Feedback for July 2000

It is a popular misconception that evolutionary theory is based solely, or even primarily, on the fossil record. Fossils are but one line of evidence supporting evolution; evidence for evolution also includes genetic comparisons, the nested heirarchy of shared characteristics, and immunological and embyrological evidence.

The short answer is that humans are not any more closely related to bonobos (pygmy chimpanzees) than to chimpanzees. Chimpanzees and bonobos are closely related to each other; and it is a prediction of evolutionary theory that their more distant relatives (like humans, or gorillas) will not be closer to one or other chimpanzee variety. The genetic data confirms this prediction.

This is a fascinating area; my thanks to the reader for a good question which prompted me to do some interesting research for this response.

The hot topic is degrees of relationship between gorilla, chimpanzee, bonobo and human. The most commonly accepted model for their relationship is as if bonobos and chimpanzees were sisters, and humans were their cousin (same grandmother) and gorillas were a second-cousin (same great-grandmother).

The most widely cited evidence is by Sibley and Ahlquist; but unforunately I have not been able to find their original paper in my library. They first published in 1984; with another important paper in 1990 in response to criticism of their methodology.

For more recent information, I looked through some back issues of the Journal of Molecular Evolution, and found some 1996 results based on mitochondrial DNA. I provide five sets of figures in the following table, together with some Sibley and Alquist figures:

The numbers in each cell (error bars in parentheses where available) are:

1. mtDNA protein-coding genes, synonymous substitutions[1]
2. mtDNA protein-coding genes, nonsynonymous substitutions[1]
3. substitutions in mtDNA rRNA-specifying genes[1]
4. Amino acid differences, from mtDNA protein coding genes (model 1)[2]
5. Amino acid differences, from mtDNA protein coding genes (model 2)[2]
6. Sibley and Alquist percentage difference. Gorilla figures based on the 1987 paper, others based on the 1984 paper; the 1990 paper is different again with larger error bars.[3,4,5] I can't vouch for these personally; but since they are widely used I provide them as a comparison.

In all cases, except for some anomalies in the rRNA coding genes, bonobos and chimpanzees are closest, then human to either chimpanzee species, then gorilla to any of the others. This is considered evidence that in the evolution of hominoids, gorillas diverged from the others first, and then later humans from the two chimpanzee species, and then later chimpanzees and bonobos diverged.

Humans do seem marginally closer to bonobos than to chimpanzees for some figures, but this is not statistically significant with respect to error bars or to expected random effects. If humans were significantly closer to bonobos, this would be rather a problem for evolutionary theory. So far, however, data tends to confirm evolutionary models. It should be noted than all species listed are very close indeed genetically, and there is room for debate and further investigation on the matter of resolving such close relationships.

References:

1. Ulfur Arnason, Anette Gullberg, Axel Janke, Xiufeng Xu. (1996)
   Pattern and Timing of Evolutionary Divergences Among Hominoids Based on Analyses of Complete mtDNAs.
   Journal of Molecular Evolution, 43:650-661
2. Ulfur Arnason, Xiufeng Xu, Anette Gullberg, Dan Graur. (1996)
   Molecular Reference for Calibrating Recent Evolutionary Divergences
   Journal of Molecular Evolution, 43:41-45
3. Sibley, Charles G. and Ahlquist, Jon E. (1984)
   The phylogeny of the hominoid primates, as indicated by DNA-DNA hybridization.
   Journal of Molecular Evolution, 20:2-15.
4. Sibley, Charles G. and Ahlquist, Jon E. (1987)
   DNA hybridization evidence of hominoid phylogeny: Evidence from an expanded data set.
   Journal of Molecular Evolution, 26:99-121.
5. Sibley, Charles G., Comstock, John A., and Ahlquist, Jon E. (1990)
   DNA hybridization evidence of hominoid phylogeny: A reanalysis of the data.
   Journal of Molecular Evolution, 30:202-236.

There is no particular problem with the various small changes hypothesized in the bombardier article arising though the observed capacity of mutation to add new information.

