Friday, April 9, 2010

A Sound of Thunder: Another Fundamental Failure

One of the most fundamental premises of evolutionary theory is that the evolutionary process is indeterminate. The species arose via a process which did not have them in mind. This is because, from mutations to comet strikes, evolution depends on sporadic, unguided events that know nothing of making species. Evolution is contingent on random events and does not know where it is going—there is no teleology.

The cicada sings its song, the blue whale sprays a shower from its blowhole, the rattlesnake strikes at lightning speed, a dandelion turns toward the sun. These and all the other species just happened to arise. The designs were fortuitous for reproduction, but they were accidental.

Prediction

Given the contingent nature of the evolutionary process, the theory predicts that what it produces is rather unpredictable. Unlike physics with its laws and predicted trajectories, the evolutionary process is more of a random walk. The biological design space is enormous and evolution traces circuitous veins through it, no more predictable than a the path of a bolt of lightning.

The prediction then is that evolution is unpredictable. We can observe what evolution produces but can hardly predict what it will produce. Theodosius Dobzhansky put it this way: “The evolution of every phyletic line yields a novelty that never existed before and is a unique, unrepeatable, and irreversible proceeding.” Likewise Ernst Mayr wrote that “Laws and experiments are inappropriate techniques” for explaining evolutionary events and processes.

Stephen Jay Gould explained that if evolution were replayed again it would go down a radically different pathway. It is a central tenet of neo Darwinism, explains Simon Conway Morris, that evolution is open-ended and indeterminate in terms of predictable outcomes.

Similarly Ken Miller wrote that chance “plays an undeniable role in history ... The twentieth century could easily have been very different—the next century more different still.”

Perhaps he read Ray Bradbury’s 1952 short story “A Sound of Thunder” which illustrated this evolutionary view. The story takes place in the mid twenty first century when time travel has not only become possible, it is rather mundane. Eckels, a cowardly but curious safari hunter, signs up to go on a safari back in time but doesn’t respect the hazards of time travel.

The safari company has carefully selected dinosaur targets for the hunt. The dinosaur must be one which is about to die from some natural cause such as drowning in a tar pit. They may kill the beast a moment before its death but otherwise they must leave the scene untouched. They use an anti-gravity metal path to walk about without touching the ground and they even recover the bullets after the kill.

But these precautions are lost on Eckels. Travis, the safari guide must explain to him the fragility of the future:

“A Time Machine is finicky business. Not knowing it, we might kill an important animal, a small bird, a roach, a flower even, thus destroying an important link in a growing species.”

“That’s not clear,” said Eckels.

“All right,” Travis continued, “say we accidentally kill one mouse here. That means all the future families of this one particular mouse are destroyed, right?”

“Right”

“And all the families of the families of the families of that one mouse! With a stamp of your foot, you annihilate first one, then a dozen, then a thousand, a million, a billion possible mice!”

“So they’re dead,” said Eckels. “So what?”

“So what?” Travis snorted quietly. “Well, what about the foxes that’ll need those mice to survive? For want of ten mice, a fox dies. For want of ten foxes a lion starves. For want of a lion, all manner of insects, vultures, infinite billions of life forms are thrown into chaos and destruction. Eventually it all boils down to this: fifty-nine million years later, a caveman, one of a dozen on the entire world, goes hunting wild boar or saber-toothed tiger for food. But you, friend, have stepped on all the tigers in that region. By stepping on one single mouse. So the caveman starves. And the caveman, please note, is not just any expendable man, no! He is an entire future nation. From his loins would have sprung ten sons. From their loins one hundred sons, and thus onward to a civilization. Destroy this one man, and you destroy a race, a people, an entire history of life. It is comparable to slaying some of Adam’s grandchildren. The stomp of your foot, on one mouse, could start an earthquake, the effects of which could shake our earth and destinies down through Time, to their very foundations. With the death of that one caveman, a billion others yet unborn are throttled in the womb. Perhaps Rome never rises on its seven hills. Perhaps Europe is forever a dark forest, and only Asia waxes healthy and teeming. Step on a mouse and you crush the Pyramids. Step on a mouse and you leave your print, like a Grand Canyon, across Eternity. Queen Elizabeth might never be born, Washington might not cross the Delaware, there might never be a United States at all. So be careful. Stay on the Path. Never step off!”

