Spring it on ‘em and Watch the Fur Fly
| August 31, 2012 | Posted by Barry Arrington under Intelligent Design |
Dennis Venema is an associate professor in the biology department at Trinity Western University, a Christian university near Vancouver, British Columbia. Over at Biologos Venema has an article entitled The Sorrows and Joys of Teaching Evolution at an Evangelical Christian University in which he recounts his efforts to indoctrinate his students in Darwinian evolution. In the opening paragraphs of his article Venema describes one of his teaching methods:
After the “information dump” using the fruit fly examples, it’s time for a class discussion/application before the students drift off too much. Ok, here’s a slide that shows the chromosome structure of a group of organisms that other lines of evidence suggest are part of a group of related species. What do you observe? Do you think these species are related? If so, what explains the differences you observe?
What the students don’t know is that the slide shows human chromosomes, and those of our closest living relative, the chimpanzee. Oblivious to this knowledge, they easily arrive at the correct answer: yes, the evidence is strong that these are quite recently diverged species, and that a chromosome fusion or fission event explains the differences in chromosome structure between them. When I tell them that every other species in this grouping has the higher chromosome number/structure, they correctly deduce that the species with the lower chromosome number should show evidence of a fusion event in the form of “telomere” sequences at the fusion point and an inactive “centromere” at the location suggested by comparison to the other, related genome.
Easy.
As I look around the room, I see the students are satisfied. I cover some difficult material in this course, and the students are obviously pleased that this topic is so easy to handle. The lines of evidence are easy to follow, and it’s easy to predict and test one’s hypotheses. Then, only after they’ve seen the evidence at least once without the baggage that will inevitably come, I ask them if they know what two species they’ve just compared.
Venema apparently does not provide his students with any information regarding possible alternative hypotheses to explain that data. Indeed, he displays the usual smug self-satisfied complacency of the committed Darwinist who does not believe there is any other hypothesis.
Venema concludes: “I feel learning about evolution in a Christian liberal arts university is one of the very best places to do so, providing the institution treats the topics fairly.”
Does Venema treat the topic fairly?
37 Responses to Spring it on ‘em and Watch the Fur Fly
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Barry
What exactly is the possible alternative hypotheses that could explain the similarity with chimpanzee genes and the chromosome fusion?
JLAfan2001 asks:
Barry
What exactly is the possible alternative hypotheses that could explain the similarity with chimpanzee genes and the chromosome fusion?
The only other explanation is that the two species were zapped in by the designer who just happened to make them genetically similar and threw in a fusion event just for laughs
Mr. Arrington,
Dr. Venema’s actions concern me simply from a scientific-logical point of view. It appears he is asking his students to make a prediction from the evidence and then celebrating the confirmation of that prediction as some sort of trustworthy knowledge in favor of common descent.
But logically I think that fails.
He seems to be arguing like this:
Premise 1: If common descent is the reason for the chromosome similarities AND we set the chromosome sequences side by side for visual inspection, Then we would predict the similarities to show transition from one species to another.
Premise 2: The sequences show transition. (Confimed prediction)
Conclusion: That tells us common descent is the explanation.
But the only thing you can conclude from a confirmed prediction is that maybe the speculative explanation (i.e. common descent in this case) is correct. The reason for the maybe is because this form of argument is inductive, not deductive despite the deductive appearance (if it was deductive it would be affirming the consequent).
I would expect a science professor to recognize that common descent at best would be a maybe in this case. That would naturally lead to the possibility of other explanations even if other possibilities have not been put forth. Of course in the case of ID another hypothesis has been put forth (I recognize ID is not necessarily against common descent). That would be common design.
