[extropy-chat] Re: intelligent design homework

[Robbie Lindauer]

On Aug 7, 2005, at 9:37 PM, The Avantguardian wrote:

>
>
> --- Robert Lindauer <robgobblin at aol.com> wrote:
>
>> I'm not an -expert-
>> but having
>> experienced the same wolf/dog conversation with a
>> biology professor at
>> UCLA (who shall remain nameless), I remain
>> thoroughly unimpressed with
>> the non-existent evolutionary response to the
>> speciation problem.
>
> Well don't blame Darwin that your bio professor was
> lame. Evolution DOES deal with the speciation problem.
> Sexual selection or geographic isolation over millions
> of years is sufficient to produce speciation.

A million monkeys with a million years, yadda, yadda, yadda.  I've 
-heard- the story.

How, in particular, is this supposed to happen?

Let's go through this again.

A -particular- mule is produced by some mutation.  One animal.  It's 
important that we're clear that -one animal- is required here, not 
millions of years of animals, but ONE ANIMAL that can no longer mate 
with members of its parents' species.

This mutation, despite it disrupting the genetic structure of the 
animal radically, manages to be beneficial for it somehow, in fact, 
gives it an advantage over some other competitors for resources.
In addition to the ONE ANIMAL above, another animal -with the same 
mutation- is produced and also manages to survive, find the other 
animal, mate with it and produce viable offspring which aren't affected 
by the 'marrying the sister' problem.
Their children then go on to become the dominant species, eventually 
eradicating through competition their ancestors.

Let's talk rats.  Rats are relatively susceptible to mutation.  What 
-actually- happens when we irradiate a female rat enough so that its 
eggs are a chromosome short?  Usually they are unable to reproduce, 
when they are able to reproduce, they produce dead or deformed children 
that are unable to produce.  Has this been tested?  LOTS.  Now, if 
Evolution were correct, we should expect the opposite effect.  We 
should expect production of lots of super-rats to result from our 
experiments, but instead, no super-rats.

In fact, a smart extropian would see that the best way to produce the 
super-intelligent being would be to use evolution and start randomly 
irradiating humans to produce one.    But we already know this is a bad 
idea.  It would kill them, produce lots of dead and deformed babies, 
and result in not producing the super-intelligent being.  Now 
EVENTUALLY we may have a sufficiently adequate map of the human genome 
and there may be a "dumb" gene in there somewhere.  We may be able to 
produce a super-smart individual by pinpointing that one gene and 
making it do something else.  And we may be able to produce a mating 
pair by cloning them and reversing their sex genes.  But such a process 
wouldn't be regarded as evolution, and couldn't be regarded as a 
confirmation of the historical aspects of evolution.  What it would do 
is it would make it even mildly plausible that such a thing could 
happen by accident in the wild.  But as it stands, it's not even midly 
plausible that such a thing could happen in the wild because it's not 
even mildly plausible that it could happen in a petri dish.  What's the 
problem - NO EXPERIMENTAL EVIDENCE.  Now, what do you call a really 
interesting theory without experimental evidence?  You call it a really 
interesting theory.


Can we breed rats (and people, for that matter) -traditionally- to be 
smarter and faster and stronger using simple breeding techniques 
available long before darwin?  Of course, we could do that long before 
darwin, and did it with dogs and horses and cattle and sheep and goats 
and other animals to our great benefit.  Are wild horses still the same 
species as domesticated horses in the sense of being genetically 
compatible?  Yes.   Can we use irradiation techniques to produce viable 
super-rat offspring?  Maybe eventually we'll be able to do it.  But the 
pinpoint accuracy required to snap some radiation into a mating pair of 
rat eggs is the kind of thing that causes biology departments to blow 
their budgets.

What's the likelihood of this happening -in the wild-?  0%.  Not 
.00001%.  0%.

It's not currently happening to anything that reproduces sexually as 
far as we know, certainly not any animals weighing more than 10 pounds. 
  THAT would make the news if someone found a pair of post-rats that had 
reproduced and had offspring with opposable thumbs or something and 
couldn't reproduce with their cousins!

But, if the missing-link hypothesis were true, we should be stumbling 
over them all the time - live ones in the wild.   Any of those 
available for perusal?  No.  Not one.  Ah, but what about the fossil 
evidence?  Nope, sorry, not one.

Again, what do you call an interesting theory without evidence?  An 
interesting theory.

>  Since in
> both cases there is no selection to favor reproductive
> compatability between the diverging species.

