{"id":534,"date":"2013-02-28T19:05:17","date_gmt":"2013-03-01T01:05:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/?p=534"},"modified":"2013-02-26T19:06:44","modified_gmt":"2013-02-27T01:06:44","slug":"weaknesses-of-evolution-part-13-creationist-misunderstandings","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/2013\/02\/28\/weaknesses-of-evolution-part-13-creationist-misunderstandings\/","title":{"rendered":"Weaknesses of Evolution &#8211; Part 13 &#8211; Creationist Misunderstandings"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>The last section of the webpage &#8220;<a href=\"http:\/\/www.strengthsandweaknesses.org\/Weaknesses\/essential_weaknesses.htm\">weaknesses of evolution<\/a>&#8221; is some helpful tips from creationists about how to prevent misunderstandings.<\/p>\n<p>Before we get to their list, I&#8217;d like to add one for the creationists.\u00a0 Define your terminology and use them consistently.\u00a0 I have seen lots of instances were words are misused (especially words like &#8220;information&#8221; and &#8220;theory&#8221; and &#8220;naturalism&#8221;) by creationists for the express purpose of casting doubt on certain scientific practices.\u00a0 I&#8217;ve also seen creationists shift the meaning of those words, even within the same sentence.<\/p>\n<p>This practice, more than anything else, causes misunderstandings.\u00a0 Stop.<\/p>\n<p>Here&#8217;s the list of helpful tips.<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<blockquote>\n<ul>\n<li>When fossils are illustrated, the illustration should indicate which parts of the skeleton are actually present in the fossil material and which parts are inferred. This may be done for example by color, shading, or outline weight.<\/li>\n<li>Fossil abundance versus geologic period diagrams should be shown for all life forms discussed in the text or presented in tree of life or cladogram interpretations. One large diagram might be presented at an early point in the discussion of fossils. Where little intact fossil material is known, fine lines or dotted lines should be used to indicate inferred or hypothesized connections or relationships.<\/li>\n<li>If evolution is compared to the change over time of the product of any human endeavor, then the role of intelligence and purpose in that human endeavor must also be clearly recognized and discussed.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Just three?\u00a0 The first is pretty easily dealt with.\u00a0 In fact, in most cases, this is already done.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s an example:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/ars.els-cdn.com\/content\/image\/1-s2.0-S0033589408001580-gr8.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"279\" height=\"339\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Of course, this is from a scientific paper, not a text book.\u00a0 In the only text book I have handy right now (Historical Geology, Wicander&amp;Monroe, second edition) every picture of a historical animal is labeled &#8220;reconstruction&#8221;.\u00a0 In the few places where actual fossils are presented, they are labeled as such, with a diagram (labeled reconstruction) next to it, for easy comparison.<\/p>\n<p>I&#8217;m not sure that there is a problem here.\u00a0 Perhaps the creationists should point out some examples where confusion exists.<\/p>\n<p>On cladograms&#8230; do you mean like this:<\/p>\n<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/content.answcdn.com\/main\/content\/img\/McGrawHill\/Encyclopedia\/images\/CE757507FG0010.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"414\" height=\"228\" \/><\/p>\n<p>Again, I fail to see where scientists are not already doing this.<\/p>\n<p>One thing to keep in mind is that things like cladograms are based on extensive amounts of evidence.\u00a0 These aren&#8217;t just inferred relationships.\u00a0 Until more data is available, these are the best possible understanding of the relationships.\u00a0 Here&#8217;s one on whales:<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 720px\" class=\"wp-caption alignnone\"><a href=\"http:\/\/www.biomedcentral.com\/1471-2148\/11\/112\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/www.biomedcentral.com\/content\/figures\/1471-2148-11-112-6-l.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"720\" height=\"950\" \/><\/a><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">from A supermatrix analysis of genomic, morphological, and paleontological data from crown Cetacea<br \/>BMC Evolutionary Biology 2011, 11:112 doi:10.1186\/1471-2148-11-112<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>First, note that the inferred relationships ARE dotted lines.