No Death Before the Fall?

[mfbukowski]

20 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

I'm honestly not sure what to say. If you are just asking what one reading is, then of course that is a reading. If you are asking if that's the only reading, clearly it is not. If you are asking if that reading can be defended, I think it hard. Overall I'm not ultimately sure what your point is.

It's certainly reasonable for someone not familiar with figurative language or the various styles of literature. To say "we're just changing the meaning to fit into the narrative you want" though suggests a strong unfamiliarity with literary interpretation. Honestly I can't quite tell how sincere you are in that. Normally these sorts of things are taught in high school English classes and certainly are in college. It sounds though like you are sincerely unfamiliar with different literary styles. Honestly, if that's true, there's not much left to say since that's just not the sort of thing I can teach in a couple of comments. I can at best suggest getting some good books on literary interpretation and different works in different styles of literature. Once you've done that I'd pick up a few books on apocalyptic literature since Revelation isn't the only work in that style of literature. It's very well studied and there are very good reasons based upon the ancient genre of what people don't interpret the years as just a normal year.

Beyond that there's not much to say since all you're really saying is that "literalism" is the only way to read texts. That's demonstrably false but again I can't convince you of much until you become familiar with other styles of writing.

Exactly!!

And that does not even touch the idea of the infallibility of prophets which he is presuming we believe.

We don't.

The whole purpose for personal revelation is to enable us to figure out for ourselves if someone is or is not a prophet or if certain statements are prophetic or not.

One could not even convert to the church without understanding that one requirement is Moroni 10: 4-5- that we get our own testimonies.  How could someone simply convert because because they were told to ?   That is what lifetime members sometimes do not understand- they grew up in blind obedience and think everyone else did as well.

Without personal revelation there is no reason to even think that Joseph was a prophet- and his word is no better than anyone setting themselves up as prophets.

You don't accept prophets because THEY say they are prophets- you accept prophets because YOU have made the decision to do so and that can only happen through personal testimony.

Of course they are "only men"- until we see that they are more and GIVE them, voluntarily, a greater role in our lives.

[mfbukowski]

11 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

I'm not saying they can get outside of being human.  They always speak as humans.

Well then what was your point here?

We do not believe in the infallibility of prophets.  Were you aware of that?  Prophets have made huge mistakes- the priesthood ban being one and the church has all but directly admitted that

So what was your point here?

3 hours ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

They were always speaking as men when what they said does not support the current narrative.  This is where science and discovery lead the church.  What is fashionable today and doctrine today will be put under the bus tomorrow once science shows beyond a shadow of a doubt that the doctrine was merely mortal speculation.  

We have an open canon and this is why.  Prophets are not prophets unless we have a testimony they are.  We can vote with our feet any time we want as you apparently have.  But there is no need to criticize people who see it differently when you do not even understand where they are coming from or the benefit they receive from seeing it that way.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

There needs to be a reason for a change for a species to change. Otherwise they do not change. Changes, for example, in environment are big cause for it. Punctuated equilibrium explains those changes  Fossilization is a rare event. While in those fossils we do have, transitional ones are quite common.

SEE http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/ 

Of course the transitional forms are not extant at all.  That was the raison d'etre for the Eldredge-Gould theory of punctuated equilibria.  Jim Foley's silly attacks on young earth creationists (yokels all), while ignoring serious, scholarly old-earth creationists reeks of special pleading.  I am, by the way, not a creationist, and it should be understood that LDS theology is not creationist at all.

2 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

At best that just puts evolution back even further. Abiogenesis is the current best explanation we have for how life first appeared on this planet. Evolution doesn't concern itself with how life first appeared here. Evoluion is the explanation of how it changed once it got here. ..........................................

Abiogenesis (archebiosis), as I have mentioned to you before, is completely unsupported by actual lab experimentation.  It is speculation, not science, which is why so many scientists (such as Tyson) opt for transmission from elsewhere.

[Pete Ahlstrom]

2 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

Prophets are not prophets unless we have a testimony they are. 

I don't think whether a prophet is a prophet has anything to do with my testimony.  I think it has everything to do with their actions and what they say.  My misguided belief in a false prophet doesn't somehow make the so-called prophet a true prophet.

[mfbukowski]

14 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

I don't think whether a prophet is a prophet has anything to do with my testimony.  I think it has everything to do with their actions and what they say.  My misguided belief in a false prophet doesn't somehow make the so-called prophet a true prophet.