@smiddyone
It’s a bit more complicated than that. Re-using a reply I sent to someone else, if you don’t mind:
————————
First, the ch2 fusion is cherry picking among numerous other genetic scars that show no common ancestry. Evolutionary biologist Richard Sternberg remarked:
Likewise, creation geneticist Jeffrey Tomkins has written:
Second, the signature of a fusion event is weak. In making the argument for fusion, Daniel Fairbanks wrote:
But telomeric DNA normally consists of thousands of repeats of a 6-base-pair sequence TTAGGG. So if two chromosomes were fused end-to-end, a huge amount of alleged telomeric DNA is missing and/or garbled. Contrary to Fairbank’s “precisely what we would expect”, others have noted that the site appears far more degenerate than expected, which is especially odd, considering that meiotic recombination is suppressed in pericentric DNA, which should cause it to mutate more slowly; meaning that 6m years isn’t enough time to account for what we see.
Despite this, we may very well have once had 48 chromosomes in our past. But if you’re going to make an argument from similarity, why not cite the markers we know we share with apes, such as the ALU elements or common genes, versus one that depends on so many unknowns? Of course, similarity is no more an argument for common design than common descent.
Moreso, fusion events serve as poor taxonomic dividers and don’t necessitate a speciation event. Some species show a very diverse range of karyotypes (number of chromosomes), with little-to-no effect on phenotype (how an organism looks and behaves):
I resent any such teaching. The problem is that he is presenting evidence for similar chromosomes and for a fusion event. Is this a scientific argument for “evolution” over “design”? No, as Cornelius would say, it is a “religious” argument for “evolution” over “design”.
I would suspect that someone steeped in evolutionary thinking just can not see how he is making a religious, not scientific argument. I feel sorry for Dennis.
JLAfan2001 and smiddyone:
Steve_Gann has made an important point. I would state it this way:
The thing we can conclusively conclude by observing that two sets of chromosomes share certain similarities is that the two sets of chromosomes share those similarities. That is it.
As soon as we start attaching a historical narrative about how one set of chromosomes supposedly came from the other at some point in the past, or about the alleged mechanism(s) involved in getting from chromosome Set A to Set B, or attaching a further philosophical gloss that it all happened without plan or purpose, we have gone far off the path from the evidence. Our storytelling could be correct, but it is far from conclusive that it is. And our historical narrative has its own holes and weaknesses.
I think Venema’s approach is OK in terms of letting the students examine chromosomal similarities and then telling them after the fact which species were involved. I even like that approach, as it will probably get a lot of interesting questions and discussion going. But he needs to allow the questions and discussion to really continue and dive deep, not just triumphantly proclaim that this comparative analysis somehow proves anything about human evolution.
Eric
I can see your point but are they really “adding” to the evidence or just drawing a conclusion from it? It’s the same as a crime scene. The investigators didn’t see what happened but they have to come to a conclusion based on the evidence they gathered (and macro evolution does have some compelling evidence). Otherwise we would never solve any crimes. I can see the problems with the way scientists are portraying it as fact when we really haven’t observed one life-form becoming another. They should be saying this is what we think happened based on what we know but we haven’t seen it happen so we could be wrong.
JoeCoder, that was a good summary of why the chromosome 2 fusion argument does not wash:
Moreover if similarities are held to be proof of common descent, why are not dissimilarities held as disproof???
This following study hinted at far greater differences than 6%:
Further note:
Moreover the ‘anomaly’ of unique ORFan genes is found in every new genome sequenced thus far:
As well, completely contrary to evolutionary thought, these ‘new’ ORFan genes are found to be just as essential as ‘old’ genes for maintaining life:
This following study, in which the functional role of unique ORFan genes was analyzed for humans, the (Darwinian) researchers were ‘very shocked’ and ‘taken aback’ by what they found;
What I love about Venema’s teaching is that he uses the most basic,observable,common sense evidence to prove common descent,and common descent is really all that matters. Can anyone offer an example of two blood related beings that are alive today that are not genetically similar? Can anyone offer a different interpretation of genetic similarity that we could observe in real time, right now?