\u00a0 Second, note that this cladogram is the results of some 20 years of genetic analysis and includes paleontological data.\u00a0 The heavier weight lines show the time ranges for extinct species.\u00a0 These aren&#8217;t &#8216;guesses&#8217;.\u00a0 This is the result of a highly detailed analysis of thousands (if not millions) of bits of data.\u00a0 Third, it&#8217;s an awesome picture isn&#8217;t it?<\/p>\n<p>The last &#8216;helpful tip&#8217; is the most annoying.<\/p>\n<blockquote><p>If evolution is compared to the change over time of the product of any human endeavor, then the role of intelligence and purpose in that human endeavor must also be clearly recognized and discussed.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n<p>Let me explain something briefly.\u00a0 One of my areas of interest is evolutionary algorithms.\u00a0 These are computer programs in which the details of a particular device or process can be loaded into a computer and evolved.\u00a0 Different populations of the device or process exist in the memory of the computer.\u00a0 Random changes (mutations) are made to the device or process.\u00a0 Breeding can occur between different virtual devices or processes.\u00a0 And offspring devices or processes are evaluated against some kinds of fitness and scored.\u00a0 The best ones continue on to breed more devices or processes and the worst ones are removed from the population.<\/p>\n<p>This kind of system works very well on things that, once designed, are easy to evaluate, but difficult to design from scratch.\u00a0 One example is that of a lens system.\u00a0 One might have four or five lens of different shapes and materials.\u00a0 Once the lens system design is finalized, then it is easy to run a ray trace of light through the lens system and determine its characteristics (magnification, aperture, coma, diffraction, abberations, etc).\u00a0 However, it is exceedingly difficult to design a lens system to have particular characteristics.<\/p>\n<p>For systems and processes like this, evolutionary algorithms have constantly (as in every single time) out-performed teams of human experts.\u00a0 Whether we look at hypersonic aircraft, checkers, work flow in a John Deer factory, lenses, diesel engine efficiency or any of a million other devices and practice, evolutionary algorithms always out-perform human engineers.\u00a0 Evolutionary algorithms can evaluate millions of devices and processes in days instead of decades that it would take engineers.<\/p>\n<p>The John Deere factory study is particularly interesting.\u00a0 The factory built planters, big ones, with over a million possible combinations of options.\u00a0 The factory was overloaded.\u00a0 Some stations were working overtime while half finished machines bunched up in other stations.\u00a0 Handfuls of engineers were spending 4 day devising a production schedule for that week.\u00a0 Now, a single PC looks at the orders, due dates, status of all projects on the floor, and using evolution, creates a work flow in a few hours.\u00a0 The factory output has increased substantially.<\/p>\n<p>And that&#8217;s the ultimate killer to all the creationist claims and wishes.<\/p>\n<p>Evolution simply works.\u00a0 I can point to thousands of products and processes that are based on evolutionary theory.\u00a0 Intelligent Design, as a competing notion, hasn&#8217;t produced anything&#8230; ever.\u00a0 Creationism has never advanced human knowledge or designed a product&#8230; ever.<\/p>\n<p>There is a role for human intelligence&#8230; and that&#8217;s to recognize where evolution works, then stand back and let it go.<\/p>\n<p>&nbsp;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>The last section of the webpage &#8220;weaknesses of evolution&#8221; is some helpful tips from creationists about how to prevent misunderstandings.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":27,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24,8,89,6],"tags":[939,938,283,937,286],"class_list":["post-534","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-creationism","category-evolution","category-research-2","category-science","tag-creationism","tag-evolution","tag-intelligent-design","tag-science","tag-weaknesses-of-evolution"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/27"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=534"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/534\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=534"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=534"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/skepticink.com\/smilodonsretreat\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=534"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}