In commenting on my last blog, Lyaeus 10 pointed out how serious the problem has become with the introduction of supernatural ideas into the classroom: "I live in a state that just passed laws to 'teach the controversy' in regards to controversial sciences which is rather obviously a way to get special creation and flood geology and other such hypotheses of no relevant intellectual value into the classrooms."
What is the best way to deal with such intrusions into science education?
The conventional approach has been to circle the wagons around mid-19th and mid-20th century ideas (Darwinism and neo-Darwinism). This approach has not been successful. One reason Darwinism has failed to convince skeptics may be that it ignores over 60 years of molecular science.
Thirty years ago, I was at a conference in Cambridge, England, to celebrate the centennial of Darwin's death. There, Richard Dawkins began his lecture by saying, "I will not only explain that Darwin had the right answer, but I will show that he had the only possible right answer."
Hearing this (and knowing that alternative explanations inevitably arise in science), I said to myself that the Creationists have a point. They are dealing with a form of religious belief on the "evolution" side. Dawkins' transformation into an aggressive proselytizer for his undoubting and absolutist version of atheism confirms this conclusion.
One of the Creationists' main tools is the argument that evolutionists are simply militant atheists in drag, who care more about dissing religion than about understanding evolution. Dawkins' ill-considered crusade just bolsters their position.
Rather than accept that evolution science is always a tentative work in progress, conventional evolutionists make absolutist statements like "all the facts are on my side." Making obviously inflated and unrealistic assertions is hardly likely to convince anyone who has serious questions.
What is the alternative?
Let me suggest that we can take a more modern, more realistic and more truly scientific approach. It contains the following elements.
1. We need to emphasize that science operates strictly within the natural world and treats all theories as subject to criticism, revision and (ultimately) replacement. Think of Newtonian ideas of space, time and gravity as compared to Einsteinian general relativity. There is no reason to believe that evolution science is in any way special in this regard.
2. As we apply new technologies, such as genome sequencing, our confidence becomes stronger in the relatedness of all existing life forms, including human beings. In particular, our insights into the details of these relationships become ever more explicit. We can point to numerous specific features of primate genomes that are difficult to understand except as resulting from common ancestry between humans, apes, chimpanzees and other primates.
3. Among the recent discoveries of genome sequencing are several new features of the evolutionary process. Proteins evolved through combinatorial natural genetic engineering events. Cells from different species fused to create a third novel species (symbiogenesis). Unrelated organisms exchanged large chunks of DNA (horizontal DNA transfer). Entire genomes have doubled at critical junctures in evolution. When reigning evolutionary theories were formulated in the 19th and 20th Centuries, non-Mendelian events like these that simultaneously affect multiple traits were unknown or ignored.
4. Experimental research has discovered numerous cell-mediated processes of genome restructuring in all realms of life. These cellular natural genetic engineering capabilities replace accidental events as the real sources of heritable genome change. Since natural genetic engineering is subject to cell regulatory circuits and can be targeted within the genome, random copying errors can no longer be considered a basic feature of evolutionary change.
5. The newly discovered processes of genome change do indeed have the potential to generate "irreducibly complex" new functions. Such complex evolutionary inventions are at the center of the Intelligent Design critique of neo-Darwinian explanations, which are based exclusively on random genetic accidents and natural selection. Doubling the whole genome, distributing copies of mobile elements to different sites, and incorporating similar domains in different proteins provide the necessary raw materials for generating complex interactive networks in cells. A future task for experimental evolution science is to find out how this happens in real time.
6. In order to be truthful, we must acknowledge that certain questions, like the origins of the first living cells, currently have no credible scientific answer. However, given the historical record of science and technology in achieving the "impossible" (e.g., space flight, telecommunications, electronic computation and robotics), there is no reason to believe that unsolved problems will remain without naturalistic explanations indefinitely.
In summary, pro-evolution debaters will enjoy far more success by active engagement with evolution doubters. We need to demonstrate that evolution science is alive and well, as well as show how it is making remarkable progress through the application of molecular technologies -- even though it does not have all the answers.
To the thoughtful scientist whose job is to uncover natural processes, this is surely a better way of advocating the scientific method than dogmatically asserting that we found all the scientific principles we need in centuries past.
Marshall Fine: Movie Review: Chimpanzee
Restring science by methodological naturalism introduces a bias which shows that Darwinism is a religion. Restricting science to any philosophy is not part of the scientific method. All theories should be treated equally.