See The Evolution of Improved Fitness by random mutation plus selection. This has a section on information theory, for those surprised at my comments above. Also have a look at Are Mutations Harmful, and Bombardier Beetles and the Argument of Design.

The work of Dr Gentry is dissected in detail in this site. See Evolution's Tiny Violences -- The Po-Halo Mystery.

Both science and religions provide etiologies - origin stories. Now the reason for telling an origin story might be political (Mesopotamian astrology changed the etiologies of the various city gods, making a victor's god defeat or subjugate a vanquished's god to justify invasion), or it might be moral, or it might be metaphysical.

Genesis 1 is a metaphysical statement about the sole divinity of YHWH, in comparison to the myths of the surrounding religions where there were many divine things (including the world, which was made from the body of a god).

The etiologies of evolutionary science, however, are historical. The aim is to uncover the process by which things we see around us, the biodiversity of Earth, came to be. There is no moral or post hoc justification involved.

This tends to upset those who have etiologies for other reasons. If an etiology of fact impinges on a theological etiology, then either the theology gives way and accommodates fact, or it denies fact. This dialectic, as it were, has been going on since the beginning of science. It is a process of marking out (social) territories.

The religion of a rational and intelligent person who is observative of the things around them has to accommodate facts and the best theories about that explain them. If the business of a person is not to understand the fact or weigh the evidence, then their religion will continually conflict with science.

Gould's claim is that there ought to be a fence between science and religion. But fences get broken, moved and mended.

The Houston Chronicle article by Ron Nissimov covered a lot of ground. One thing to remember is that the creation of the Michael Polanyi Center is controversial within Baylor, and its creation was carried out without faculty advisement and consent. I somehow doubt that Baylor will proceed to UFO-ology, since that does not appeal to SBC theological positions. The MPC is, so far, unique.

Baylor is putting together a review committee with people primarily from outside Baylor to produce a non-binding advisory concerning the work of the Michael Polanyi Center and its directors, William Dembski and Bruce Gordon. Various critics on talk.origins are betting that Dembski will leave Baylor before allowing such a committee to prepare a peer-reviewed critique of his work. The stakes are high: if the committee says that they aren't doing science, that will make it much tougher to justify establishing further such centers at other academic institutions.

Wesley

The scientific method can be applied to events in the past. It is not required to observe an event actually happening; we can infer details of the past from traces in the present. The essence of the scientific method is dependence on generally accessible empirical data; most especially data which can be repeatably observed by independent investigators. A good test of a model is for it to predict the results of subsequent observations. This applies perfectly well for new observations of traces from past events.

Obvious examples of scientific study of the past are forensic science and archaeology. The scientific method is applied to dicover information about climate, sea levels, vegetation, vulcanism, etc all in the past.

With respect to the origins of life, currently available data is not sufficient to identify exactly how it occured. The data to be explained by any theory include traces of unicelluar life up to 3.6 billion years old, patterns and regularities in existing life, and information about conditions on the Earth in the ancient past.

I am not sure what you think is elevated to "fact". I am not aware of any specific model for life's origin which is regarded as fact. Of course, we all agree on one basic fact: life did have a beginning.

For further information, you may like to look at the following.

• The Abiogenesis Interim FAQ.
• A biogenesis bibliography.
• An on-line New Scientist article, covering some of the many ideas being tossed around in this area.

Kelvin did not know about radioactivity (discovered in the 1890s and 1900s) and heating of the Earth's crust by radioactive decay; for this reason his estimates were completely wrong. Likewise, it wasn't until Einstein's theory of relativity was developed that there was a good explanation of how the Sun could have been shining as long as it had.

See the Changing Views of the History of the Earth FAQ.

Let's make an analogy to determining the age of a human being. Let's say that we have someone just celebrating their 20th birthday. A 1% plus-or-minus error bar on age determination means that we might estimate their age as somewhere between 19 years 8 months and 20 years 4 months. By the reader's argument, because we have this error bar on age estimation, we cannot make any such statement, and the person might actually be only about 23 minutes old (the proportional part of a 20 year old's life to the 10,000 year old earth that young-earth creationists propose).

