Posts from — September 2009

Here’s the review of Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True that I posted on goodreads.com when I finished the book:

I’d give it 2.5 stars if I could. Seeing how I think he’s wrong, though, I’ll downgrade rather than upgrade. [I gave it two stars]

I probably agree with 70% of what’s in the book, which may be surprising, me being a creationist. I’m not going to try to untangle all the mixtures of agreement and disagreement.. but its interesting that I definitely am fully onboard with over half of the book, but still disagree with the major premise; that evolution is true.

Coyne succeeds in presenting a case for neo-darwinian evolution. By which I mean, he successfully explains observations in light of modern evolutionary theory. He paints a fairly complete systematic understanding of the history of life. I recommend the book to everyone for this reason. E.O. Wilson is correct when he writes in the blurb on the back that this is a “clear, well-written explanation of evolution.”

Unfortunately, he doesn’t begin to explain the serious difficulties of darwinism (he outright denies the existence of such problems!). That’s a major drawback of the book… it presents it more as a defensive boast rather than a scientific and critical examination of evidence.

A further detriment is the apparently intentional strawman portrayal of creationists. There is an endnote on page 33 that explains the creationist position as allowing for microevolutionary change within biblical ‘kinds’. But this is the only place in the book creationists are treated this honestly. Everywhere else ‘special creation’ is caricatured as a special creation event for each and every species of organism. It is dishonest and, once again, takes away from the argument of the book.

The final failure of the book I will mention is the last chapter, where Coyne attempts to deal with philosophical and metaphysical implications of evolution. It is a sad attempt… while he should be praised for recognizing the need to deal with these issues, he should have stopped when he honestly stated the case: “How can you derive meaning, purpose, or ethics from evolution? You can’t.” (p225)

Here are the two posts I made while reading the book:
Evolution/Creation/Intelligent Design
millions of years of change

continuing through Jerry Coyne’s Why Evolution Is True, and i have another comment. There have been plenty of times I would say something if I were writing a full critique of the book, but those are usually too small or too big for my intents on my blog. But this morning I came across a passage that hits the sweet spot.

Chapter two is about the fossil record, and starts in earnest by noting the ‘big patterns’. He discusses how huge the time frames we’re dealing with are, and quickly gives an overview of the forms of life as they appear in the fossil record. Humans are the new comers, he says, with our lineage branching off from that of other primates about 7 million years ago. If the history of life on earth were a year, he writes, then bacteria would appear the beginning of March, and the first human ancestors would arrive around 6am on the 31st of December (p.28).

So the last common ancestor between humans and other primates that presently share the earth with us was 7 million years ago. That means all the changes that have occurred have been within 7 million years.

The next few sections are fossilized evolution and speciation and transitional forms. He uses several examples to show how the fossils have evolved over time. To do this, they remove a core sample of the seafloor (nearly all of these samples are marine organisms), and then it can be dated from bottom to top, and all the specimens within the sample can be examined, etc. Here are the examples given in the book:

a species of foraminiferan, Globorotalia conoidea. they looked at the number of chambers in the final whorl of the shell. Over the course of 8 million years it changed from an average of 4.8 chambers to 3.3.

a radiolarian, Pseuodcubus vema. The trait examined in this sample was the width of the animals cylindrical base. In a 2 million year period, the mean thoracic width changed from about 90 microns to somewhere around 139 microns.

various lineages of trilobites were examined from a sample that spanned about 3 million years. All of these showed evolutionary change in the number of segments in the last body section +/- 2 or 3 ribs. The point here is that the different lineages changed different amounts, at different rates, and even in different directions (some got more while others got less in the same sections of the sample).

The next and last specific example given is two species of radiolaria, Eucyrtidium calvertense and E. matuyamai, which separated from a common ancestor. This time the time frame examined was 3.5 million years, and the anatomical structure was the width of the fourth segment. The size at the start of the column (the bottom, the oldest layers) was about 93 microns. At the youngest layers, E calvertense is around 80 microns and E matuyamai is about 120 microns. So somewhere there was a split and one got smaller while the other got bigger.

