And what is the field of evolutionary mechanisms?
I mean someone whose primary academic area of teaching and research is the process called “evolution.” If you look at most of the major universities, they have Chairs of Evolutionary Biology or the like. Examples of professors whose career was or is devoted specifically to the study of evolution include Mayr, Dobzhansky, Gaylord Simpson, Gould, Coyne, Gunter Wagner, etc. That is different from a cell biologist or plant geneticist or freshwater ecologist or physiologist whose work may from time to time touch on evolution, but doesn’t focus primarily on evolution. Thus, for example, I wouldn’t call Venema or Applegate “evolutionary theorists,” even though they write popularly about evolution, because their professional scientific work isn’t primarily about evolution, and in fact, they show very little intellectual curiosity about what is going on in the field of evolutionary theory, and not only don’t produce peer-reviewed research on the subject, but don’t even keep up with the subject.
I don’t see why the term should pose such difficulty. Would you object to the suggestion that a “quantum theorist” is someone whose primary academic work is in quantum theory (as opposed to some other area of physics or chemistry or engineering which might occasionally touch upon quantum theory)? All physicists probably know at least a little about quantum theory, but only a few specialize in it. And all biologists will know at least a little about evolutionary theory, but only a few specialize in it.
Thus, if I wanted to know the latest high-level, Ivy League thoughts on the causes of evolutionary innovation, I wouldn’t ask Ken Miller (who teaches cell biology at Brown), but would ask Gunter Wagner (who teaches evolutionary biology at Yale). I don’t think there is anything tricky in my usage of the term.
You forgot Richard Dawkins.
And Neil Shuban
Sure – throw them in. My list wasn’t meant to be exhaustive.
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I think the point is, if someone says quantum mechanics is suspect because there are multiple interpretations of quantum mechanics, it doesn’t take a Harvard “quantum theorist” to say “hogwash!”.
Look, I’m not a biologist, and I think the definition of evolution is so incredibly vague, and very much unlike how most things in chemistry and physics work, but I also trust the biologists I know, who’ve spent a heck of a lot more time than I have looking deeply at biology, to help me understand it. If I, as a non-biologist, don’t understand something about biology, I figure the problem is my lack of understanding and not that the biologists are somehow deficient or deceptive.
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Have you heard evolutionists tell the public that evolution is not a theory but a fact and as true as “gravity”?
Which definition of Evolution do you think they are using. And what should the public understand when they hear this?
I think the main problem is that “evolution” is presented as this over arching unifying theory when it is more like a series of explanations involving various mechanisms.
To get the unifying theory, Scientists use weasel words like “mutations” which just mean genetic change irrespective of the mechanisms involved… and people spend time arguing whether mutations are actually random or not…
If a wide variety of causes exist for genetic change, then it should not be surprising that mutations appear random. And perhaps as people like Shapiro say, mutations caused by some mechanisms are non random and these mutations are responsible for the bulk of constructive change in Evolution.
It seems to me that a proper conversation on evolution breaks down into semantics, philosophical notions of teleology etc because of force fitting diverse mechanisms into one “unified theory”.
Not really, frankly I’ve mostly heard it from creationists describing evolutionists. I’m not saying it never happens, but that’s not typically how they describe it from my experience.
How is that a weasel word? Sounds like a regular old definition to me.
One of the things that keeps coming up is this idea that “mechanisms” are the foundation of science, that we can’t do or say much until the mechanisms are established. I feel like that’s quite backwards. Most science I know ends with a mechanism, once we have a good understanding of the observations, a general theoretical framework, and a way to distinguish possible mechanisms or criteria to judge which one represents the data best.
Evolution to me represents an explanatory framework, not a mechanism. The precise mechanisms and their relative weights in any particular scenario can change, without ever changing the framework.
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Here is one from the NAS.
http://www.nas.edu/evolution/TheoryOrFact.html
and one from talk origins -
It seems the claim of evolution being a fact only applies to the following -
- Descent with modification.
Even ideas of universal common ancestry are disputed at the level of eukaryotes and below.
The above (Descent with modification) is a definition of evolution which everyone including YEC’s will accept is a fact.
So where does the acrimony start?
Sure. But how can you say mutations are random if the mechanisms are not considered.
Unless “randomness” is an assumption as opposed to an observation.
I believe it’s because when we measure them they are random?
I understand that. If we measure something that has multiple causes, its not surprising if the distribution looks random.
Then there are papers like the one below -
Sure, but whatever it is it looks random, so I guess I don’t get your point.
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If we clump together different phenomenon caused by things under on large tent and call them mutations.
What useful thing does a measure of “randomness” tell?
But neither of these said evolution is “not a theory but a fact”. Both say evolution is both a theory and a fact depending on what aspects of evolution you are talking about (mechanisms vs observed relationships between organisms) or what type of definition (colloquial vs technical).
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Correct… the question is which parts of the theory can be considered as established facts.
What’s your opinion?
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That it follows a random distribution. That’s hugely important in statistical analysis … which I hear they do a lot of in biology these days.
Theories aren’t facts, so your question, I think, is not one I can answer. It would depend on whether we’re talking about mechanisms vs observations and what the audience was (so I could decide on colloquial or technical language). I’m also not a biologist so I generally defer to them if present.
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I’m heading to bed… but I’m willing to stick my neck out on a FACT:
“It is an Evolutionary fact that the longer there is no mating or genetic exchange between two separate populations of a given species, the less likely the average member of one sub-group will be able to produce fertile offspring by mating with the average member of the other sub-group. And the probability of reproductive incompatibility increases the more the environmental circumstances of one group varies from the environmental circumstances of the other group.”
But I haven’t drawn any such conclusion. I’m raising the question of who is competent to summarize the current state of theory in quantum chemistry. Organic chemists? Analytical chemists? Biochemists? I’d say none of the above. I’d say the quantum chemists themselves are best qualified to say what are the important debates in their field, what the range of opinions is, how much consensus there is and how much consensus has eluded them, etc.
But that principle is not applied on blog sites regarding evolution. Anyone with any qualification in any area of biology or biochemistry deems himself qualified to summarize the state of evolutionary biology at the moment. And that’s what I’m complaining about. I’m not saying that evolutionary theory is all false because there is disagreement among its practitioners. I’m saying that people who would like to believe that the differences among evolutionary theorists are minimal and only on “peripheral” matters aren’t necessarily qualified to make that judgment; unless they are daily in the thick of the field, their judgment is the judgment of a tourist, not of a native. Having a Ph.D. in biology doesn’t automatically make one cognizant with what is going on at the highest levels of current evolutionary theory. There is no reason why you or I or anyone should defer to someone who says, “Look, I have a Ph.D. in biology, so I know what’s going on in current evolutionary theory.” There is no reason why we should believe that such a person is a reliable guide to the field, unless they have up close and personal involvement in it.
Excellent! I agree with you. I always liked physics and chemistry better than biology, for precisely the reason you’ve just given.
Your intellectual modesty is creditable. But you shouldn’t assume that every biologist you know is an expert on evolutionary theory merely because he or she is a biologist. That would be like me assuming that you are an expert on quantum chemistry merely because you are a chemist.