Just as we can point out that reasonable views of the evidence allow us to say that a 20 year old can be distinguished from a newborn, even if we can't specify an exact birthdate, so can we point out that reasonable people can take the evidence of an old earth as excluding the 10,000 year old earth of the young-earth creationists.

Wesley

Why are most clam shell fossils found atop mountains paired and closed tight since the time of thier death, is this the way they are found dead on the beach?

I'm curious to know where you heard that most fossil clams are found in that state. It may be true, I don't know enough about that subject, but I do know in my own tinkering about with fossils that I've seen clam shells that are open, closed, and broken. While clam digging, I've also often found shells that are a surprise when opened, because they are just full of sand. And, of course, you can find clam shells on the beach that are open, closed, and broken.

Why are equatorial loving species found frozen to death standing upright with undigested food in thier stumach and mouths north of Siberia?

What "equatorial loving species"? I presume you are talking about mammoths, but they were definitely not tropical animals. As for standing upright, dead mammoths are found in all kinds of positions -- lying down, wedged in crevices, broken up and scattered. Kind of like the clams.

It's also not at all surprising to find carcasses with undigested food in them. Since animals eat all the time, and digestion takes many hours (even longer in the case of herbivores like mammoths), it would be even more surprising to find them all with empty stomachs.

A hairy mammoth without oil secreting glands for thermal protection, what is this evolutionary defense as implied for the ice age?

This question doesn't make any sense. Oil glands aren't that useful for thermal protection, unless you happen to be aquatic -- then the oily secretions are handy as a water repellent, to maintain the insulating qualities of your fur. A terrestrial animal, like a mammoth or a grouse or a musk ox, wouldn't keep itself warm by glopping up its surface with grease.

Why are mammoths found suffocated - indicated by flattened erectile penises?

Huh? Male mammals have erectile penises, so it isn't surprising at all to find them. I don't see how flattening of the penis would be at all indicative of suffocation.

How can the forementioned animal of such size be frozen so thoroughly without internal rot?

Don't you ever watch the Discovery channel? They've had several programs (like "Raising the Mammoth") on the search for frozen mammoth carcasses. They're usually a mess, with varying degrees of putrefaction. Where do you get the idea that there is no internal rot?

I think your problem here is that you don't really know much about what is really known about these issues -- your questions aren't based on facts, but on your biases. I suggest you go down to your local library and look for some books on these topics, and get the actual evidence behind these issues. I recommend  How to Deep Freeze a Mammoth, by Bjorn Kurten, as a nice introduction by a real paleontologist on how these things happen.

Social science has tended to be "functionalist" - that is, it looks at a practice and seeks to find out what function it plays in the culture. If Wilson is right, some practices are not culturally functional, but biologically. Functionalism in sociology is ahistorical, and doesn't ask why a function is in equilibrium, or how it came to be that way.

I agree with your comment regarding nonlinear dynamics. In fact, Wilson and his colleague Lumdsen put just such a model (in the limited terminology and techniques of the day) for sociobiology. Population genetics also is coming around to this sort of convergence of ideas. I recommend the Dyke book as an example of how all this is coming together, although it's a bit old now.

Dyke, C. The evolutionary dynamics of complex systems: a study in biosocial complexity, Monographs on the history and philosophy of biology. New York: Oxford University Press, 1988.

Lumsden, Charles J, and Edward O Wilson. Genes, mind, and culture: the coevolutionary process. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1981.

Wilson, Edward O. Sociobiology: the new synthesis. Cambridge, Mass.: Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 1975.

The Chronicle of Higher Education had a debate on sociobiology recently, based on the publication of a new book, Defenders of the Truth: The Battle for Science in the Sociobiology Debate and Beyond, by Ullica Segerstråle (Oxford University Press 2000). You can read some of the context and criticisms of sociobiology there.