There is no objective standard for who is a true or false prophet.

It's all subjective.  The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy- we are all to be prophets and have that testimony, but I don't expect you to believe I am a prophet.  You can if you want to, but that's not my doing.

So now you will bring up the civil war thing right?

It all comes down to ambiguity of language- anything can be interpreted any way you want to interpret it.   There are no facts, only interpretations

If there was some objective standard for who is a prophet, it would be scientifically verifiable.  It is not. 

 

Quote

9And he saith unto me, Write, Blessed are they which are called unto the marriage supper of the Lamb. And he saith unto me, These are the true sayings of God. 10And I fell at his feet to worship him. And he said unto me, See thou do it not: I am thy fellowservant, and of thy brethren that have the testimony of Jesus: worship God: for the testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy.

Rev 19, if it matters

Edited May 28, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

15 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

I don't think whether a prophet is a prophet has anything to do with my testimony.  I think it has everything to do with their actions and what they say.  My misguided belief in a false prophet doesn't somehow make the so-called prophet a true prophet.

So how do YOU know how to interpret their actions and what they say?

Where did you get that idea?

From the Bible?

And how do you know that the Bible is true?  Because you have a testimony or because of history?  Totally circular argument!

And history proves nothing spiritual.  You could have been an eyewitness to the crucifixion and not know that Jesus' death forgave YOUR PERSONAL sins.

All anyone has is testimony.

[Pete Ahlstrom]

8 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

There is no objective standard for who is a true or false prophet.

It's all subjective.  The testimony of Jesus is the spirit of prophecy- we are all to be prophets and have that testimony, but I don't expect you to believe I am a prophet.  You can if you want to, but that's not my doing.

So now you will bring up the civil war thing right?

It all comes down to ambiguity of language- anything can be interpreted any way you want to interpret it.   There are no facts, only interpretations

If there was some objective standard for who is a prophet, it would be scientifically verifiable.  It is not. 

 

Rev 19, if it matters

If God appeared to my neighbor telling her to warn the neighborhood of a pending earthquake and that we needed to flee.  Those that followed were saved and those that stayed behind were killed.  I would think that she would objectively be considered a prophetess.  In any event, the better approach would be for God to appear or speak to all involved and give the warning directly to those in harm's way.  This way there would be a better chance to avoid the ambiguities of language.  Why a powerful God would think speaking through agents is better than speaking directly is hard to understand and still believe. 

[Pete Ahlstrom]

19 minutes ago, mfbukowski said:

So how do YOU know how to interpret their actions and what they say?

Where did you get that idea?

From the Bible?

And how do you know that the Bible is true?  Because you have a testimony or because of history?  Totally circular argument!

And history proves nothing spiritual.  You could have been an eyewitness to the crucifixion and not know that Jesus' death forgave YOUR PERSONAL sins.

All anyone has is testimony.

I think you misunderstand what I am trying to say.  I was saying that my belief in someone or something doesn't control what that someone or something is.  I can believe that real estate will increase forever or that the nasdaq will likewise increase forever.  But we know otherwise. 

[mfbukowski]

43 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

Why a powerful God would think speaking through agents is better than speaking directly is hard to understand and still believe. 

THAT IS MY POINT EXACTLY- welcome to the truth

He DOESN'T speak through agents but primarily speaks to us individually!  That's the only way you can know if someone else "got it right"

There are many who are learned and might learn something from God that we have not yet learned- just like science.  Some may be experts on physics and others on chemistry and the physicist learns something from the chemist.  On the religious side, there may be scriptural translation experts and there may be theologians.  The translation expert may have a new realization from a theologian or vice versa- same relationship.   Or the church leader speaking at conference who heads the church- "the prophet"- may have some insights I have never had myself.

But the only way I can find out if they are "true" for me is by God "speaking directly" to me.

Absent that, I am a ship without a rudder, tossed around by any wind of doctrine.   I AM the source of doctrine- call it "the spirit" if you like- for ME.

Tell me the next time the lady down the street predicts an earthquake and saves the neighborhood

Have you ever heard of anyone doing that?   Search the entire internet and see!

Edited May 28, 2017 by mfbukowski

[mfbukowski]

2 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

I think you misunderstand what I am trying to say.  I was saying that my belief in someone or something doesn't control what that someone or something is.  I can believe that real estate will increase forever or that the nasdaq will likewise increase forever.  But we know otherwise. 