Denying common descent is miracle begging since most new species arising in the historical record would have had to pop into existence in a cloud of white smoke. Can anyone offer evidence of, or reproduce that? I think we have a more good old fashioned explanation for how biology comes into existence:born of another animal that is strikingly genetically similar to it’s offspring.
JDH, how can say it’s a religious argument when it is only based on the most straightforward,obvious,logical,non miracle begging scientific evidence? Common descent comes from the most literal translation of the natural record.
But to expand a bit on what Eric said here:
i.e. even if Darwinists had been able to prove that similarity was as close as it has falsely been portrayed to be to the general public (98.5%) in the past (approx. 45 million bp), the fact is that Darwinists have no demonstrated mechanism to account for any change at all, much less the massive differences now being found:
To cut to the chase, Darwinists are approaching the ‘problem’ from the entirely wrong ‘bottom up’ conceptual level:
Dr. Stephen Meyer comments at the end of the preceding video,,,
In fact to get a proper handle on this ‘problem’, a ‘top down’ information theoretic approach needs to be adopted that considers, correctly, that information is primary and material substrates are secondary in the hierarchy of the construction and operation of the cell instead of insisting on the insane approach of maintaining ‘bottom up’ material processes constructed this unfathomable complexity, we find in biological life, all on their own.
smiddyone you state:
Actually smiddyone since the entire universe ‘had to pop into existence in a cloud of white smoke’ in the big bang, then there is now no ‘scientific’ reason to prevent the abrupt appearance on fossils in the fossil record. In fact when this argument is hashed out in its entirety it renders your base materialistic/atheistic philosophy completely absurd:
Materialism simply dissolves into absurdity when pushed to extremes and certainly offers no guarantee to us for believing our perceptions and reasoning within science are trustworthy in the first place:
smiddlyone, you simply have no right, as a atheist/materialist, to insist that the laws of the universe are inflexible whenever you need them to prevent God from intervening in the universe when he sees fit to be flexible when you need them to be to allow ‘random’ universes to be created.
correction: when he sees fit “And to insist they are” flexible when you need them to be to allow ‘random’ universes to be created.
Well at least we now we are talking about the supernatural. The Big Bang has been recorded as a real event. The sudden materialization of new animals into existence a la from The Enterprise’s transporter has not. I forgot who’s quote this is but it’s something like:”Let’s not argue over what God could or couldn’t do, but what he has done.”
Barry,
The problem is, Venema is only looking at similarities, he is not acknowledging differences.
Can’t tell from the post what species Venema used, but let’s say they are whales and dolphins.
Okay, suppose it comes out that whales are basically blowing and breeching, and otherwise doing their thousand millennial thing, and dolphins are flippering around with keyboards, sending rockets to the Moon and probes to Mars, and playing the stock market.
How important will the genetic similarities seem then?
These are the kinds of questions Christian Darwinists never ask.
And they are precisely the questions that threaten to upend their tricky little scheme.
smiddyone,
Logically, any confirmed prediction has to be a maybe. That means common descent is a maybe. What you are saying about it being the most straight forward interpretation (and thus the correct one) depends on philosophical and theological ideas that eliminate any other competing theory that does not involve reproductive continuity through time. This is the reason Dr. Venema’s technique bother’s me. He makes it look like it is just about evidence. But it is not. It is also about the uniformity of nature and the non-intervention of God. At least I think that is where he is coming from having read other things about him.
If you assume the uniformity of nature through out time there can be no other alternative than reproductive continuity. Maybe that is the case. Maybe common descent is true. But let’s not fool ourselves that common descent is the only place the evidence can take this.
Why must common design be rejected based on this evidence? Do you have a scientific reason for rejecting common design?
I can give you two- Common Design and convergence.
