Is Labeling Evolution as Just a Theory in Textbooks a Reasonable Approach?

[BoomBoom]

I believe God created the Universe using evolution.

What the heck does evolution have to do with creation of the universe??

 

[BTC]

A bacterium is not a calculator.

You cannot use a misguided analogy to arrive at a conclusion that equates biological evolution to human-built computational tools. These devices are not highly prolific, they do not replicate. These devices have no anabolic properties whatsoever. These devices do not have an inherent plasticity in their informational content that is subject to random mutation with subsequent non-random selection.

It would be best to learn about biological evolution by reading about biological evolution rather than constructing flawed analogies to human-built technologies. A bacterium is orders of magnitude more complex than a calculator, and organized in a way that (as of now) eludes full comprehension and understanding. I would agree that life is similar to a machine - but nothing like any machine we can build.

Again you have missed my point! I'm talking about the instinctive behavioral programming of bacteria. I'm NOT comparing physical functions between a calculator and a bacterium. Please read it over again! I'm not going to respond to anymore nonsense. If someone posts a logical rebuttal that is relevant to my theory, then I will respond.

 

[LennoxLewis]

Here's my own theory questioning evolution:

Let's talk about programming (instinctive behavior) in living organisms. According to the theory of evolution, life evolved from simple life forms such as bacteria, and over millions of years through genetic mutations, these simple life forms became more complex.

A bacteria's instinctive behavioral programming can be broken into 3 main functions:
- swimming around (flagella motor propelling the filament)
- finding a host, shedding the necessary filaments prior entry of host, eat the cytoplasm, release proteins, and exit the host.
- leave the host, grow back it's filaments and continue swimming

Let's compare this programming to the programming of a basic calculator:
- Idle (waiting for users inputs)
- adding, subtracting, multiplying, etc...
- clearing inputted data and starting over again

Now let's say we take the programming of this basic calculator and install it to a scientific calculator. The program will not recognize the new functions such as sin, cos, tan, etc... It will only be able to perform what it was pre-programmed to do. But I'm getting ahead of myself here, so let's go back to the basic calculator. Let's say we add a "sin" button/function to it, the program will not recognize the new function and will discard it, and will only be able to perform its original functions. The sin button/function might cause an error in the calculator, causing glitches or the entire function of the calculator to cease . Now we could update the programming of this basic calculator to recognize the new "sin" button/function, but the calculator would not be able to perform this function on its own, it would require a more advanced program/machine to update and improve it's programming. We could add as many buttons and new chips to this basic calculator as we want to improve it, but the calculator will not be able to perform functions outside of what it was pre-programmed to do.

As bacteria multiply and genetics are thrown into the hat, the same problem exists. A bacterium has certain instinctive behavioral programming that is unique to its own survival in nature. The instinctive behavioral programming of a bacterium can become more efficient as its own unique tasks through genetics and adaptation, but will not take on new tasks. If mutations occur, the instinctive behavioral programming may not recognize the new part or it may recognize the new part (if it has functions similar to other parts in the system ) and cause a displacement between the programming, weakening the bacterium in whole or causing it to die.

Saying that humans evolved from bacteria is like saying MS-DOS can turn into Windows Vista, if we update it enough.

Your analogy fails on several levels, but the two most important are:

-Calculators don't reproduce. They don't "evolve". What's the point of an example for evolution when the example doesn't evolve? You don't make an analogy for a car with a non-moving object.
-You can easily implement the sin function by just multiplication, adding and substracting. What did you think, that the sin button works something magic? It's just a big power series.

 

[BoomBoom]

Again you have missed my point! I'm talking about the instinctive behavioral programming of bacteria. I'm NOT comparing physical functions between a calculator and a bacterium. Please read it over again! I'm not going to respond to anymore nonsense. If someone posts a logical rebuttal that is relevant to my theory, then I will respond.

So anytime anyone disagrees with your analogy (which you curiously call a "theory"), you just claim they "missed the point".

The focal point of your rebuttal seems to be that it is an analogy of "the instinctive behavioral programming of bacteria". Doesn't instinctive behavior require a brain? A bacteria doesn't rely on instincts...it's more of a chemical response. Besides that, people keep pointing the most obvious flaw that calculators don't reproduce themselves...I guess we all just "miss your point".