Yes, predictions never work.  Yet every investor uses faith and makes a decision anyway based on his "gut"

Using a different vocabulary, he picks his prophet, has faith in him, and sees if the fruit of the prediction is sweet.  This is straight Alma 32 stuff.

Make the experiment and see if it bears fruit.  No prediction necessary, just wait and see and go from there.

But past performance is never an indication of future results.

The bottom line is that it is always subjective as are the results.  Either you like the results or you don't.   Maybe the market dives right after you think that it should go up, and that disappointment turns to glee when it goes up again and you conclude that you were "right"

But all you are doing is rationalizing your choice.

Fine- we all do that and that is human nature!  But the bottom line is, if the idea works for you, the idea is "sweet" and you live your life by the principle BECAUSE it works for you.

The only criteria  you really have is that it works for you.  

Even the fact that water boils at 212 F is only useful because it always works, and if you let go of an unsupported object, it will fall.   We call that a "law" but really all it is is an idea that always works and which works for everyone.

Ideas that work for everyone always are called "science" and ideas that are subjective that work for us personally - ideas about the meaning of life etc- are called "religion"

But what makes the difference is tha the idea works in your life for what you need it to do.

[mfbukowski]

21 minutes ago, Pete Ahlstrom said:

I think you misunderstand what I am trying to say.  I was saying that my belief in someone or something doesn't control what that someone or something is.  I can believe that real estate will increase forever or that the nasdaq will likewise increase forever.  But we know otherwise. 

Note my siggy and think about it.

It is from an atheist philosopher who was familiar with Mormonism to some degree but was speaking about the point I am making on a philosophical level.

One can never escape being human- we can only see what humans are capable of seeing.  For example, MY perception of "red" could be different from YOUR perception of "red" but because we have learned the NAME for "red" we can communicate AS IF the two perceptions are the "same".

But no one can ever prove that what YOU see is exactly what I see.

To some degree that is true of all reality.  Yes if we drive over a cliff we both will die- but you will experience it YOUR way I and I will experience it my way.  Your life will not "flash before your eyes", but mine might.

What unifies us is communication and language.  We have the same words for our individual experiences, so we know what things "are" in language- a table is a table, a chair a chair etc.  But neither of us know what the other is "really experiencing"

It is really language that gives us a common reference that makes communication possible.

So if you understand that, you may understand this- which is really saying the same thing

Quote

 

 " To say that the world is out there, that it is not our creation, is to say, with common sense, that most things in space and time are the effects of causes which do not include human mental states.  To say that truth is not out there is simply to say that where there are no sentences, there is no truth, that sentences are elements of human languages, and that human languages are human creations.

     Truth cannot be out there- cannot exist independently of the human mind- because sentences cannot so exist, or be out there.  The world is out there, but descriptions of the world are not.  Only descriptions of the world can be true or false.  The world on its own- unaided by the describing activities of human beings- cannot."   Richard Rorty- Contingency Irony and Solidarity, P 5.

 

That is a huge paradigm shift from the way most people see reality but see if you can make the jump!?

[clarkgoble]

5 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

How could anyone possibly have evidence for that proposition?

There could be "causes" perhaps for change, as opposed to reasons, but "causes" are notoriously difficult to define.  And the idea that without a cause for change, that species do not change is impossible to prove.

It seems to follow from the nature of DNA, doesn't it? Also I think by reason he just means cause.

9 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Punctuated equilibria is brilliant, and it saves evolutionary theory from complete destruction.  It allows logic to maintain the basic outlines and pattern of evolution.  Given the enormous amounts of time in which various species existed, plenty of fossils have been laid down.  The only explanation for the absence of transitional forms is that they occurred in very short periods of extraordinary environmental challenge, and therefore not enough of them were laid down to be found by paleontologists.  It is a statistical matter.

As to the appearance of life, which cannot be demonstrated in the lab, most scholars now imagine that it came via meteorite (spores and such) from elsewhere.  That theory is called transmission.

I don't think most scholars accept that view. Indeed I think it's a pretty minority view.

Punctuated equilibrium isn't really needed to "save" evolution. It's one type of change and I think everyone accepts that but I don't think anyone thinks it's the only way it happens and probably not even the most common, Exactly how common evolution due to major fast changes is seems unknowable. Clearly some species evolved that way. But evolution appears to happen when there aren't major environmental changes as well.