The criticism that intelligent design is not testable is wrong. The point of ID as a science is to look for ways to test it. If you can't prove genetic alterations occured by natural means that is a problem for Darwinism. Hiding behind naturalism is not scientific.
How do you distinguish between common ancestry and common design? How do you know the source of genetic alterations? Intelligent Design may also explain evolution.
What is the evidence that natural means and not a designer caused cells from different species to fuse, or unrelated organisms exchanged large chunks of DNA, or genomes to be doubled?
The criticism that intelligent design is creationism in disguise motivated by religious beliefs is not valid. If a paleontologist can distinguish a stone tool from a rock created in an avalanche why cannot other scientists look for evidence of design elsewhere in the universe? The motivations of a scientists are irrelevant, the issues should be decided on empirical observations and experiments. All scientists have motivations to validate their life's work and often to validate methodological naturalism. If you rule out scientists with a motivation and a bias you will not have any scientists left to do science.
The various shades of Darwinian synthesis bandied about are all at their root based upon natural selection as a model for change and I think it is accurate to say that none of the principles discussed in James' article in any way render it a less efficacious model, unless I've missed something important.
My suspicion is that it is the sum total of diverse mechanisms and resources, and the underlying infrastructure that provide "creativity" in any meaningful sense. Still, "creativity" is not specific enough to really make a scientific case in my opinion.
Regarding creativity in nature ,I am particularly fond of Peter Corning's "Nature's Magic" and Stuart Kauffman's work. Both offer fascinating ideas regarding how novelty plays a role in evolution in general. And without making specious claims about the supposed failure of population models in which seems to one of John's critical points.
He clearly has never tried that. In a long career--20+ years now--of defending the teaching of honest science in public schools, I have not once been able to get a religiously-motivated anti-evolutionist to actually engage an argument. I suggest that Professor Shapiro get out on the hustings more.
I believe that much of the debate between selectionists and non-selectionists is actually a debate over the "engines of variation," rather than the "engines of selection," both of which are necessary for evolution, but which follow rules. Doubling the whole genome, distributing copies of mobile elements to different sites, and incorporating similar domains in different proteins are only some of the "engines of variation," and none of them explain how the various products of these processes persist and proliferate over time. That is the domain of demographics and evolutionary ecology, in which both non-random processes (natural and sexual selection) and random processes (drift, ecological change and mass extinction) determine which variants persist and which disappear.
However variations arise, there is no evidence that any are "foresighted" in the sense that they anticipate new ecological conditions. Asserting that the "engines of variation" somehow anticipate the future is pure theological speculation and has no place in science.
A pleasure to have a comment from an orthodox evolutionist who does not claim that selection can substitute for genome variation.
Clearly genome change has to produce functional structures that prove adaptive and survive selective challenge for evolutionary novelties to appear.
The issues over where innovation and creativity arise in the evolutionary process depend upon how rapidly change occurs. If it is gradual and slight, as Darwin imagined, then selection can gradually mold new features.
But when genome change is rapid and massive, there is a problem explaining how it produces functional novelty. If, as Muller believed (and as is still taught), the overwhelming majority of genome changes are deleterious, then we would expect episodes of massive restructuring to be destructive and immediately counter-selected.
Nonetheless, major and sudden genome changes have occurred and new inventions have appeared in the course of evolution. That is why the non-random aspects of natural genetic engineering functions deserve much greater study. I predict that the proper experiments will show that their capacity for generating useful novelties in response to real-time challenges has been greatly under-appreciated.
I am puzzled by your references to "foresighted...engines of variation [that] somehow anticipate the future." Where did you find those?
As you suggest, some genome change is rapid and massive, but such change is often highly deleterious (think antennapedia or bithorax). It is an interesting and potentially empirically testable question as to whether selection operates faster or slower on such large changes in geno/phenotype (drift or other non-selective demographic processes would, of course, be largely indifferent to such changes). Furthermore, if such changes are "modular" (as you suggest in your list of major genomic rearrangements), then a module that has already been "preserved" by selection might still be adaptive in its new setting. What will determine whether this is the case has to do with the "fitness" of such a modular rearrangement, not only with the organism's external environment, but also its internal developmental and physiological "ecosystem."
