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From: dubois@uwmacc.UUCP (A Ray Miller)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Non-prediction, Falsification
Message-ID: <1129@uwmacc.UUCP>
Date: Wed, 22-May-85 16:42:36 EDT
Article-I.D.: uwmacc.1129
Posted: Wed May 22 16:42:36 1985
Date-Received: Fri, 24-May-85 21:09:28 EDT
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Organization: University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
Lines: 120


>> [Paul DuBois]
>>Sure - exactly as expected.  Pure grandstanding, as Bill says.  If they
>>get more complex, we expect it.  If they regress, we expect it.  If
>>they stay exactly the same, we expected that, too.  So no matter what
>>happens, we expect it.  So, as always, evolution reduces to
>>description, not explanation or mechanism.  This is not very
>>compelling as an "expectation".

> [Michael Ward]
> The theory of evolution by way of natural selection says that random
> changes to the genetic material of organisms and  environmental
> conditions that change in unpredictable ways interact to create new
> species.  Predictions about the direction of any particular change in
> the natural state are not only not supported by this theory, they are
> forbidden.  How can you make predictions about how random changes will
> occur? 

You can't.  That's exactly my point.  People should stop talking about
what they "expect" - or at least specify that they expect *something*
but that they don't know *what*.  (Of course, such an admission might be
somewhat damaging.)

In my mind, there is a rather striking similarity between

	(a) God made it that way because he wanted to.
and
	(b) this particular event happened that way because it happened
	    to.

Big deal.  Either one could be true, in point of fact.  Neither falls
within the realm of testability.

> Darwin's theory allowed for both increase and decrease in complexity,
> with an overall trend toward an increase, probably caused by factors
> that cause a more complex organism to *generally* have a reproductive
> advantage over one that is less complex.  Darwin's theory did not
> allow for organisms that remain unchanged for long periods of time. 
> This very large hole in the theory was the reason for the formulation
> of punctuated equilibrium.  The proponants of punctuated equilibrium
> are even now fighting the battle that is required to bring a new theory
> forth and get it accepted in the community of science. This theory
> allows for stasis.

Thus making it *even more difficult* to falsify.  If they don't change,
that's ok.  If they change rapidly, that's ok.  If they change
gradually, well, we never ruled out gradualism, you know...  But the
more the time for speciation gets whittled down, the more reasonable it
becomes to ask for direct observation.  The more the time span of
change of Bauplan is shortened, the greater the susceptibility to the
requirement for demonstration of direct evidence becomes.

> Criticizing the theory of evolution for not predicting what it says
> cannot be predicted makes as much sense as throwing out the principle of
> uncertainty because it doesn't predict the location and velocity of a
> photon.

You might toss it if it didn't predict either one specifically.

>>If we know enough about the environment to say "Evolution is based on
>>direct natural selection, thus at any given time it procedes [sic] in
>>the direction appropriate to the immediate environment", we know enough
>>to say why, and whether, hyrax split and one group stayed the same,
>>while another didn't.  But we don't, so we can't.  We can guess if we
>>want to - but that's all.

> In order to say why, and whether Hyrax split and one group stayed the
> same, while another didn't we would have to know a great deal about the
> genetic characteristics of the Hyrax, about the random changes that
> were occurring, and about the environmental conditions that Hyrax was
> facing.  Obviously we don't have that knowledge.  This says nothing at
> all about the theory.

That's quite true.  I was objecting to statements about the history of
horse *based on* the theory - statements implying that there is some
sort of knowledge imparted, but which are statement that cannot be
supported, only given the handwave by some vague reference to natural
selection.  There's a difference.

>>I don't get it.  You guys all KNOW this.  I'n not telling you one
>>single thing that you don't already know.  Yet this pretense of the
>>idea that natural selection means something or tells us something, is
>>maintained.  Why?  Why do you do it?

> Not only do us guys not know this, we know it to be false.  The theory
> of evolution through natural selection may not provide some with
> enough explanation, but it provides far more in the way of explanation
> than any other theory.  It offers a general mechanism by which one
> species can change into another and has pointed the way to fruitful
> research.  It is true that at the present time we do not know the
> mechanism by which species change or remain the same, but I expect that
> this is a situation that will change in our lifetime.

How can it offer a general mechanism at the same time that we don't
know the mechanism?

There is a contradiction in this paragraph.

> The question that is the focal point of this newsgroup will be decided
> by that understanding of the physiological and biochemical basis of
> organismal response to environmental stimuli that Paul references.  The
> mechanisms by which organisms change and resist change will become
> known, and this knowledge will destroy the theory of evolution or make
> it even more obviously true than it is now.  If a thorough
> understanding of the ways genetics works proves that species cannot
> change, the theory of evolution will die.  If, on the other hand,
> evolutionary mechanisms are found, that should still the voices of
> Creationism, since debunking Evolution is all they got.

This is an excellent paragraph.  Except for the last phrase, I grok it
entirely.

I would not limit it to genetics, however.  Cytoplasmic processes,
e.g., may play an important role, too.

-- 
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Paul DuBois     {allegra,ihnp4,seismo}!uwvax!uwmacc!dubois        --+--
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