To say that "the only explanation for the absence of transitional forms" is punctuated equilibrium seems inherently false.

Edited May 29, 2017 by clarkgoble

[Robert F. Smith]

12 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

...................................................................

I don't think most scholars accept that view. Indeed I think it's a pretty minority view.

I haven't taken a poll, but it is the only viable option after the failed suggestion of archebiosis is confronted.  So Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Stephen Hawking, Steven Benner, and many others have frankly taken this more likely approach.  Neil DeGrasse Tyson spent far more time on it in his 2014 "Cosmos" series (episode 11) than on archebiosis (which he barely mentioned).  

12 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

Punctuated equilibrium isn't really needed to "save" evolution. It's one type of change and I think everyone accepts that but I don't think anyone thinks it's the only way it happens and probably not even the most common, Exactly how common evolution due to major fast changes is seems unknowable. Clearly some species evolved that way. But evolution appears to happen when there aren't major environmental changes as well.

To say that "the only explanation for the absence of transitional forms" is punctuated equilibrium seems inherently false.

And yet that is the very reason ti was invented.  Reality caused that much discomfort among biologists.

[SamIam]

On 5/27/2017 at 7:15 PM, Robert F. Smith said:

Correct.  You may just be starting to catch on to the fact that "no man's opinion is worth a straw" (Brigham Young).  Here's another threesome:

Joseph Fielding Smith: 

J. Reuben Clark, Jr., “When Are Church Leaders’ Words Entitled to Claim of Scripture?” Church News, July 31, 1954, 9–10, “How shall the Church know when these adventurous expeditions of the brethren into these highly speculative principles and doctrines meet the requirements of the statutes that the announcers thereof have been ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’? The Church will know by the testimony of the Holy Ghost in the body of the members, whether the brethren in voicing their views are ‘moved upon by the Holy Ghost’; and in due time that knowledge will be made manifest” (10). 

Orson Pratt, “Joseph . . . received the ideas from God, but clothed those ideas with such words as came to his mind” (Minutes of the School of Prophets, Salt Lake Stake, Dec 9, 1872, Church Historical Department Archives).

 

Nonetheless, is it prudent to reject observations by spiritual leaders on the basis that science declares an alternative requirement? Or is there another basis that is being incorporated here that is different than it appears?

[mfbukowski]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It seems to follow from the nature of DNA, doesn't it? Also I think by reason he just means cause.

Don't know what you mean by the nature of DNA.  Are you saying that DNA is not subject to mutation?

Remember we are trying to prove that species do NOT change without a "cause".  I would assume that a mutation would be a "cause" for species change but what do I know.

I think it would be impossible to prove that species do NOT change without a cause.  How does one do that?  Put a bunch of species in cans hermetically sealed so they cannot be exposed to "causes" which might produce change and then see how long they do not change?

I am being facetious of course but seriously- how could one do that empirically?  It's the old "proving a negative" problem plus the expectation that something never changes?  Empirically proven?

Entropy does not exist? SOMETHING doesn't change?  When we know everything changes?

Yet one could simply say that since everything changes, there must be "causes" for change and therefore species always have a "cause" to change.

That makes the statement an obvious tautology.  Everything changes so species change also because they always have a cause.  DUH.  You have created a question-begging definition.

That is a very different assertion than "species do not change without a cause".

Edited May 29, 2017 by mfbukowski

[thesometimesaint]

12 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Of course the transitional forms are not extant at all.  That was the raison d'etre for the Eldredge-Gould theory of punctuated equilibria.  Jim Foley's silly attacks on young earth creationists (yokels all), while ignoring serious, scholarly old-earth creationists reeks of special pleading.  I am, by the way, not a creationist, and it should be understood that LDS theology is not creationist at all.

Abiogenesis (archebiosis), as I have mentioned to you before, is completely unsupported by actual lab experimentation.  It is speculation, not science, which is why so many scientists (such as Tyson) opt for transmission from elsewhere.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_transitional_fossils

SEE http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/lines_03

Young Earth Creationists ideas need to be roundly attacked as the bunkum they are. With a broad enough definition of what a Creationist is yes the LDS are creationist. God did it, and scientists try to explain how. .

Abiogenesis has been demonstrated in the lab.