 

[baywax]

So anytime anyone disagrees with your analogy (which you curiously call a "theory"), you just claim they "missed the point".

The focal point of your rebuttal seems to be that it is an analogy of "the instinctive behavioral programming of bacteria". Doesn't instinctive behavior require a brain? A bacteria doesn't rely on instincts...it's more of a chemical response. Besides that, people keep pointing the most obvious flaw that calculators don't reproduce themselves...I guess we all just "miss your point".

Instincts like "survival" do not require a brain.

 

[BoomBoom]

Instincts like "survival" do not require a brain.

I will have to respectfully disagree here. AFAIK only the animal kingdom can exhibit instinctive behavior...which would suggest it does require a brain.

A little sentence from wiki:

True reflexes can be distinguished from instincts by their seat in the nervous system; reflexes are controlled by spinal or other peripheral ganglion, but instincts are the province of the brain.

 

[Evo]

Again you have missed my point! I'm talking about the instinctive behavioral programming of bacteria. I'm NOT comparing physical functions between a calculator and a bacterium. Please read it over again! I'm not going to respond to anymore nonsense. If someone posts a logical rebuttal that is relevant to my theory, then I will respond.

Please do not post about your "theory" on this forum. If it wasn't for the fact that several members took the time to respond to your post, it would have been deleted. Personal "theories" and overly speculative posts are not allowed on this forum.

 

[BTC]

I will have to respectfully disagree here. AFAIK only the animal kingdom can exhibit instinctive behavior...which would suggest it does require a brain.

A little sentence from wiki:

WIKI education is a joke!

If instinctive behavior requires a brain, then please explain how Chondromyces Aurantiacus bacteria can communicate with one another?

 

[baywax]

I will have to respectfully disagree here. AFAIK only the animal kingdom can exhibit instinctive behavior...which would suggest it does require a brain.

A little sentence from wiki:

Respectfully...

A paragraph from a less ambiguous source:

Instinctive behavior can be demonstrated across much of the broad spectrum of animal life, down to bacteria that propel themselves toward beneficial substances, and away from repellent substances. According to Darwin's theory of evolution by natural selection, a favorable trait, such as an instinct, will be selected for through competition and improved survival rate of life forms possessing the instinct. Thus, for evolutionary biology, instincts can be explained in terms of behaviors that favor survival.

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

No brain required!

 

[CRGreathouse]

Here's my own theory questioning evolution:

Let's talk about programming (instinctive behavior) in living organisms. According to the theory of evolution, life evolved from simple life forms such as bacteria, and over millions of years through genetic mutations, these simple life forms became more complex.

[...]

We could add as many buttons and new chips to this basic calculator as we want to improve it, but the calculator will not be able to perform functions outside of what it was pre-programmed to do.

As bacteria multiply and genetics are thrown into the hat, the same problem exists. A bacterium has certain instinctive behavioral programming that is unique to its own survival in nature. The instinctive behavioral programming of a bacterium can become more efficient as its own unique tasks through genetics and adaptation, but will not take on new tasks. If mutations occur, the instinctive behavioral programming may not recognize the new part or it may recognize the new part (if it has functions similar to other parts in the system ) and cause a displacement between the programming, weakening the bacterium in whole or causing it to die.

A bacterium is not a calculator.

You cannot use a misguided analogy to arrive at a conclusion that equates biological evolution to human-built computational tools. These devices are not highly prolific, they do not replicate. These devices have no anabolic properties whatsoever. These devices do not have an inherent plasticity in their informational content that is subject to random mutation with subsequent non-random selection.

It would be best to learn about biological evolution by reading about biological evolution rather than constructing flawed analogies to human-built technologies. A bacterium is orders of magnitude more complex than a calculator, and organized in a way that (as of now) eludes full comprehension and understanding. I would agree that life is similar to a machine - but nothing like any machine we can build.

I read a very interesting piece perhaps 10 years ago about a field-programmable gate array (or something like it) that was 'evolved' to compute a particular function. The gates were set randomly and thousands of inputs were sent. The best few percent were selected at each generation, duplicated, and crossed with each other (with some 'mutations'). At first, the winners were those gates that produced output at all...