As for "foresighted mutations," I was not referring to your post or work, but rather to an assertion I often receive from ID supporters, that the "engines of variation" somehow anticipate future selective regimes and therefore "guarantee" that certain outcomes will follow. By definition, this viewpoint requires a supernatural guiding force and therefore violates everything we understand about physics and the arrow of time.
Yes.
I find this opening sentence from point 5 quite problematic:
"The newly discovered processes of genome change do indeed have the potential to generate "irreducibly complex" new functions."
As Ken Miller has demonstrated, one needs to be careful in assuming that "irreducibly complex" structures can arise:
http://www.millerandlevine.com/km/evol/design2/article.html
And even if Shapiro is correct to assume this, he still needs to show how "natural genetic engineering", not Natural Selection, would produce "'irreducibly complex new functions'.
Jerry Coyne has concluded recently:
"The onus is on Shapiro to show exactly how the systems of 'adaptive genome restructuring' he so admires require us to abandon our notion of adaptation via natural selection. He hasn’t convinced me, nor, as I’ll show in a subsequent post, one reviewer of his new book on this topic."
You can read the rest of Coyne's remarks here:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/jim-shapiro-continues-his-misguided-attack-on-neo-darwinism/
"My own theory is that the man simply doesn’t understand the kind of population thinking in which “natural genetic engineering” can result from garden-variety natural selection. (I often find that molecular biologists fail to grasp natural selection, even though it seems conceptually simple.) At any rate, Shapiro’s claims in HuffPo are damaging to the public understanding of science, for they make people think, unjustifiably, that there’s something very wrong with modern evolutionary theory. Well, his arguments aren’t convincing to biologists, although they could perhaps snow the layperson with complex terminology, just as Michael Behe snows the public with the idea of 'irreducible complexity.'”
"The onus is on Shapiro to show exactly how the systems of 'adaptive genome restructuring' he so admires require us to abandon our notion of adaptation via natural selection."
You should read the rest of Coyne's remarks here:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/jim-shapiro-continues-his-misguided-attack-on-neo-darwinism/”
Wow Dr. Shapiro! No wonder why Darwinists want to shut you up and suppress your research!
Glad you recognize this motivation behind their criticisms. I will address this directly in the next blog.
I have read the article line-by-line three times and no where in it can I find anything that even hints at the idea that evolutionary events are the result of "prior planning by something." Indeed, I can't find anything in this article that I can disagree with, given our current understanding of genomics and macroevolution. It seems to me that all of Shapiro's points are firmly grounded in current biology and none of them include anything like "prior planning by something." Please tell me where I'm wrong. Thanks!
I think you overlooked Shapiro's agreement with Intelligent Design creationists that there is evidence of "irreducible complexity". I also wonder why he thinks "natural genetic engineering" is a better evolutionary mechanism than Natural Selection and random genetic drift. His criticism of that Dawkins lecture is perplexing to say the least, since Natural Selection was discovered independently by both Darwin and Wallace, and it seems self-evident that anyone who was a field naturalist in the tropics, had read Malthus and began thinking of populations, would have stumbled upon Natural Selection sooner or later. I have to agree with Jerry Coyne's harsh assessment of Shapiro's recent thinking here at Huffington Post, especially with regards to Shapiro's ignorance with respect to "population thinking".
I think Todd is referring in particular to this point by Shapiro:
"The newly discovered processes of genome change do indeed have the potential to generate "irreducibly complex" new functions. Such complex evolutionary inventions are at the center of the Intelligent Design critique of neo-Darwinian explanations, which are based exclusively on random genetic accidents and natural selection."
The most famous example of "irreducible complexity", the bacterial flagellum, has been demonstrated to be otherwise, courtesy of published data by Brandeis and Yale microbiologists, and critiques from the likes of Jerry Coyne, Ian Musgrave and Ken Miller (As you are well aware, Ken has used a mousetrap to refute this, demonstrating that if you remove at least one component, it functions quite well as a tie clip.).
Since Natural Selection's efficacy as an evolutionary mechanism has been well documented in both field and laboratory studies, I think Shapiro is wrong to dismiss it.
Berthajane Vandegrift
A Few Autistic Questions about Freud, Marx and Darwin
Nor can you ignore the roles of both Natural Selection and random genetic drift in affecting the spread of favorable mutations and the survival of their representative traits in populations. (Though this can be a dubious trade off, since, for example, the mutation which fostered the sickle cell trait in African Negro populations, preventing certain diseases, is a liability to their North American descendants in the Afro-American population.). Both Natural Selection and Genetic Drift are important principles of evolution, both now and into the distant future.