SEE https://www.wired.com/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

SEE https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25471-spark-of-life-metabolism-appears-in-lab-without-cells/

SEE http://molbio.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/

All due deference to Dr. Tyson but as I said even if true that just puts abiogenesis back further in time on a different planet. Simple carbon based molecules exist in space, but nothing even remotely approaching life as we know it. Mars is unlikely a good candidate for such transmission. It has an ionizing atmosphere which breaks apart carbon molecules. If Mars had any life it disappeared over a billion years ago. 

[CV75]

On 5/25/2017 at 1:59 AM, Ouagadougou said:

IMO, this is absolutely ridiculous to believe that death only occurred after the fall.  For example, scientific evidence shows that humans and animals died well before 4,000 B.C.

That is a marvelous opinion, and I think it is absolutely ridiculous to look at the revelations, and even this Bible Dictionary statement, with tunnel vision.

The LDS scriptures/revelations and Bible Dictionary allow the conclusion that the Fall occurred long before 4,000 BC, and that this is only the date that Adam began the dispensation in which he died, which wasthe first of others to follow that are to culminate in the dispensation of the fulness of times. There could have been billions of years of morte interrumpitur (of which there is plenty of precedent in scripture) prior to this last defined 7,000-year period of the earth’s temporal existence in which Adam could have stewarded over all sorts of natural processes, including mass extinctions.

[Robert F. Smith]

8 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

.....................................................   

...................................... With a broad enough definition of what a Creationist is yes the LDS are creationist. God did it, and scientists try to explain how. .

With that absurd misunderstanding, no wonder you are confused.

8 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

Abiogenesis has been demonstrated in the lab.

SEE https://www.wired.com/2009/05/ribonucleotides/

SEE https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn25471-spark-of-life-metabolism-appears-in-lab-without-cells/

SEE http://molbio.mgh.harvard.edu/szostakweb/ 

This is the same sort of hokum claimed for the earlier Miller-Urey  experiment.  Just nonsense.

8 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

All due deference to Dr. Tyson but as I said even if true that just puts abiogenesis back further in time on a different planet.

Of course, but that is just the point in a multiverse in which infinite regress always applies.  Both science and LDS theology agree that there was no beginning and there will be no end.

8 hours ago, thesometimesaint said:

Simple carbon based molecules exist in space, but nothing even remotely approaching life as we know it. Mars is unlikely a good candidate for such transmission. It has an ionizing atmosphere which breaks apart carbon molecules. If Mars had any life it disappeared over a billion years ago. 

Which shows that you are not familiar with the argument that Mars is the best place in this solar system for life to have arisen so long ago.  Adopting presentist arguments misses the point completely.  For one thing, the many ancient Martian meteorites found on Earth contain more boron and molybdenum — important precursors to the formation of RNA — than early Earth.  Moreover, Christopher Adcock and Elizabeth Hausrath, both researchers at the University of Nevada in 2013, discovered that phosphates in Martian meteorites — another important organic chemical in the formation of RNA, DNA, and essential proteins — are more water-soluble than those on early Earth.  And since life is suspected to have begun in the presence of water, their research suggests that Mars could have formed life more readily than Earth (http://finance.yahoo.com/news/sending-humans-mars-could-uncover-221602109.html ).   See Tyson's extended discussion at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CAD25s53wmE , beginning at 1:14.40.

 

 

[Robert F. Smith]

14 hours ago, SamIam said:

Nonetheless, is it prudent to reject observations by spiritual leaders on the basis that science declares an alternative requirement? Or is there another basis that is being incorporated here that is different than it appears?

It isn't so much rejection as that both science and inspiration enrich the overall discussion.  Reminds me of the process of talmudic pilpul.

[clarkgoble]

20 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

I haven't taken a poll, but it is the only viable option after the failed suggestion of archebiosis is confronted.  So Fred Hoyle, Chandra Wickramasinghe, Stephen Hawking, Steven Benner, and many others have frankly taken this more likely approach.  Neil DeGrasse Tyson spent far more time on it in his 2014 "Cosmos" series (episode 11) than on archebiosis (which he barely mentioned).  

And yet that is the very reason ti was invented.  Reality caused that much discomfort among biologists.

It'd be helpful in one listed prominent evolutionary biologists instead of people from other fields. I certainly haven't taken a poll either but it certainly doesn't appear common in the literature I've read. Of course the problem with panspermia hypothesis is that it just pushes the origin somewhere else. So it really isn't much of a solution. Usually the articles talk about taking the hypothesis with a grain of salt.