After maybe 10,000 generations the function was being approximated fairly closely. The interesting thing was that when the final generation was inspected, the circuit seemed to resist all attempts to change it. Apparently non-operative/disconnected sections were removed, and the circuit failed to function (but worked again when put back). The theory proposed in the article was that the extra draw affected the rest of the circuit. Regardless, the resulting board was extremely fragile: it had been developed in one area at one temperature and humidity, and when moved to others it failed to function properly. (That supported the theory about sensitivity to the precise current and such.)

1. This seems to suggest that a calculator could be 'grown'/'evolved'.
2. Does anyone recognize this? I'd like to read the original! I must be misremembering some parts, and forgetting large parts. I think it was in a pop sci magazine, but I could easily be wrong.

 

[baywax]

I read a very interesting piece perhaps 10 years ago about a field-programmable gate array (or something like it) that was 'evolved' to compute a particular function. The gates were set randomly and thousands of inputs were sent. The best few percent were selected at each generation, duplicated, and crossed with each other (with some 'mutations'). At first, the winners were those gates that produced output at all...

After maybe 10,000 generations the function was being approximated fairly closely. The interesting thing was that when the final generation was inspected, the circuit seemed to resist all attempts to change it. Apparently non-operative/disconnected sections were removed, and the circuit failed to function (but worked again when put back). The theory proposed in the article was that the extra draw affected the rest of the circuit. Regardless, the resulting board was extremely fragile: it had been developed in one area at one temperature and humidity, and when moved to others it failed to function properly. (That supported the theory about sensitivity to the precise current and such.)

1. This seems to suggest that a calculator could be 'grown'/'evolved'.
2. Does anyone recognize this? I'd like to read the original! I must be misremembering some parts, and forgetting large parts. I think it was in a pop sci magazine, but I could easily be wrong.

This is evolution according to the Oxford dictionary. We can call all physical change evolution. The change is usually toward a more complex system. But I would disagree and suggest that the changes which are characteristic of evolution are changes that, as you have pointed out, tend to apply to a higher rate of survival in a system... not necessarily a living system.

We can get sentimental about evolution applying specifically to life forms but, eventually we have to realize that life forms are simply physical systems like a rock, sun or any other system.

 

[BoomBoom]

A paragraph from a less ambiguous source:

Instinctive behavior can be demonstrated across much of the broad spectrum of animal life, down to bacteria that propel themselves toward beneficial substances, and away from repellent substances.

Hmmm well I don't know about the ambiguity of your source (which happens to be an astronomy site), but that quote contradicts itself in the very first sentence...bacteria are not animals, and their movement toward or away for something is chemically induced.


EDIT: Then again, I guess one could make the argument that all behaviors are chemically induced. So I guess I will concede this point. :)

 

[baywax]

Hmmm well I don't know about the ambiguity of your source (which happens to be an astronomy site), but that quote contradicts itself in the very first sentence...bacteria are not animals, and their movement toward or away for something is chemically induced.


EDIT: Then again, I guess one could make the argument that all behaviors are chemically induced. So I guess I will concede this point. :)

Although a planaria worm has a cerebral ganglia and associated ganglia along with its instinctive behaviour, it was the instinctive behaviours of its predecessors that allowed its primitive nervous system to develop... or evolve. And yes, most of this evolution could be attributed to the establishment and survival of specific chemical interactions.

We often mistake the results of a mechanism to be the mechanism itself. You can see that mistake in the idea that evolution results in complexity... when in actual fact it is complexity that results from the survival of a system (by way of its efficient evolution).

 

[mplayer]

Again you have missed my point! I'm talking about the instinctive behavioral programming of bacteria. I'm NOT comparing physical functions between a calculator and a bacterium. Please read it over again! I'm not going to respond to anymore nonsense. If someone posts a logical rebuttal that is relevant to my theory, then I will respond.