@smiddyone
I don’t recall seeing you here before, so if you’re new, then welcome. I hope the others here don’t run you off with poor manners
. We need a heterogeneous group in order to have good discussions. But I would like to respond to one of your other points. You wrote:
Paleontologist Donald Prothero had an interesting piece about sudden appearances and stasis in the fossil record in Skeptic Magazine several months back. The whole thing is a great read, but if it’s too long, I’ll quote you this excerpt:
Emphasis mine. There are some famous transition sequences (along with their own problems; each has a lively debate), but among 1.2m animal species existing at given time, there are wide ranges of morphologies between many species (e.g. the great variety found in dogs). Yet something like only 5% of an organisms phenotype preserved in the fossil record, even in the rare case for complete skeletons. As Gould remarked on the most well-studied sequence, (Panda’s Thumb, 1980, p.126), “Most hominid fossils, even though they serve as a basis for endless speculation and elaborate storytelling, are fragments of jaws and scraps of skulls.”
Widespread morphological convergence makes a great mess of any remaining evidence. Take this diagram of convergence between marsupial and placental mammals. Given evolution, the mouse and mole are more closely related to the humpback whales and elephants than to marsupial mice and moles, and the wolf is closer to a human or a bat than to the tasmanian wolf.
In these cases, fossil evidence would provide a gradual but grossly incorrect sequence.
Nice post, JoeCoder
Thanks, JLAfan2001.
They are drawing a conclusion, but it is not just based on the evidence, that is the key point. The conclusion is also based upon a preferred paradigm with which they approach the data, coupled with an exclusion of any possibilities that don’t fall within that preferred paradigm. Also, some important questions that arise are assumed away or simply ignored (see below).
I agree and I think we are largely on the same page here. It seems however, that perhaps the caveats should be even stronger and broader than simply saying the change of species hasn’t been observed.
The caveats should also include (i) other possible explanations for the data exist (design or convergence, at the very least), and therefore, not only have we not observed our preferred conclusion, but it is not the only possible conclusion that could reasonably flow from the data; (ii) under our preferred scenario, it is unclear exactly how most of the changes in the chromosomes could have come about in the short time available and been successfully incorporated into the DNA; (iii) we have no idea what would drive the changes (other than pure chance, with the resulting issues of genetic entropy, etc.); (iv) it is unclear whether the observed differences in the DNA in fact produce all the differences we observe in phenotype; (v) it is unclear what other higher-level organismal changes would have to be incorporated to take advantage of the DNA (or conversely, on what basis can we possibly say which of the differences in the DNA actually produce the significant differences we see between humans and other primates?); (vi) the comparisons of DNA typically rely solely on basic sequence and do not take into account three-dimensional structure, placement, concatenation, highly different expressions of particular genes, etc. — we know very little about these and have no idea whether tweaking particular gene sequences would result in anything like what is being claimed, namely a chimp-like creature turning into a human; (vii) we have no idea whether there are intermediate species and, if so, whether a series of gradual changes would have a realistic chance of enhancing survival and becoming fixed in the population at each step along the way; and so on.
I’m just brainstorming these questions as I type. If we spent time on it, we could come up with another dozen related questions that would further call into question, or at least lessen, the certainty with which the proclamation of common descent is made.
—–
To put a blunt point on it, assume for a moment that human DNA and chimp DNA were 100% identical. What would that tell us about our decent from chimps? Nothing. It would tell us that our DNA is identical. The story — the history — is still open for discussion. Further, identical DNA would underscore (as do the popular claims of ’98% identical,’ ’99% identical’ and so forth) that the key differences between the species might not be in the DNA sequence.
Nice find JoeCoder, I’m surprised that Shermer let it in ‘Skeptic’
Might as well repeat this here:
Even before the release of “Science and Human Origins” there has been an uproar over human chromosome 2, the alleged fusion of two other chromosomes (still found in other primates) and sharing a common ancestor with chimps. According to evos this was supposed to be a chromosomal fusion that occurred in some gamete and then got passed along- a random event.
However if we look at it from a design perspective the randomness disappears. Why? Chromosome/ DNA packaging and chromosome territories.
Ya see gene expression and regulation depend on both the packaging and the location of the chromosomes within the nucleus, ie chromosome territories. And if you have two different/ separate chromosomes then they can be packaged differently and ferried around separately also, meaning they can be separated and placed in different territories.
