of the evolutionary implications of bird flu, another on the evolutionary implications of fighting disease in general, and a lengthy overview of evolution itself, which I would highly recommend to anyone interested in learning the basics of the science.
Jay, thank you, but if my little points can’t be plainly answered in a few words, then it is a bad sign. And even if the appeal is made to
mutation, there is still the same problem - all mutations so far observed have represented a loss of information for the genus. E.g.
Homo Sapiens express various mutations, but even if they help in some sense (like sickle cell sufferers being immune from malaria)
they still show a loss of information. This cannot be the means by which evolution is thought to have gotten from amoeba to man.
The link you gave me for evolution of avian flu says, ‘To evolve by natural selection, all an entity needs is genetic variation,
inheritance, selection, and time’, but the changes that result from such factors are all downward or at best neutral in terms of genetic
information. A variant of a virus is still the expression of already existing information in the virus from which it is copied. And when
a virus leaches a gene from some other source, it is still an already-existing gene - no new information is produced. Information
is not a property of matter. A material thing, like a book or a strand of DNA can carry information, but it cannot produce it. It is the
product of an intelligence
It is partially true, what you are saying of molecular biology…that no new info is created, everything works off of the A-T-G-C bases. But I say partially, because it depends on your definition of ‘information’. New/different combinations (genetic/mutation/ or otherwise) code for new info, like the evolution of new structures/functions etc. And not all genetic variation is a downward/neutral effect. In insects, the evolution of adhesive/attatchment pads (Gorb and Beutel, 2001) on the feet is a trait only found in the higher evolved groups. In other words, at the basal part of the insect tree, you don’t find insects with adhesive pads. Or wings for that matter.
And besides all of that, how does the lack of DNA’s ability to produce new info automatically lend support to intelligence? The Bible documents natural phenomenon, I agree, but where do the biblical writers record God as producing new genetic info? Now that is a pretty synical question for myself to ask since I have been a christian since a little girl and am even a pastor’s kid. Several times in the creation story it talks about the ‘land producing’ vegetation, living creatures, ‘according to their kind’. The ‘land producing..’ is interesting wording, why didn’t the author just say, “God made…” or “God created”? The “Lord God formed man from the dust of the ground” and to dust he will return. From the dust is also interesting, perhaps formed out of pre-existing material, not new info. Breathing life into man could be referring to the soul alone, which is what most christians argue as being the most definitive thing that distincts man from beast. And if God created them all the same, why did He need to breath life into some (humans) and not others, why does the biblical account say ‘the land produced’?
There are just as many, if not more, biblical gaps in our understanding as there are scientific. The problem I have with people who try to argue from a biblical perspective, especially trying to argue science, is that they tend to pick out scripture that is convenient to them, string it all together, in hopes of making a strong case. IMO, you cannot do that, Ray, you can’t pull scripture out of context from different books of the Bible, written by different authors, in different contexts, and make a claim about the mechanisms of life processes. Shoot, not just life processes, you can’t do that for a lot of the crap fanatical christians try to pull, like issues in gender equality and the like. You talked about the information in the Bible being about revelation, well the revelations of the Bible, IMO, have nothing to do about life processes and mechanisms, but rather our relationship with God and the relationship we are to have with the rest of the life around us (humans and the environment alike). If that were the case, that the revelations in the Bible were about God’s making of the earth and sustaining nature of ecological balance, I think God, in His infinite wisdom, would have made sure that the biblical writers used a little more clarity and be detailed-minded when writing about the science of it all. And maybe they would have spent more time talking about how cool insects are
When I say God is my Maker, I am referring to Him being the Author of my life. He has made my life what it is, He formed me in the womb, but not in a myotic/embyronic developmental sense. He formed my soul, He breathed life into my personality. Without the relationship I have with God, I would not be who I am. Anyway, if you are going to argue science from a biblical perspective, take it one passage at a time, within context, instead of trying to group passages collectively together to make a case.