1. The age of the Earth is not determined by evolutionary biologists, but by geologists, astrophysicists, and the like. Since at least the early 1800s, science has known that the Earth is more than 6000 years old. That is well before Charles Darwin published On the Origin of Species (1859).
2. The whole "moon dust" argument is based on one severely flawed measurement of how much meteoric dust impacts the moon in a given time period. See the Meteorite Dust and the Age of the Earth FAQ.
3. Some people would say that the Earth is overpopulated. Regardless, humans remedy overpopulation in the same four ways they always have: war, disease, starvation, and technology.
4. No one here is attempting to "prove the Bible wrong." In fact, a number of contributors to this site are devout Christians of one flavor or another. What we object to is poor theology being fraudulently passed off as science to unsuspecting believers.
5. Evolution is not atheism, nor does it require one to renounce belief in the divine. This is a common, yet absolutely false, belief and is the main reason we need more, not less, education about evolution in our schools. See the God and Evolution FAQ.

Creationists assume that there is scientific evidence of God's non-lawlike behavior in the past - of the Flood, of the special creation of species, and of a young earth. In this manner, by trying to treat these (empirically inadequate) ideas as scientific hypotheses, they limit God. But science does not - it merely says, "If we are to know the way the world is by using our senses and reason, then nothing can be ruled off from a scientific explanation".

Your argument isn't paradoxical, it's nonsensical.

There are some substantial flaws in your reasoning. Darwin's explanation still stands, because the fossil record is extremely imperfect -- we certainly wouldn't expect to have "millions upon millions" of the kinds of fossils you want on hand. One estimate that I've seen of the total number of species represented in the fossil record is on the order of a few hundred thousand. Given that roughly one million species are alive today, and that the average lifetime of a species seems to be about ten million years, that suggests that less than one half of one percent of all species have left even one representative individual as a fossil. It would be ludicrous to expect, or even demand as creationists do, that there be an unbroken chain of fossil species from any modern animal all the way back to the Cambrian.

Your other flaw seems to be that you are simply ignoring what transitional forms we do have. Have you looked at cetacean evolution, where we do have a very lovely series of animals illustrating the transformation from a terrestrial to an aquatic lifestyle? Have you read the Transitional Vertebrate Fossils FAQ?

We do disagree, of course. The people involved in this site are of the opinion that creationism has no credibility precisely because it has no empirical evidence at all, and not because of any refusal by scientists to look at any evidence. We have tried to collect files here which look at the issues, and are unashamedly of the opinion that the best and most rational analysis is supplied from a mainstream scientific perspective. We are keen to look at evidence and arguments which is presented as support for creationism, and show the errors and misconceptions in the creationist perspective.

If there is evidence or arguments not addressed here, then it is due to the limits of time and energy, and not any refusal to consider the creationist position. If you feel there is a criticially important line of evidence which ought to be considered at this site, you can of course suggest it to us through this feedback column. You can also supply links to web pages which present a creationist argument at our links page.

You may be interested to know that there are many evolutionists who believe in a creator involved with the natural world, and the natural processes by which the world unfolds, evolution included. The people associated with this site agree on many subjects directly addressed by empirical evidence and scientific method, like the age of the Earth, or processes of evolution. However, we have many divergent views on the creator.

What has been observed in other apes is that they have one more chromosome than Homo sapiens. However, this was not caused by a duplication, but by one chromosome breaking into two smaller ones, or by two small ones fusing into a larger. There are no extra genes present, they are just parceled out into chromosomes somewhat differently.

• Observed Instances of Speciation
• Some More Observed Instances of Speciation

Emotions are not things with an independent existence. They are something we do. This is remains the case whether you believe in a dualist notion of people as a body plus a spirit, or the Israelite view of people as a body animated by the divine breath, or a strictly materialist view as a body capable of marvelously complex behaviour; and it remains the case whether you think of the body as something which evolved, or created from nothing about 6000 years ago.

However we were formed, we have the capacity for emotion. Even for a strict dualist, emotions and the capacity for emotion have at least something to do with our physical body, since they are affected by drugs, disease, trauma or other physical phenomena.

We all agree that we developed over time from a single cell in our mother's womb. That single cell does not experience emotion, but as we develop over time, so also does our capacity to think and feel. The wonder of this individual development is not argument against our growth from a single cell; no more is it an argument against our development as a species from more humble beginnings.