So perhaps with humans it is required that the information never be separated. And the easiest way to accomplish that was by splicing the two together. Snip off the excess and splice.*
The research would be to determine where HC2 resides in certain tissues and cells and during development and then compare with the two primate chromosomes for the same tissues/ cells and stages of development.
So HC2 is explained as a design feature, for humans. It not only helps with reproductive isolation but it also allows for a different gene expression and regulation pattern necessary for the different requirements of humans.
* it could also be that the two chimp chromosomes were the result of splitting HC2 into two separate chromosomes
Here are a few neat little videos that show the surprising ‘abrupt appearance’ facet of the fossil record. i.e. the ‘trade secret’ of paleontology:
I work in software. Two similar programs could have very different programs. But usually the programs are similar, because the designer (me or one of my co-workers) cut and pasted the code from one program and made the modifications necessary for it to meet the requirements of the second program.
Similiarity does not disprove design.
More importantly, similarity isn’t exclusive to common descent.
@EvilSnack – I’m also a developer. I find patterns of homology in my code all the time. Just today I cloned an entire web page to create another very similar one. Elsewhere I have a ~500 line database wrapper that I wrote in php and subsequently translated to java, c#, and jscript/asp classic as the projects I was working on required.
@ba
Ha, “nice find” you say? I’m pretty sure I got that source from you. Methinks you don’t read what you cite
News @ 14 “How important will the genetic similarities seem then?”
If dolphins are much more smarter than whales it still would not erase the fact that they are related. This seems to be the new strategy: If you can’t disprove common descent, then try to de-emphasize it. It’s like saying humans aren’t related to chimpanzees because chimps live at the zoo and can’t drive cars.
smiddyone-
no need to disprove common descent as no one has proved it. And just because you want to be related to chimps doesn’t make it so.
Of related interest, Casey Luskin has this just up on ENV:
@smiddyone
Sorry you’re being so outnumbered here–I often face the same fate on reddit and it can be a bit overwhelming. Please disregard Joe, sometimes he takes these debates too personally.
I’d like to ask a question about similarity from a different angle–what percentage of DNA similarity is the magic number to confirm that two species do or don’t share a common ancestor? Say humans and chimps, 50%, 95%, 98.5% ?
Rather, a better criteria is to gauge if evolution can span the difference, given estimated population sizes, mutation rates, timespans, and an idea of the amount of genetic novelty needed.
I hold that evolution could not produce a human from a chimp-like ancestor in periods even much longer than 6m years. Take HIV and p. falciparum (common human malaria), two examples from Michael Behe’s book, Edge of Evolution. In the last several decades, each have had around a million times more selection and mutation events than humans would’ve had since a chimp divergence, yet they’ve each developed 1 and 0 new protein-protein binding sites, respectively, and I think HIV may have duplicated a gene. Many other microbes have also shown remarkable little evolution over similarly vast and rapidly reproducing populations. But in the same time, humans would have needed to develop around 280-1400 proteins of novel function (depending on which study you read and how “novel” is defined) through processes of duplications, fusions, de novo from junk DNA, and some without homologs at all.
Give a million times less opportunity, hominins would have had to evolve a thousand times faster. Evolution is a billion times too slow. But even that’s too conservative:
1. Sexual recombination slows macroevolution, (summary)
2. Epigenetic changes that form gene networks add another layer of complexity not accounted for here, causing the road from micro to macro to be logarithmic, not linear.
3. Some microbes show similarly little-to-no evolution over not just dozens, but millions of years.
4. Our high mutation rate gives the fittest members of every primate population (including humans) multiple deleterious mutations (most slightly, like rust on a car), causing a net decrease in fitness every generation. Yet beneficials take thousands of years to appear and fixate. Evolution is one step forward, two thousand backward.