Coyne says there are hundreds of other examples of evolutionary change in fossils, including not only marine specimens but also terrestrial organisms such as rodents and primates. Some of these change fast, others barely change at all, he says. But, clearly, he chose the examples he did for a reason: as evidence of his point; that organisms change over geological time.

Did you notice anything about those examples he gave? 8 million years to change the chambers in a whorl of a shell. 2 million years to change 50 microns in size. 3 million years to change the number of ribs by two or three. 3.5 million years to change an average of 20 microns in size.

Humans are supposed to have evolved from our shared ancestor with other primates 7 million years ago, but in 8 million years of documented change, all we see is 1.5 less chambers in the last whorl of a shell. Sure, he said some organisms evolve faster and others slower, but this seems a bit extreme. What’s more, the changes in the examples he gives are barely noticeable, and always leave the form as it was. These changes are all working with existing genetic information. There is nothing even close to novel genetic code, which is necessary for macroevolutionary changes in body plans and categories of organisms (amphibians, reptiles, birds, mammals, etc.).

It is alleged that reptiles evolved from amphibians over 50 million years. Granted, that’s much more time than any of the examples given, but also consider the massive changes that would need to occur in this time frame. if we’re talking about microns of difference (a micron is one millionth of a meter. Take one millimeter (~0.04 inches), and divide that a thousand times… that’s a micron) in a preexisting phenotype over 2-3 (or 8 ) million years, is it reasonable to expect that the creation of brand new phenotypes (something that has not even been shown possible) along with the drastic changes that must occur to them in 50 million years? Yes, count me as incredibly skeptical.

The evidence presented by Coyne is unconvincing that there has been enough time needed for macroevolution to occur, and also that the types of changes necessary could occur in the way darwinian evolution theorizes.

The innovative and always fun band They Might Be Giants has a new album releasing next Tuesday. It is geared towards children, similar to their recent albums Here Come the ABCs and Here Come the 123s. This one, though, is about SCIENCE. It’s called… predictably… Here Comes Science. Being a science nerd kind of guy and loving their other albums I have (which includes a few non-kids music records), I preordered it. I just heard for the first time one of the songs on the album, Science Is Real. It’s as catchy as I expected, but also more disturbing. Here are the lyrics:

Science is real
From the Big Bang to DNA
Science is real
From evolution to the Milky Way
I like the stories
About angels, unicorns and elves
Now I like the stories
As much as anybody else
But when I’m seeking knowledge
Either simple or abstract
The facts are with science
The facts are with science

Science is real
Science is real
Science is real

Science is real
From anatomy to geology
Science is real from astrophysics to biology
A scientific theory
Isn’t just a hunch or guess
It’s more like a question
That’s been put through a lot of tests
And when a theory emerges
Consistent with the facts
The proof is with science
The truth is with science

Science is real
Science is real
Science is real

Science is real

Now, I suspected (to put it lightly) the album would talk about evolution and billions of years and other Scientific types of things that I don’t agree with… but I wasn’t too concerned with that. I’m not afraid of exposing my kids to evolutionary thinking even though I disagree with it. I have them watch nature documentaries pretty regularly, and have even had real, actual conversations about evolution with them. It’s not even that I completely disagree with everything under the umbrella of evolutionary biology, which seems to be hard to understand for even the experts (like Jerry Coyne), who either don’t understand or refuse to accept that I actually believe what I do. But that’s another story. The point, again, is that I wasn’t worried about the scientific sorts of things on this new album that are not in line with my own thoughts and beliefs.

However, it seems to me that this so goes far beyond just the ‘scientific’ sorts of things. What is the implication of the repeated lines, “science is real” and “the truth is with science”?

Science is real, so what is that opposed to? A few things are made explicit in the song, and cheif among them is angels. Angels aren’t real? Well, where’s the scientific evidence of that? And what’s this about only using science when you’re seeking knowledge? Huh? Logic? Philosophy? Anything that is abstract is now ruled as incapable of producing knowledge?

I’m bothered by how far this song is going. It’s much further than science can ever go, which just goes to show you that there’s a worldview behind every idea, guiding and directing it.