You seem to assume that the 'instinctive behavioral programming' in your bacterium is static. It is subject to mutation and selection just like any other trait. Then you mention that it may be subject to mutation, and then conclude that it will always weaken the organism or terminate it completely. This is close to the truth, but you are missing one crucial point. Out of millions or billions of neutral or harmful mutations, there will inevitably be one that enhances function. This trait will in short order diffuse within a population. Successive enhancements of function may appear as distinctively new functions over time. Apparent distinctive functions may also result from novel application of preexisting structures/behaviors. If you are arguing that all organisms were created in their present state and cannot give rise to radically different forms over time, and are calling this a theory, you may need to discard your pop-culture notion of what a theory is. A theory is not a guess. A theory is not a crappy analogy either. Not responding to posts that highlight blatant errors in your reasoning is equivalent to putting your hands over your ears and saying "lalalala I'm not listening!" What you have is an assertion that is not only based on no evidence, it is contrary to large amounts of evidence. What you have is a belief, and your behavior reflects an unquestioning adherence to it that cannot be persuaded by factual information or reason.

 

[mplayer]

Please provide examples of mutations that have changed and benefited a species of bacteria? And don't give me the peach try dish example. Also I was not ignoring your reply; it just wasn't relative rebuttal to my initial post.

I'm not sure what a peach try dish example is but one example that initially comes to mind is bacterial resistance to a variety of antibiotics. This arises from non-directed mutation. The only mutations that accumulate over time are the mutations that allow the bacterium to respond favorably to environmental stress.

See: Luria-Delbrück experiment, 1943

Short list of antibiotic resistant strains:
Enterococcus faecium
Escherichia coli
Mycobacterium tuberculosis
Staphylococcus aureus
Streptococcus pneumoniae
Streptococcus pyogenes

Not surprisingly, many of these mutated varieties show up regularly in hospitals, which is an environment that strongly favors amplification of acquired antibiotic resistant genetic traits.


One of my favorite, and more extreme, examples are the radiation resistant bacteria.

Deinococcus radiodurans - originally isolated from canned meat that was thought to be sterilized by gamma radiation. The DOE funded the project that sequenced its http://cmr.jcvi.org/tigr-scripts/CMR/GenomePage.cgi?database=gdr".

D. radiodurans possesses unique mechanisms for dealing with ionizing radiation-induced DNA damage. Clearly, the collection of repair proteins identified in D. radiodurans, in and of itself, is not sufficient to confer radioresistance. If it were, E. coli would be as radioresistant. D. radiodurans must encode novel DNA repair proteins or, alternatively, it must use the DNA repair proteins it encodes much more efficiently than more radiosensitive prokaryotes. Either possibility suggests that there are unprecedented mechanisms facilitating this species recovery following exposure to ionizing radiation.

Emphasis mine. Source and more information http://www.biology.lsu.edu/webfac/jbattista/purpose/index.html" .

Another interesting example of these extremeophiles is a particular strain of bacteria in genus Pseudomona. A radiation-resistant strain of this variety was discovered growing in a nuclear reactor at Los Alamos National Laboratory in 1958. Here's a http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,894282,00.html?promoid=googlep" to an article in Time about it. Neat stuff.

Here's another example of Escherichia coli acquiring a change that benefited its population.

Twenty years ago, evolutionary biologist Richard Lenski of Michigan State University in East Lansing, US, took a single Escherichia coli bacterium and used its descendants to found 12 laboratory populations. The 12 have been growing ever since, gradually accumulating mutations and evolving for more than 44,000 generations, while Lenski watches what happens. Mostly, the patterns Lenski saw were similar in each separate population. All 12 evolved larger cells, for example, as well as faster growth rates on the glucose they were fed, and lower peak population densities.

But sometime around the 31,500th generation, something dramatic happened in just one of the populations - the bacteria suddenly acquired the ability to metabolise citrate, a second nutrient in their culture medium that E. coli normally cannot use.

Indeed, the inability to use citrate is one of the traits by which bacteriologists distinguish E. coli from other species. The citrate-using mutants increased in population size and diversity.

"It's the most profound change we have seen during the experiment. This was clearly something quite different for them, and it's outside what was normally considered the bounds of E. coli as a species, which makes it especially interesting," says Lenski.

The article goes on to address the specifics of the acquired mutation:

That meant the "citrate-plus" trait must have been something special - either it was a single mutation of an unusually improbable sort, a rare chromosome inversion, say, or else gaining the ability to use citrate required the accumulation of several mutations in sequence.