I or ba77 can cite peer-reviewed sources for each of these, but I’m trying to avoid writing a bibliography again, in order to keep the thread readable.
I wish there was a way to edit posts here, I had meant to add these links for point 1, since it’s oft-disputed:
1. Sexual recombination slows macroevolution, (summary)
Here is the a brief sketch of the problems I have with the teaching of evolution as is done currently.
Consider the following questions
1. Do you believe in crucifixion?
2. Do you believe in The Crucifixion?
They are two vastly different questions. Of course everyone who is sane believes in crucifixion. The Romans accurately described it. Corpses have even been found from Roman times which show evidence of having been crucified.
Not everyone believes in The Crucifixion. This implies a belief that the Son of God came to earth to die on a cross for all the sins of the world. His atoning death is available for all.
Two very different beliefs.
Now take two other questions:
1. Do you believe in evolution?
2. Do you believe in the Theory of Evolution?
Any observant person believes in evolution – that process by which populations of organisms change over time. Its obvious that adaptability is built into life.
But when one considers the “Theory of Evolution” one is professing belief in a particular type of evolution. A history of life that basically says neo-Darwinism has created all forms of life by chance mutation ( plus other processes ) and natural selection. This has occurred without any input by an intelligent designer.
But I contend that most people do not believe in the whole “Theory of Evolution” and its a good thing they don’t. Because it is an absurd theory that the Bible says only a fool could believe. Saying “I believe in the theory of evolution” is a logical impossibility. Its logically impossible because the “Theory of Evolution” is not a physical thing. It is a thought. It is just a bunch of words, an immaterial, abstract, object that has no single representation. There is no possible way that an unknowing bunch of chemicals can have a predisposition for an immaterial thing, independent of its representation.
Now I believe whole heartedly, that a bunch of chemicals ( genes and cells ) can have a personal predisposition to all kinds of physical things. Pepper, spices, carrots, blonds…. But if materialism is true, there is no possible way for a purely physical brain to be set up to have a predisposition for an abstract, immaterial concept.
So to say, that “I am just a bunch of chemicals that came together by random chance,” precludes me from having a preference for one immaterial thing over another. In other words, belief in the “Theory of Evolution” precludes the ability to choose to adhere to an abstract belief.
Things like meaning, purpose, nobility, can not evolve. Those who believe that they can are only fooling themselves. After many years, no one has a credible model of the evolution of consciousness. Heck we don’t even know what it is.
So I would think that most people believe some combination of evolution mixed with intelligent intervention. Its the only thing that makes sense, given our ability to choose to believe, advocate for, and even choose to die for an abstract concept.
Once we make this admission — that really the only thing that can account for man’s ability to have a preference for one abstract thought over another is the input of intelligent design — the specific amount of intelligent intervention mixed with just letting natural processes have their way becomes a religious argument. Not a scientific one.
JoeCoder, your limits to genetic variation because of sexual recombination paper goes very well with this recent article:
Duplicated code is bad design.
@Mung
Many critical systems designed by humans will have redundancy in case the primary path fails. We see the same thing in our own duplicate genes. From The regulatory utilization of genetic redundancy through responsive backup circuits, PNAS, 2006
A recently published paper hypothesized that the number of copies of a gene controls the speed of various processes. See figure 3 and the “Gene Balance Hypothesis” section from Gene balance hypothesis: Connecting issues of dosage
sensitivity across biological disciplines, PNAS 2012
JoeCoder:
Explain how that works with source code. You write segments of source code that are redundant in case one of the segments fails?
def happy_path n
n / 0
rescue DivideByZeroError
sad_path n
end
def sad_path n
n / 0
rescue DivideByZeroError
happy_path n
end
More or less, except you don’t write it twice; it’s simply deployed to more than one piece of hardware in case one fails, or an extremely rare bug that makes it past testing shows up in one. Walter Bright, a former Boeing engineer and one of my favorite programmers to follow, speaks about this frequently:
Then it’s not duplicated code as I meant the term.