I'm fine saying we just don't know right now and that we may find the solution in the future. Weak hypothesis are fine but we need data before saying we really know. 

Quote

And yet that is the very reason ti was invented.  Reality caused that much discomfort among biologists.

Well, not all biologists agree that's the only explanation. Whether Gould thought it was or not ultimately doesn't matter, does it? It's just not at all clear to me that we are missing enough transitional fossils to be a problem. After all for any intermediary fossil one could always argue there should be one more in between that and the one we already had. It's a little like Zeno's paradox. The question is defining clearly what we should expect to find. 

While I recognize you aren't making the argument, typically I only encounter the "there aren't enough fossils" as a kind of gap argument. Now I don't think Gould is making that. (It's been so many years - since college - since I studied him so I don't want to put words in his mouth) But among most texts I read it seems like there's more than enough fossils to make inductive arguments. So it's not quite clear to me what the actual problem is. 

Since it's been so long since I read The Panda's Thumb and since I don't have a copy anymore, could you perhaps quote more specifically what you see him making as an argument over the problem of transitional fossils? Again, I don't want to trust my memory but what you describe doesn't match what I remember. I remember him making a more cautious claim that sometimes evolution proceeds quickly, which seems hard to disagree with.

[clarkgoble]

20 hours ago, mfbukowski said:

Don't know what you mean by the nature of DNA.  Are you saying that DNA is not subject to mutation?

I thought the point was that mutations are the reason for the change. The persistence of the change is due to the success of the gene change in the environment. At least that's what I took him to be saying - maybe I was reading him wrong though.

Quote

Remember we are trying to prove that species do NOT change without a "cause".  I would assume that a mutation would be a "cause" for species change but what do I know.

Well I confess the way people are using the terminology bugs me. I'd rather talk about a population changing and not a species. I think people tend to reify species which is why I think there's so much miscommunication. If we'd start talking population and abandon talk of species except as a shorthand to whether two populations can produce offspring the world would be a much better place.

To my eyes the whole problem over evolution arises because people want an Aristotilean styled "kind" that is essential and latched on to species as fitting that. Get rid of species talk and life becomes so much easier. Especially since you might have two separated populations A & B that can't interbreed with each other but could breed with a third population C. These things don't map onto species talk too well.

Anyway back on topic I think what he was talking about was the idea of populations changing but injected "species" as a shorthand for population. What he wants to say is why do populations change over time, and that's a combination of mutations, sex, and better reproductive success. That's the reason. I said it's in the nature of DNA since you don't even need chemical or radiation damage for mutation, just RNA transcription errors. Change just is inherent to the nature of DNA in the cell. The persistence of such changes depends upon relative success of the gene in the population relative to the population without the gene.

Quote

That makes the statement an obvious tautology.  Everything changes so species change also because they always have a cause.  DUH.  You have created a question-begging definition.

Yes, change have causes because we define causes in terms of change.

Edited May 30, 2017 by clarkgoble

[mfbukowski]

50 minutes ago, clarkgoble said:

I thought the point was that mutations are the reason for the change. The persistence of the change is due to the success of the gene change in the environment. At least that's what I took him to be saying - maybe I was reading him wrong though.

Well I confess the way people are using the terminology bugs me. I'd rather talk about a population changing and not a species. I think people tend to reify species which is why I think there's so much miscommunication. If we'd start talking population and abandon talk of species except as a shorthand to whether two populations can produce offspring the world would be a much better place.

To my eyes the whole problem over evolution arises because people want an Aristotilean styled "kind" that is essential and latched on to species as fitting that. Get rid of species talk and life becomes so much easier. Especially since you might have two separated populations A & B that can't interbreed with each other but could breed with a third population C. These things don't map onto species talk too well.

Anyway back on topic I think what he was talking about was the idea of populations changing but injected "species" as a shorthand for population. What he wants to say is why do populations change over time, and that's a combination of mutations, sex, and better reproductive success. That's the reason. I said it's in the nature of DNA since you don't even need chemical or radiation damage for mutation, just RNA transcription errors. Change just is inherent to the nature of DNA in the cell. The persistence of such changes depends upon relative success of the gene in the population relative to the population without the gene.

Yes, change have causes because we define causes in terms of change.

Yep that's a good analytic response.   I agree.