Darwinian evolution has no such assumption. Species may remain unchanged and never give issue to new species. They may lose capabilities through secondary loss, as in the case of cave dwellers losing sight.

There may be no "next step" in human evolution; or there may be many next steps. Nothing is determined from beforehand.

For energy to hold some form and thus act as a kind of lifeform, it must be directed in the ways it flows. For this to happen, so far as we can know, there is only one way for this to happen: through the effects of matter in retarding and impeding energy, as the circuitry does in a computer. Even if energy based life were possible, it would still need a physical matrix.

Cyborg concepts may be realised, but I doubt they would be of much evolutionary impact, biologically. Such technology requires a vast industrial and economic basis, and cultures just do not last long enough on evolutionary timescales. And diseases are the result of an interplay between the competing interests of organisms in different species. What is a disease to a human is a foodfight for the pathogens. Unless humans get to live in totally sterile environments, pathogenic organisms will find new ways to attack the resources tied up in human bodies.

Discussion is best taken to the newsgroup talk.origins.

There is no reason to think just one species would remain; there is no common sense in that.

The notion of the atmosphere caring about us is an interesting phrasing; but any notion of why it rains would have to take account of why it rains different amounts in different places, and why rain sometimes comes to excess leading to floods, or holds off leading to a drought. Both of these cause enormous human suffering; so simply saying that the atmosphere cares about us is not likely to replace physical meteorology as a way of understanding weather anytime soon.

I have a feeling I'm being hooked in here by someone just pretending, to make creationists look bad. If so, please don't. There is no need.

1) Do animals go through menopause, i.e., lose their ability to reproduce?

Most animals don't experience anything like menopause. They are fertile until they die. Human females are one exception (human males do generally seem to be indefinitely fertile); another one that I've heard of are female pilot whales, of which a significant fraction that have been examined are post-menopausal. Laboratory and zoo animals that have been protected and live to ages greater than seen in the wild also show progressive infertility in females -- that's been seen in rhesus monkeys, at least.

2) Do they have the capacity to live beyond this stage? And for how long, on average?

As I said above, yes, in those instances that have been seen. After all, there's no reason to think animals would have some special mechanism to cause them to suicide if they were unable to reproduce. That's the answer to your other question: you don't need a mechanism that allows them the capacity to stay alive beyond reproductivity, the same old mechanisms that keep them alive during the fertile stages are simply still operational. You would need some special, unusual, additional mechanism to kill them if reproduction were impossible.

3) Have we worked out a theory on how evolutionary processes might account for that? In other words, if 1) and 2) are answered in the affirmative, then why or how would animals come to have the capacity to live beyond reproductive usefulness?

There's no need to work out any special evolutionary theory for it. Some people do propose that preserving geriatric females beyond the age that they can reliably reproduce would have selective advantages in that they would be available to support their daughters' childrearing. Personally, I don't think that is very likely. Throughout most of human evolution, our lifespans have been much more limited than they are nowadays -- it would have been an exceptionally rare and lucky individual who would have lived to see forty, and a menopausal grandmother would have been an extraordinarily rare thing.

The simplest explanation is that there was no particular reason for this feature of human maturation. Selection favored individuals that set aside an adequate number of eggs in their ovaries, and the number humans have is sufficient, under all previous conditions of our existence. There would have been no selective advantage for women who had more eggs, because they were almost certainly going to die before they hit their 30s or 40s, and certainly before they ran out of eggs.

I'd recommend a nice relaxing read. Start around Matthew chapter 6 and continue for a couple of chapters. You might pay particular attention to the discussion of "judgment". After that, a brief postscript in the form of the First Amendment to the US Constitution would make an excellent nightcap.

Here on our archive, we have one of the most extensive lists of links to anti-evolutionary web sites to be found anywhere. We're not telling people to shut up. We are doing the hard work of showing, precisely and in detail, why so much anti-evolutionary argumentation is quite simply wrong. How can this lead anyone astray?