Ray, lots of things “can’t be plainly answered in a few words.” Why do you think every intro to biology textbook is 1,000 pages long? Further, many scientific theories are explainable only in terms of high level mathematics. This is particularly true in the field of Physics. Very few people can even discuss some of those theories, due the level of math involved. Just because something isn’t simple, doesn’t mean it’s not true. As Einstein famously quipped, “Everything should be made as simple as possible, but not simpler.”
Also, my desire to point you to information rather than explaining it myself is not because I can’t explain it, but rather because my days are long with thesis work, and I feel no need to pour effort into a response when good materials exist elsewhere.
Your statement that “information” cannot be created is incorrect too. Though there are other ways (again, I won’t elaborate), the most common is gene duplication via unequal crossover on homologous chromosomes during meiosis. Once duplicated, mutations are free to modify a gene while other copies still provide the original function of the gene. For example, I believe there are some 50 copies of genes that code for histone proteins in the human body due to duplication. (That’s off the top of my head, I hope I haven’t mangled that fact).
Also, mutations can be beneficial. My favorite example of all is bacteria evolving the capacity to metabolize nylon. This amazing accomplishment is all the more remarkable since nylon did not exist prior to the 1930s. The mechanism involved was a frameshift mutation, resulting in a new function. A clear cut case of an organism gaining function via mutation.
Kelly, thanks for your reply. You refer to ‘the evolution of new structures/functions etc.’ - but can you give an example of a new
structure that was not already existing in the code? I suppose function would be more debatable, because we can use a hammer for
a number of different functions. You say, ‘In insects, the evolution of adhesive/attatchment
pads (Gorb and Beutel, 2001) on the feet is a trait only found in the higher evolved groups. In other words, at the
basal part of the insect tree, you don’t find insects with adhesive pads. Or wings for that matter’ but isn’t that begging the
question? Creationists say (and Gould admitted) that the tree is not really evidentially there, just the final branches (which is what
is predicted by creation). ‘Land producing’ might seem like evolution at work until it is seen that the text says God is doing the
assembly. It’s true that living things are reducible to the chemicals found in dirt, but dirt does not put itself together into a living
creature unless you have a super intelligent engineer at work. Pasteur showed life does not come from inanimate matter, contrary to
the evolutionists thinking of the day (spontaneous generation is evolution by another name - they say the first living cell arose from
inanimate matter). True that humans are special - the in-breathing God gave our kind made us deeply self aware - I’m a spirit,
walking around in a body, and I know it! I know that I know that I know. Animals don’t have that ability to step outside themselves.
But the physical complexity of any living creature is far beyond the ability of currently offered evolutionary means. True the Bible
is more concerned with historical narrative and relationship than description of scientific process, but, as you say, it ‘documents
natural phenomena’, and when it does, it is accurate. One of those phenomena is the creation of the universe, another is the world-
wide flood of Noah’s day. You figure if those two events happened as written, then the physical evidence would back it up, and I say
they really do. Yeah, insects are tres cool, and the Bible often exalts God for the ‘coolness’ of his works - ‘I am fearfully and
wonderfully made’, etc. True that God formed all your being in the womb, but it uses pretty explicit language that seems to refer to
more than your spiritual being - ‘thou knowest not…how the bones do grow in the womb of her that is with child: even so thou knowest
not the works of God who maketh all’ - Ecc. 11.5. ‘Shall he who formed the eye not see?’ - Ps. 94.9. Its ok to group passages to
make a point, as long as it’s done fairly. Jay, thanks for your response, and I will try to answer tomorrow.
Jay, hmmm, my son’s intro to Biology college text (’Life on Earth’, 2000, Prentice Hall) was over 600 pages, so you have a point. But still
an overview answer, indicating why a position is fundamentally wrong, should be summarizable. Basic principles show whether
something is wrongheaded. If something as broad-brush as evolution is true, then basic scientific laws and principles should support
it (like the laws of thermodynamics seem to contradict it). I wish you good success on your thesis work. Your example (’the most
common is gene duplication via unequal crossover on homologous chromosomes during meiosis’) of an exception of the rule that
information cannot be created without intelligent input is, I believe, not a good one, because you are still talking pre-existing code.