It's another illustration how sloppy speaking leads to sloppy thinking and how reification operates, which drives me nuts.  Because we have way of expressing a sentence doesn't mean that there is a "thing" it describes- that is how we get the idea of immaterial "things" floating around like "Thursday" which was brought up in another thread.

The notion of "cause" is in that category- yes two billiard balls bump into each other, "causing" them to interact but was it the billiard ball or the cue or the idea in the brain of the player, or the 20 dollar bill on the table or the fact that the kid who put it there was a bit of a pool shark that was the ultimate "cause" of that ball moving?  Or his grandfather's tendency to be a gambler which "caused" that tendency in the kid-- etc etc

And so we come up with categories like "proximate cause", this cause and that cause and on it goes.  And God ends up being the Prime Mover of the billiard ball.

I agree- I know that is what sometime meant, and probably I was in a bad mood.

But the arguments hereabouts of late have seemed to get really sloppy so I thought I would comment

Yes there are mutations in DNA and certainly they "cause" changes in.... the individual, the species, and I guess in the population.  Choose your words, as long as they are well defined, and communicate well, no problem.   If you speak sloppily it leads to confusion and I felt the argument was quite confused for that reason so I jumped in.

"Yes, changes have causes because we define causes in terms of change."

Exactly!

Whatever changes species is a "cause" and yes of course species, populations or whatever the terminology,  change.

So it is pretty pointless to assert that they do not change without a "cause".

I just wanted to make it clear that it was a useless point.

[Robert F. Smith]

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

It'd be helpful in one listed prominent evolutionary biologists instead of people from other fields. I certainly haven't taken a poll either but it certainly doesn't appear common in the literature I've read. Of course the problem with panspermia hypothesis is that it just pushes the origin somewhere else. So it really isn't much of a solution. Usually the articles talk about taking the hypothesis with a grain of salt.

I'm fine saying we just don't know right now and that we may find the solution in the future. Weak hypothesis are fine but we need data before saying we really know. 

Well, not all biologists agree that's the only explanation. Whether Gould thought it was or not ultimately doesn't matter, does it? It's just not at all clear to me that we are missing enough transitional fossils to be a problem. After all for any intermediary fossil one could always argue there should be one more in between that and the one we already had. It's a little like Zeno's paradox. The question is defining clearly what we should expect to find. 

Part of the problem was the utter humiliation suffered by evolutionary biologists in debate after debate with creationist  biologists.  It has nothing to do with anything like Zeno's paradox, but simply with the lack of actual transitional fossils.  The best way to account for the missing fossils is with punctuated equilibria, which means that transitions were so swift that there was not enough time to lay down massive numbers of fossils -- only a very minute portion of which would ever be discovered.  Those not understanding the odds against discovering any fossils of any kind, and not realizing that stasis is the only reason why we do discover fossils at all, just can't understand that some reasonable explanation had to be found.  Very few biologists have been as clever as Eldredge & Gould, and their theory was brilliant and timely.

2 hours ago, clarkgoble said:

While I recognize you aren't making the argument, typically I only encounter the "there aren't enough fossils" as a kind of gap argument. Now I don't think Gould is making that. (It's been so many years - since college - since I studied him so I don't want to put words in his mouth) But among most texts I read it seems like there's more than enough fossils to make inductive arguments. So it's not quite clear to me what the actual problem is. 

Since it's been so long since I read The Panda's Thumb and since I don't have a copy anymore, could you perhaps quote more specifically what you see him making as an argument over the problem of transitional fossils? Again, I don't want to trust my memory but what you describe doesn't match what I remember. I remember him making a more cautious claim that sometimes evolution proceeds quickly, which seems hard to disagree with.

Stasis is the norm for all species.  If there is no reason for adaptaton, there won't be any.  Evolution, when it occurs, is always quick and responsive to some environmental challenge, along with isolation of members of a species into a smaller area.  The environmental pressure brings on survival of the fittest, and it happens in relatively short order, thus resulting in few fossils.  The statistical odds against finding any of those transitional fossils is too great, even if not impossible.  This is powerful logic, and it was primarily Niles Eldredge who came up with the theory.

[Garden Girl]

On 5/28/2017 at 1:42 PM, mfbukowski said:

 

The whole purpose for personal revelation is to enable us to figure out for ourselves if someone is or is not a prophet or if certain statements are prophetic or not.