Wesley

Darwin's comments must be seen in the context of his day. It is easy and simple-minded history to asses historical characters as if they were part of our own moral and political scene - in historiography this is called the Whig Interpretation of History. In context he was not a racist.

Darwin opposed slavery, was friends with members of other "races", and was generally a liberal in his political views. However, in the Descent he is a bit confused. He frequently conflates "civilisation" with "nation" with "race", and thereby started a tradition of misleading arguments about the selection of groups that result in some sort of racial divide (although he was not making the claim himself).

See my feedback in the September 1999 Feedback.

The moral and theological implications of evolutionary theories are murky at best. In general, science — including evolutionary biology — is the study of what is, not what ought to be. Regardless of what the implications may be, then, what they are not is science. See the Evolution and Philosophy FAQ on this point.

Think about it: anyone who honestly holds a certain view of origins is not going to believe in divine punishment for holding that belief. The only people who believe in a divine punishment for a certain belief are those who already do not hold that belief.

Many folks believe that what happens after we die depends on intellectual assent and acceptance of the efficacy of Jesus Christ as saviour.

What I would like to point out is that acceptance of Jesus as Lord and Saviour has nothing to do with alternative models for origins. Many Christians accept the basic principles of evolutionary origins, and many accept God as their creator without insisting on Genesis as a historically based account of how God did the creating.

Anyone genuinely interested in the historical details of our origins should, I think, put aside fear and risk an honest appraisal of the evidence. Belief in a proposition out of fear is not worthy of honest seekers after truth.

Stellar evolution comes not from biological evolution, but from the observation of millions of stars over more than a century. Ejnar Hertzsprung of Denmark and Henry Norris Russell of the United States of America noted that when one constructs a graph (now called a Hertzsprung-Russell diagram) of star temperatures vs. their brightnesses, most stars fall on a line — the main sequence. But some stars do not fall on the main sequence. After many years, astronomers came to understand why they do not: they are stars that have converted much of their hydrogen into helium through nuclear fusion. In essence, they have exhausted their nuclear fuel.

An excellent introduction to stellar evolution can be found in NASA's Observatorium.

Finally, no one believes that Internet browsers arose by anything other than human design. But that has no bearing on biological evolution, either.

I personally recommend Douglas Futuyma's Evolutionary Biology. Now in its third edition, it provides a good, if somewhat technical, introduction to evolutionary biology.

Perhaps you might consider a third option: Accept the universe and all its wonders as the beauty of God's creation. Examine the world carefully and learn about the processes, including evolution, that God used to bring about this world.

A number of us who contribute to this site have read Henry Morris's Scientific Creationism. This book is, in fact, mentioned on our reading list.

• Some Observed Instances of Speciation
• Some More Observed Speciation Events

I don't feel much of anything about that statement. It's false and uninteresting.

There are no "known laws of science" which are violated by evolution. Could the person you are quoting possibly have been a little more specific about what miracles he believes are required by evolution? If, as I suspect, one of them is the usual misunderstanding of the second law of thermodynamics, that has been amply answered many times in the the past. Check out the thermodynamics FAQ.

By the way, why couldn't you trouble yourself to credit the person you were quoting?

It's not Kent Hovind's education per se that bothers us, it's that he isn't honest about it. Our Suspicious Creationist Credentials FAQ outlines the problems with his educational background; since that article was written, we've discovered other problems. For one, "Patriot University" is a split-level house in Colorado; for another, his "dissertation" is nowhere near the 250 pages he claimed it was.

Kent Hovind's $250,000 offer is, in the words of Jim Foley, "as bogus as a $3 bill." He has created a challenge that is impossible to fulfill — for instance, one condition is to create the Big Bang in a laboratory. (Huh?) When asked to make the challenge reasonable, or even to specify who will judge if the challenge is met, he just dances around the issue. He clearly has no intention of paying anyone $250,000, yet he can continually bluster that no one will take him up on the challenge. It's a slick ploy, really. See these sites:

• How Good Are Those Young-Earth Arguments?
• The Wild, Wild World of Kent Hovind
• Dr. Dino's "Challenge" is a Fraud?