But when Eckels sees the towering dinosaur up close he panics. “It could reach up and grab the moon,” exclaims the overwhelmed Eckels when he first sees the beast. The immense and terrifying dinosaur is too much for him and he must retreat to the safety of the time machine. But in his fright Eckels slips off the path and onto the ground. What has he done to the future?

The safari guides are livid. One wants to leave Eckels there in the past, but of course that would risk even greater changes to the future. They take Eckels back to the 21st century with them, only to discover a dead butterfly in the mud on Eckels's boot and along with it a different world.

Eckels killed the butterfly and altered the future. Bradbury’s tale captures the evolutionary view of natural history as a contingent process. As Miller put it, “The twentieth century could easily have been very different—the next century more different still”

Falsification

The expectation that evolution is a contingent, unrepeatable, unpredictable, indeterminate process has been falsified by the many examples of repeated designs found in otherwise unrelated branches of life. Such repeated designs are not merely occasional. They are not the anomalous exceptions to the rule. Rather biology presents a seemingly unending stream of such repeated designs. They range from molecules to social systems and cognitive processes.

Such similarity, referred to as homoplasy, reveals not a random walk but consistent trends in life’s designs. As Conway Morris suggests, this prediction that evolution is open-ended and indeterminate is “now open to question.” Here is one example:

Consider, for example, the seemingly arcane area of frog ecomorphs. As befits an evolutionary laboratory, the frogs of Madagascar show a series of adaptive radiations, with the occupation of habitats as diverse as burrowing, as well as dwelling in trees, rocks and torrential streams. These ecomorphs find a series of striking convergences with the frogs of Asia (principally India), and so too in this latter region there are further episodes of parallel evolution (e.g., independent development of fangs). The comparisons between Madagascan and Asian frogs are all the more striking because they extend to the larval forms, but there is one striking omission. Thus, in Asia there is no counterpart to the iconic poisonous mantellids. So, the principle of the repeatability of evolution fails at the first hurdle? Not quite, because the mantellids display a series of striking convergences with the neotropical dendrobatids.

Homoplasy is ubiquitous in biology and Conway Morris has documented many examples in his book Life’s Solution.

Reaction

While some evolutionists realize that the massive homoplasy observed in biology requires a rethinking of their theory, many simply ascribe homoplasy as a consequence of similar environmental pressures. Unfortunately this simple explanation does not help as it, itself, invokes the non evolutionary concept of environmental pressures inducing biological change. Also, homoplasy is not necessarily correlated with the environment.

To convert the explanation to an evolutionary one we must say that random biological changes just happened to converge to similar designs in distant lineages, over and over and over. Regardless of how evolution’s repeatability is explained, it falsifies a fundamental prediction of evolution.

16 comments:

  1. "the non evolutionary concept of environmental pressures inducing biological change"

    Huh? Isn't environmental pressure the basis of natural selection??

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  2. What I would like to know is what role did random mutations play in obtaining a chihuahua from a wolf? Apparently none. Selection without mutation can produce extreme evolution, natural or not. The genetic material in the chihuahua has been in the canine species from the beginning. A lot of what is passed as proof of Darwinian evolution is bogus.

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  3. Savain: "The genetic material in the chihuahua has been in the canine species from the beginning" Got any proof for this huge statement?

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  4. Canines have always been canines.
    The evolutionary barrier appears to be at the taxonomic family level (or very near). Variations occur abundantly but never outside the original family.

    There is no evidence, anywhere, that any taxonomic family has ever evolved into another very different family.

    The chihuahua? It is still a dog.