To find out which, Lenski turned to his freezer, where he had saved samples of each population every 500 generations.
[...]
The replays showed that even when he looked at trillions of cells, only the original population re-evolved Cit+ - and only when he started the replay from generation 20,000 or greater. Something, he concluded, must have happened around generation 20,000 that laid the groundwork for Cit+ to later evolve.

Lenski and his colleagues are now working to identify just what that earlier change was, and how it made the Cit+ mutation possible more than 10,000 generations later.
[...]
Lenski's experiment is also yet another poke in the eye for anti-evolutionists, notes Jerry Coyne, an evolutionary biologist at the University of Chicago. "The thing I like most is it says you can get these complex traits evolving by a combination of unlikely events," he says.

Read the whole article http://www.newscientist.com/article/dn14094-bacteria-make-major-evolutionary-shift-in-the-lab.html" if you like.

 

[nottheone]

How about a bacteria that changed to live in holes in the skin in one of the few creatures that have these holes and feed on secretions in those holes?

Spoiler

I am talking about people, pores and acne for one

 

[siddharth]

I read a very interesting piece perhaps 10 years ago about a field-programmable gate array (or something like it) that was 'evolved' to compute a particular function. The gates were set randomly and thousands of inputs were sent. The best few percent were selected at each generation, duplicated, and crossed with each other (with some 'mutations'). At first, the winners were those gates that produced output at all...

After maybe 10,000 generations the function was being approximated fairly closely. The interesting thing was that when the final generation was inspected, the circuit seemed to resist all attempts to change it. Apparently non-operative/disconnected sections were removed, and the circuit failed to function (but worked again when put back). The theory proposed in the article was that the extra draw affected the rest of the circuit. Regardless, the resulting board was extremely fragile: it had been developed in one area at one temperature and humidity, and when moved to others it failed to function properly. (That supported the theory about sensitivity to the precise current and such.)

1. This seems to suggest that a calculator could be 'grown'/'evolved'.
2. Does anyone recognize this? I'd like to read the original! I must be misremembering some parts, and forgetting large parts. I think it was in a pop sci magazine, but I could easily be wrong.

I remember reading something where a circuit was evolved using FPGA's to distinguish between two signals of distinct frequencies, and the result was similar to what you described.

Is it this article?

http://www.cogs.susx.ac.uk/users/adrianth/cacm99/paper.html

 

[Karl G.]

Of course, while reading Ann Coulter's "Godless", a book which the sum of human ignorance, she goes across her "evolution is just a theory" argument, and even has the audacity to compare it to GR, which she says has been proved. Ironically, the theory of evolution has much more evidence supporting than GR, in my opinion (I would like to but won't go into minutia). The word 'theory' has a radically diff'nt connottion in the scientific world than it does in laymen terms. A good book to read would be Richard Dawkin's "The God Delusion" for a thorough refutation of all anti-evolutionist claims.

 

[mgb_phys]

That's why many of us object to Washington forcing regulations about safety rails and safety harnesses.
All scientists reject the Newton 'THEORY' of gravity that these regulations are based on, they also violate scripture by claiming that the Earth moves (ridiculous!) .
It should be upto individual states to decide if an object will fall when dropped.

 

[kashiark]

i unfortunately live in mississippi and although every1 here is radically conservative and every1 that's not a "christian" (a christian that doesn't read or follow the bible and drinks and smokes pot on a regular basis) is ridiculed, I've never seen one of these stickers

 

[Evo]

I'm not sure what a peach try dish example is.

He meant petri dish.

 

[vivesdn]

Let's say in this way: evolution is a fact, it was already a fact before Darwin.
Natural selection is a fact. The original idea is from Malthus and both Darwin and Wallace had read it. What was new, what is a theory (with lots of evidence) is that small changes will develop in new species thanks to natural selection. We know now that new species do not need thousands of years to develop, as new species have apeared just in decades (birds, snails or bacteria), so today we can see the efect of natural selection on evolution to discover or get in the lab new species.

 

[turbo]

I'm not sure what a peach try dish example is...

It's spelled "peach-tree". Let's get with the program!

 

[Focus]

I don't understand why there is so much "debate" about evolution. If any of the creationists think they have a valid point why don't they submit papers to peer review journals instead of trying to convince people who are not scientists (who are more easily fooled when you present them with the so called "facts").

I am sure if you have a valid claim against evolution then you probably will get the next Nobel prize in Biology.