One could not even convert to the church without understanding that one requirement is Moroni 10: 4-5- that we get our own testimonies.  How could someone simply convert because because they were told to ?   That is what lifetime members sometimes do not understand- they grew up in blind obedience and think everyone else did as well.

Without personal revelation there is no reason to even think that Joseph was a prophet- and his word is no better than anyone setting themselves up as prophets.

Hello mfb...

You're painting with a pretty broad brush here, if I'm reading you correctly... As a lifetime member, I did not grow up in "blind obedience," and absolutely believe that it is just as necessary for me (and other lifers) to receive a testimony of Joseph/the gospel through personal revelation as much as any convert... Fortunately, that testimony for me came as a 17 year-old seminary student while studying the BoM and taking Moroni's challenge of Moroni 10:4 to inquire for myself... to this day, 59 years later, I can remember that experience of the witness by the Spirit as if it was yesterday... a witness so strong that it stayed with me through 34 years of being inactive.  And it is with me today.  I'm sure there are those lifetime members who just went along because of family, etc., but they can't be truly converted IMO without that personal revelation... nor can any convert... 

GG

[clarkgoble]

13 hours ago, Robert F. Smith said:

Stasis is the norm for all species.  If there is no reason for adaptaton, there won't be any.  

I'm not sure I'd say that is true. Small benefits are all that are needed to avoid stasis. Realize that a general morphology can persist while other elements can change. If only to deal with new diseases change usually happens. i.e. there's almost always an environmental situation that makes total stasis unlikely.

Quote

Part of the problem was the utter humiliation suffered by evolutionary biologists in debate after debate with creationist  biologists.

No, seriously. What's your point. That has to be a joke. Maybe that was true in the 1860's but hasn't been true for decades and decades. Creationists are usually left doing selective acontextual quote mining.

Quote

Those not understanding the odds against discovering any fossils of any kind, and not realizing that stasis is the only reason why we do discover fossils at all, just can't understand that some reasonable explanation had to be found.

That's not evolutionary stasis. Similar fossils usually hide large differences. You're confusing significant morphological change in the fossil record which has periods of stasis with stasis. They aren't the same thing. Certainly Eldridge and others note that for many species there's morphological stasis. But that's not true for all species. The horse family being the obvious example. It all depends upon how well adapted they are to their environment and how much it changes. The main argument for this of course is overlapping species where an original species and newly evolved species from the original can overlap both in time and sometimes geography.

What Gould was important in doing is pointing out that the geological assumption of uniformism was wrong. Of course the pretty significant changes in our view of geology in the mid-20th century had big implications to how we see the history of evolution. However to the degree Gould went well beyond this into attacking the general power of natural selection I think the overwhelming consensus is that he was wrong. All that said, one should read Gould's retrospective on his view back in 1993 in Nature. He's far more cautious than he was in the 70's. Although as I've mentioned, even this more restrained Gould is still somewhat controversial. (Even if the idea of rapid evolutionary change is uncontroversial)

But of course Gould was also just wrong in even how far he pushed the punctuated theory as we can see with the wide variety of human species and subspecies identified merely by bones over a relatively short period (200,000 years). For instance brain size development in hominids also doesn't occur rapidly.A gain I don't think anyone disputes some of Gould's point - especially the idea of major extinction events leading to rapid evolution and speciation. But you're arguing something much stronger than that. (To the degree I understand your argument)

In any case Gould was writing before cheap gene sequencing which revolutionized evolutionary biology leading us to be able to trace recent evolution at the molecular level. I'm still not sure Gould said there were no transitional fossils. That seems an odd thing to say since while nearly everyone rejects Darwin's theory of gradualism (and did long before Gould) most say there's more than enough transitional species. My memory of Gould is that he first noted the limits of Darwin's claims in the 1850's about gradualism and that it's the 19th century view of evolution that is his prime target. His main argument is the primacy of speciation. That remains controversial for good reason. That said, it's true that prior to Gould genetic drift was given much greater weight than it is today which tends to emphasize mutations and separation of populations.

Looking at recent evolution and not just paleontology is very important when discussing these issues. That's primarily because we simply have so much more evidence from which to work.

But overall, just doing a quick JSTOR search I found many, many more papers with evidence of why Gould is wrong in his broad controversial claims and relatively few supporting him. This included undermining his main evidence with mollusks. 

Edited May 30, 2017 by clarkgoble