    Deliberate breeding of dogs by humans over many thousands of years tells us the above in no uncertain terms.

    You will never get anything but a dog from a dog. You may, as we have through selective breeding, get all sorts of sizes and shapes - but they will always be dogs and not bats or cows.
    Every attempt at inter-family breeding results in deformities, sterile singularities or nothing at all.

    Yet we're supposed to believe that mindless nature, without trying and by mere mutations (bugs in DNA code) + selection has created, from some unknown and unknowable yet perfectly fit LUCA, all estimated 13 million plus species on earth!

    Amazing credulity is required to swallow such inane codswallop.

    It looks designed because it is. This is far more scientifically credible and logical than the Darwinian fairy tales.

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  5. Louis-

    "What I would like to know is what role did random mutations play in obtaining a chihuahua from a wolf? Apparently none."
    Actually, the precise opposite is true.

    Small dogs have a mutation in IGF-1. Less growth factor, less growth. These, and other changes are revealed by comparative genomics. And we keep getting told mutations don't do anything. Curious.

    http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info:doi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1000310

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/short/316/5821/112

    As for the post, the "non evolutionary concept of environmental pressures inducing biological change" is where this all hinges. Selection is now not part of natural selection? Are you surprised populations adapt in similar ways under similar environmental pressure? (Convergent evolution much)? This is why homoplasy, in related populations, makes a strong argument for common descent. Similar genome, similar developmental processes, under pressure, yield similar results. More elegantly stated here:
    doi:10.1016/j.jhevol.2006.11.010

    Conway's proposal that evolution might be predictable is interesting, but I can't wrap my head around how you think it disproves evolution. Like him, Rainey and others have seen constraints on evolution-such that under pressure, certain traits inevitably evolve, but only taking a few paths. But no magic, no design. This is just the added selection of making evolution work at a systems level.

    http://evolution.massey.ac.nz/rainey/phenotypic_diversity.shtml


    I suppose then, that the real question for you design types is whether the tape replays itself on the molecular level. After all, Conway isn't suggesting ID* or front-loading, merely the predictably of (emergent?) systems processes under related pressure. (Unless ID/Creationism decides the designer only intends outcomes, but doesn't care about paths. This basically is theistic evolution then, no?)

    For the frogs, I'd be curious if these populations really evolved the same way at the genomic level, or whether their phenotypes just look similar.

    In any case, random mutations (duplications, rearrangements, bacterial hedging) create genetic diversity, which when subjected to similar environmental conditions produce phenotypically similar results.

    Not terribly heretical.

    *"misappropriation by the proponents of the scientific fiction referred to as ‘intelligent design"
    http://rstb.royalsocietypublishing.org/content/365/1537/133.full

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  6. Robert:

    "but I can't wrap my head around how you think it disproves evolution"

    What I can't wrap my head around is why you think that I think it disproves evolution. Did I write that? No. Have I say that somewhere else? No. Did I say that about some other falsified prediction? No.

    Why is it that evolutionists consistently make false attributions?

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  7. Robert, "the predictably of (emergent?) systems processes under related pressure" is a departure from strict physicalism when it concerns the consciousness of living things.

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  8. Cornelius,

    You stated:

    "Regardless of how evolution’s repeatability is explained, it falsifies a fundamental prediction of evolution."

    Maybe instead of "but I can't wrap my head around how you think it disproves evolution" should have said "but I can't wrap my head around how you think it disproves a fundamental prediction of evolution"

    Sorry if these two statements are on opposite sides of an undefined line in the sand, but with your lack of advocacy, your readers might be left with little to guide them away from such misunderstandings.

    Frank,

    It is a departure from reductionism. I do not consider consciousness of living things to be part of this discussion. I'm not arguing they consciously adapt-merely that the constraints at a systems level force common solutions to common problems.

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  9. Robert wrote:

    Small dogs have a mutation in IGF-1. Less growth factor, less growth. These, and other changes are revealed by comparative genomics. And we keep getting told mutations don't do anything. Curious.