Subsequent ‘modification’ by mutation always represents a downward direction in information. I’ll have to think about the nylon
Jay, two points (of many from a lengthy article) on the nylon eating bacteria might put some light on the origin of their ability:
“All five transposable elements are identical, with 764 base pairs (bp) each. This comprises over eight
percent of the plasmid. How could random mutations produce three new catalytic/degradative genes
(coding for EI, EII and EIII) without at least some changes being made to the transposable elements?
Negoro speculated that the transposable elements must have been a ‘late addition’ to the plasmids to not
have changed. But there is no evidence for this, other than the circular reasoning that supposedly random
mutations generated the three enzymes and so they would have changed the transposase genes if they
had been in the plasmid all along. Furthermore, the adaptation to nylon digestion does not take very long,
so the addition of the transposable elements afterwards cannot be seriously entertained.”
“Japanese researchers demonstrated that nylon degrading ability can be obtained de novo in
laboratory cultures of Pseudomonas aeruginosa [strain] POA, which initially had no enzymes capable of
degrading nylon oligomers.9 This was achieved in a mere nine days! The rapidity of this adaptation
suggests a special mechanism for such adaptation, not something as haphazard as random mutations
and selection.”
The article is ‘The adaptation of bacteria to feeding on nylon waste’ by Don Batten, PhD in Agronomy and Horticultural Scienc
Ray, I’m afraid I’m not going to be continuing this conversations with you. It’s not that I can’t respond, it’s that I simply don’t enjoy to. Your last two comments are once again riddled with errors and a lack of understanding. Everytime I’ve pointed these things out, the subject changes to new areas. It takes a lot of time to provide thoughtful answers, and this time seems largely wasted to me, as the answers can usually be found through Google (such as this thorough and complete smackdown of your latest argument).
You’ve made it clear that you think the Bible describes the scientific nature of the world around us. This is one of the most illogical statements I know of — one that you are completely entitled to hold if you so choose. One need only compare the good book and a science journal to see they’re concerned with very different things. But again, this is my opinion, and I will not endlessly argue it in circles if someone refuses to agree.
I would like to mention one thing. In holding your various positions, you are setting yourself in direct opposition to tens of thousands of scientists. Not only that, a sizeable subset of those, numbering again in the thousands, are Christian men and women who also have devoted their lives to studying the world around them — what they view as God’s world. I frankly find it insulting, that people with little background or understanding so vigorously call these people fools (whether directly by name or subtly by implication). As I’ll keep saying, you can believe whatever you wish. That does not make it scientific.
I blog because I wish to share my thoughts with others, and provide quick commentary on things going on in the world around me — both scientific and religious. You’re welcome to comment where you will (provided it does not become obnoxious — which is hasn’t). Just understand that I may not respond.
Jay, thanks for your reply. The link at talk origins gave what seems a thorough rejoinder, and I don’t know enough to answer it.
But how does that help with the basic point that the bacteria are still the same kind of bacteria? Mosquitos that develop (by
whatever means) a resistance to a particular pesticide are still mosquitos. Is it a legitimate extrapolation to go from that, to
molecules to man? It seems inadequate. Do you agree with Kelly that ‘the Bible documents natural phenomena’? You’re right that
most scientists today accept evolution, though I bet a lot of it is ‘professional courtesy’ trust- ‘Evolution is not my field, but they are
competent scientists, so it must be true’. But historically, again, the majority has been wrong many times. And there are many
very great scientists in history, and important ones today, that say the universe is only about 6000 years old. I appreciate your
patience for so long, as I could tell you weren’t enjoying the exchange