This is irrelevant.  While we know, as a matter of choice, wolves don't 
reproduce with chihuahua's, we also know that as a matter of genetics 
it's relatively easy for them to do if they wanted to.  We're talking 
about -can't- reproduce any longer because their genetic structures are 
incompatible - like Mango and Avocado trees.  Polinate a mango with 
avacodo pollen ALL DAY LONG - CENTURIES EVEN, still no mango-avocado is 
ever produced assuming current microbiology and genetics is true.  This 
is because they are truly different species.  Do you not understand 
this concept of being genetically incompatible with another individual 
and consequently being unable to reproduce even if, say, artificially 
inseminated?


>> The biological
>> textbooks WHERE they bother to explain the
>> foundations of evolutionary
>> theory are at best controversial and at their worst
>> actually
>> off-putting in their smugness.
>
> Text books in general suck because they focus more on
> making their material into "sound bites" that can
> easily regurgitated on pop quizes and exams. Do me a
> favor of reading two enjoyable books that are easily
> accessable to the laymen, both available for free at
> the public library. Darwin's "Origin of Species" and
> Dawkin's "Selfish Gene". They have far more
> explanatory power than any undregraduate text book.

Been there.

>> Someone gave the dog/wolf
>> example as an
>> example of "speciation" and I was trying to explain
>> the difference
>> between morphology and phylogeny to the
>> kindergartners over there.
>
> Look I know the difference between phylogeny and
> morphology. I was trying to give you an example of the
> very same "trend" that gives rise to divergences of
> species, i.e. speciation, that occurs within the span
> of human history, as opposed to the "deep time" of
> many millions of years that clearly lies outside of
> human experience and intuition. You are correct in
> that dogs and wolves are not different species. But
> they are BECOMING different species, just give them a
> few millions years.

There is no evidence whatever that they are becoming different species. 
  Their genetic structure is identical.  Two kinds of wolves are as 
dissimilar as any pair of wolf and dog and both can mate equivalently.

>> Theoretically, if you stuck the penis of a wolf into
>> a chihuaua in heat
>> and the right conditions prevailed, you'd get this
>> awesomely strong
>> tiny little bug-eyed furry dog.  Probably really
>> mean.  On the other
>> hand, by no theory of which I'm aware, will you get
>> a living organism
>> by trying to produce a tuna-shark by having a shark
>> fertilize tuna eggs
>> or a leopard-lion by similar means.
>
> Actually there probably are leopard-lions as there are
> certainly lion-tigers (ligers) and tiger-lions
> (tigons). For example and pictures see:
> http://www.tigers-animal-actors.com/about/liger/liger.html

I stand corrected.  I didn't know lions and tigers could reproduce and 
produce viable offspring.  But what we're looking for is a different 
animal.  The tigon and liger can apparently reproduce with either of 
lions and tigers and tigons and ligers.  The relation between tigers 
and lions is more like dogs and wolves than hippos and elephants.  What 
we're looking for is the one that can't reproduce with its cousins but 
can reproduce with another of its own kind.  A real genuine species 
change.

>> Indeed, this distinction, the difference between
>> genetically compatible
>> and genetically incompatible groups which was
>> formerly known as
>> "species" is one that has been apparently
>> deliberately vaguarized by
>> evolutionary biologists over time by presenting to
>> some people as
>> examples of speciation, the various kinds of dogs.
>
> The definition of species is not delibrately vague but
> is so because it has had to be modified over the years
> because of improved methods of genetic analysis,
> molecular phylogeny, and the existense of hybrids such
> as mules and ligers. Species themselves used to be
> based on similarities of morphology during the
> beginnings of taxonomy. Then after Darwin, species
> came to mean reproductive compatability. Now it is
> more like reproductive compatability that gives rise
> to reproductively capable offspring. But even this is
> contentious to some biologists. So how do you expect
> evolutionary theory to give you a precise mechanism
> for speciation when the biologists are not certain
> EXACTLY what a species is?

Quite right.  Thank goodness we have evolution to clear that one up for 
us...

>      The definition of species itself is somewhat
> arbritrary in the same way that the border between the
> US and Mexico is somewhat arbitrary.

I think the reproductive criteria is adequate and is due to Aristotle, 
not Darwin, BTW.

> But that does not
> mean that the US and Mexico are the same.

If what you mean is that species are third order metapoeses, I couldn't 
disagree with you more.  I don't see how your analogy is helpful.

> Nor does it
> mean that God created the US and Mexico.

Obviously, if it exists, God created it or created the thing that 
created it, or created the thing that created the thing, etc.

> Of course
> Bush might disagree with me on this point.

He's not smart enough to do that.

Robbie