 

[baywax]

If any of the creationists think they have a valid point why don't they submit papers to peer review journals instead of trying to convince people who are not scientists (who are more easily fooled when you present them with the so called "facts").

You mean submit papers to the peer-reviewed journals "the watchtower" or "Gideon's publishing company"?

 

[Ivan Seeking]

The creationists make the same objections made by the anti-AGW crowd: They claim that they can't get their papers published; that there is an unfair bias.

Birds of a feather?

 

[Focus]

The creationists make the same objections made by the anti-AGW crowd: They claim that they can't get their papers published.

Birds of a feather?

What exactly is AGW? Pardon my ignorance.

 

[Ivan Seeking]

What exactly is AGW? Pardon my ignorance.

Anthropogenic [caused by humans] Global Warming

 

[vivesdn]

There's by far more evidence for evolution by natural selection that for AGW. And again, the fact that it is difficult to prove the antropogenic origin of climate change does not imply, or should not imply, that climate is not changing. Basically because it IS changing, in the same way that species evolve.

 

[Gnahtte]

Evolution is only a theory, if even that. It may be better named a hypothesis since still there is no evidence that proves it true.
The number of people believing something does not prove it true.
Therefore, I think it a wise idea to show kids in school that evolution is still just a hypothesis desperately trying to be proven true by scientists all over the world.

 

[WaveJumper]

Evolution is only a theory, if even that. It may be better named a hypothesis since still there is no evidence that proves it true.
The number of people believing something does not prove it true.
Therefore, I think it a wise idea to show kids in school that evolution is still just a hypothesis desperately trying to be proven true by scientists all over the world.

My pekingese is a good indication of the evolution through DNA mutation, if not a total proof thereof. Have you thought why anthropologists don't find 10 000 years pekingese bones?

 

[vivesdn]

Gravity is only a theory, relativity is only a theory. Tomorrow the sun will rise is only a theory as God could decide to move the Earth to another place.
But you take for granted that objects will fall, that Earth will continue to orbit around a sun that will continue its nuclear fusion of hydrogen, and we will continue to receive its warmth light after 8 minutes of space travel.
Not a single of these facts are proved. It is just that there is such an ocean of evidence that match current theories... But if one day it happens that objects do not fall, we will have to rethink the theory of gravity. An this does not mean that Gravity is not taught today as valid.

 

[hokie1]

Gnahtte, it appears you don't understand what scientists mean by theory. I recommend that you look it up. It does not mean what you think it does. You are quite correct in the numbers game. But, the problem is that your 'therefore' does not logically follow.

Evolution is a fact. There are theories to explain the fact. These theories are based on overwhelming amounts of evidence from diverse fields to explain the fact of evolution. Notice that I say theories. Just because there are different points of view in science that do not agree, does not make the fact of evolution any less true.

 

[Gnahtte]

"Gravity is only a theory, relativity is only a theory. Tomorrow the sun will rise is only a theory... "
These are undisputed scientific facts. We can Observe, Experiment, Hypothesize, and Repeat the experiment.
These are Scientific facts; whereas with evolution, we cannot even attempt to repeat the processes about which many people have theorized.

"Not a single of these facts are proved."
I am puzzled by this comment...

"Just because there are different points of view in science that do not agree, does not make the fact of evolution any less true. "
If I am understanding your point of view, you mean that since there is a "verifiable" fact (evolution) that it does not matter how scientists think it happened as long as it happened.
Example: People reasoning as to how a certain building came to be built. No matter how they theorize its history the building still is there.

This is strong reasoning *if* evolution is true.

But there is still not a shred of sound evidence and people that believe in evolution are ultimately believing by faith for it is unprovable.

 

[JaredJames]

Please read this link for clarification on what a Theory, Law and Hypothesis are.
http://chemistry.about.com/od/chemistry101/a/lawtheory.htm

You seem to be confusing theory with hyposthesis. Until you can grasp what a theory actually is, and what it takes for something to be considered a theory, not an hypothesis, you cannot hope to put a valid argument across. Especially when you dispute the Theory of Gravity, which you are arguing about as if it is an hypothesis, whereas what is shown in the link above explains why it is not hypothesis and is a theory (our version not yours).