They are not equal in any way, shape or form. Science is not influenced by religious arguments whatsoever.
This isn't about getting the two subjects to play nice with each other. This is simply religion conforming with modern science. If you are religious and don't like some of the things science suggests, well that is too bad, because science won't rewrite reality to fit your preferences.
These are not equal structures of knowledge.
For a less strident and much more reasoned alternative to Richard Dawkins, I recommend Darwin's Dangerous Idea and Breaking the Spell by Daniel Dennett. Wondrfully pro evolution and anti superstition.
" . . . a more modern, more realistic and more truly scientific approach" is fine but it means nothing to those who are backwards, unrealistic and unknowledgeable.
". . . Best way to deal with . . .?" Is nothing. This avoids calluses on the forehead. The exception is
if they hold public office. In that case, vote them out.
The revelation (pun intended) must come from within themselves that their path is full of holes (holy, yes, I know).
Constraining ourselves to the problem of the evolution science teacher, we miss the impact of governments, like mine, which addressed an aircraft collision series at our airport by building a prayer room.
Supernaturalist thinking is sometimes euphemistically referred to as "low-effort" or "magical" thinking. There is a growing school of thought supporting the notion that the default human state is this type of thinking.
It pervades human society at all levels. In some societies, this is the only type of thinking permitted. The failure of this approach to understand the universe is in direct contrast with its enormous impact on controlling and misleading human behaviour. Democratic style governments are exceptionally prone to be influenced by this problem, as the majority think this way.
We have the inverse situation of a lost tribe here. Instead of living in scientific ignorance and isolation from the rest of humanity, the tribe of naturalists finds itself embedded in humanity, drowning in surrounding superstition and aggression, and quite at a loss regarding how to cope.
"My own theory is that the man simply doesn’t understand the kind of population thinking in which “natural genetic engineering” can result from garden-variety natural selection. (I often find that molecular biologists fail to grasp natural selection, even though it seems conceptually simple.) At any rate, Shapiro’s claims in HuffPo are damaging to the public understanding of science, for they make people think, unjustifiably, that there’s something very wrong with modern evolutionary theory. Well, his arguments aren’t convincing to biologists, although they could perhaps snow the layperson with complex terminology, just as Michael Behe snows the public with the idea of 'irreducible complexity.'”
"The onus is on Shapiro to show exactly how the systems of 'adaptive genome restructuring' he so admires require us to abandon our notion of adaptation via natural selection."
You should read the rest of Coyne's remarks here:
http://whyevolutionistrue.wordpress.com/2012/04/07/jim-shapiro-continues-his-misguided-attack-on-neo-darwinism/
It is sad that so many Americans have such a poor understanding of science that this is even an issue. That is the real problem, not the crackpots that are trying to discredit evolutionary science. I think the efforts of creationists to stifle interest in evolutionary science has and will continue to fail. My wife grew up in Mississippi when the teaching of evolution was banned in public schools. She and her classmates had fun trying to trick their science teachers into discussing evolution. Famous evolutionary scientists have even emerged from the bible belt when evolution was banned.
I am basing what I say largely on a debate I had about a decade ago with Michael Behe, the father of of ID thinking, at Wheaton College, a conservative evangelical Protestant school. The students were enthusiastic about the notion of cells with inboard computers and did not see the need to support Behe's supernaturalist views.
From that experience, I formed the opinion that even the faith community shares a hunger for modern scientific explanations, not a return to know-nothing biblical literalism. I think that is consistent with your wife's experience.
My position is that all we need to do is give up on anti-religious arrogance and presumption to get most of the public on our side.
You would get a more accurate view of modern evolutionary biology by looking here at the National Center for Science Education's website:
http://www.ncse.com/evolution
Or looking at the material which is freely available to the public at my friend Ken Miller's website:
http://www.millerandlevin.com/km
Or looking at the University of California, Berkeley's superb online resource on evolution:
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/home.php
Or the exhibition website from the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) Darwin exhibition, which was curated by AMNH curator of invertebrate paleontology Niles Eldredge, one of the fathers of "Punctuated Equilibrium" and someone who has been much more bold in his thinking of evolution and biology than Shapiro:
http://www.amnh.org/exhibitions/darwin/