    I disagree, of course. The key word here is random. Think about it. A mutation in IGF-1 is not a *random* mutation. Why? Because a determined and patient animal breeder can repeat the breeding of chihuahuas from wolves over and over without difficulty. So it is obvious that variations in the IGF-1 gene is not random. The IGF-1 gene is certainly pre-programmed to vary from one canine specimen to the next, as is also the case in human beings. This is probably true of many genes. The breeder simply exploits this natural variability. Most genes will remain the same, however, for millions of years. Some organisms don't change at all for tens of millions of years.

    If mutations were truly random across the board, as Darwinists insist, you would see a lot more variations in every other genes and you would be able to turn a wolf into an egg-laying, venomous, cold-blooded, winged and feathered marsupial using selective breeding alone. I can tell you that it's not going to happen.

    Furthermore, it is not far-fetched to suppose that given enough generations, one can obtain wolves from chihuahuas by exploiting the variability in those genes that are designed from the beginning to vary.

    In fact, I remember reading a recent story about someone in Russia succeeding in breeding very tame foxes that acted more like domesticated dogs. When the tame foxes are placed back in the wild, they revert back to being wild after a few generations.

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  10. Robert:

    ====
    Maybe instead of "but I can't wrap my head around how you think it disproves evolution" should have said "but I can't wrap my head around how you think it disproves a fundamental prediction of evolution"
    ====


    The state of denial of evolutionists is amazing. That this disproves a fundamental prediction of evolution is not even controversial. The predictions were made, and the evidence indicates otherwise. Only by creative reinterpretation of the obvious evidence can evolutionists maintain their denial.

    ====
    Sorry if these two statements are on opposite sides of an undefined line in the sand
    ====

    Undefined line? Robert, what you are doing here is typical of evolutionists. Evolution may not be predictable, but evolutionists are quite predictable. When one points out the scientific failures of evolution, evolutionists seem to respond, over and over, with the same strawman arguments.

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  11. I understand that yuo can mate different breeds of dogs together, including a chihuaha and a great dane if you can manage the mechanics, and after few genrations you get a dog that looks like a coyote. Unless I am mistaken this is the origin of pariah dogs, dingoes, Canaan dogs, etc, feral dogs that live near human settlements and interbreed.

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  12. Cornelius:

    "What I can't wrap my head around is why you think that I think it disproves evolution. Did I write that? No. Have I say that somewhere else? No. Did I say that about some other falsified prediction? No.

    Why is it that evolutionists consistently make false attributions?"

    Because when you're advocating the suppression of dissent of opinion on non-testable hypotheses (as most ID opponents do), you need to give the impression you actually know what you're talking about.

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  13. Cornelius: ""the non evolutionary concept of environmental pressures inducing biological change"

    My response is the same as Uno above, which is basically "huh"? Like others I thought environmental pressure was a standard and accepted part of evolutionary theory. So this is a very surprising stateemnt.

    But looks like Cornelius has moved on to new posts (his strategy appears to be that if you throw enough stuff at the wall, maybe some of it will stick) - so is unlikely to answer this. But maybe he'll surprise us.

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  14. Timcol62:

    =====
    Cornelius: ""the non evolutionary concept of environmental pressures inducing biological change"

    My response is the same as Uno above, which is basically "huh"? Like others I thought environmental pressure was a standard and accepted part of evolutionary theory. So this is a very surprising stateemnt.
    =====


    No, this is not part of evolutionary theory. Please see:


    http://www.darwinspredictions.com/#_5.2_Biological_variation

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  15. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  16. Cornelius: "No, this is not part of evolutionary theory. Please see..."

    It would be more convincing if you provided an external source rather than your own assertions. In other words, who also shares your assertion?

    Besides, it is surprisingly easy to find papers that contradict your assertion, e.g.,

    http://www.sciencemag.org/cgi/content/abstract/323/5919/1347

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