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From: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Newsgroups: net.origins
Subject: Re: The Scientific Case for Creation: (Part 22)
Message-ID: <571@cybvax0.UUCP>
Date: Thu, 6-Jun-85 11:20:14 EDT
Article-I.D.: cybvax0.571
Posted: Thu Jun  6 11:20:14 1985
Date-Received: Mon, 10-Jun-85 01:16:29 EDT
References: <367@iham1.UUCP>
Reply-To: mrh@cybvax0.UUCP (Mike Huybensz)
Distribution: net
Organization: Cybermation, Inc., Cambridge, MA
Lines: 64

In article <367@iham1.UUCP> rck@iham1.UUCP (Ron Kukuk) writes his most
laughable criticism of evolution yet:
> 
>        35.  If sexual reproduction in plants, animals, and humans is a
>             result  of  evolution,  then  an  absolutely  unbelievable
>             series of chance events would have  had  to  occur  [a,b].

The quotes provided show absolutely nothing of the sort.

>             First,  the  amazingly  complex  and  completely different
>             reproductive systems of the male must have COMPLETELY  and
>             INDEPENDENTLY  evolved at about the SAME TIME AND PLACE as
>             those of the female. Just a slight incompleteness in  only
>             one  of  the  two  would  make  both  reproductive systems
>             useless,  and  natural  selection   would   oppose   their
>             survival.

Sex is though to be VERY old: essentially all eucaryotic organisms have
sexual mechanisims which are thought to be homologous.  Sex originally
probably didn't have male/female distinctions (and doesn't in fungi.)
Bacteria have sex: though it may not be homologous with eucaryotic sex.

The rest of the above paragraph shows the sort of "incomplete creation"
misunderstanding of evolution that creationists are justly ridiculed for.

>             a)  ''This book is written  from  a  conviction  that  the
>                 prevalence of sexual reproduction in higher plants and
>                 animals  is  inconsistent  with  current  evolutionary
>                 theory.''   [George  C.  Williams,  Preface,  SEX  AND
>                 EVOLUTION  (Princeton,  N.J.:   Princeton   University
>                 Press, 1975), p. v.]

This sounds intriguingly like the cost of meiosis problem, which a friend
of mine (Dr. Mike Orlove) is working on.  The question is: in terms of
kin selection, why would an organism want to throw away half its
relatedness when forming a gamete?  Mike hopes to solve this problem
in much the same way as he (and others) solved the problems of kin
selection in social insects.

>             b)  ''So why is there sex? We do  not  have  a  compelling
>                 answer   to   the  question.  Despite  some  ingenious
>                 suggestions  by  orthodox  Darwinians  (notably   G.D.
>                 Williams  1975;  John Maynard Smith 1978), there is no
>                 convincing Darwinian  history  for  the  emergence  of
>                 sexual  reproduction.  However, evolutionary theorists
>                 believe  that  the  problem  will  be  solved  without
>                 abandoning  the main Darwinian insights--just as early
>                 nineteenth-century  astronomers  believed   that   the
>                 problem  of  the  motion  of  Uranus could be overcome
>                 without  major  modification  of  Newton's   celestial
>                 mechanics.''  [Philip  Kitcher,  ABUSING  SCIENCE: THE
>                 CASE AGAINST  CREATIONISM  (Cambridge,  Massachusetts:
>                 The MIT Press, 1982), p. 54.]

Right.  Because fossils of early eucaryotic (or earlier) organisms are
entirely unknown, and we don't have extant examples of plausible early
sexual organisms.  So other theoretical approaches are taken.

And the above citation certainly doesn't support creationism or deny
evolution.

-- 

Mike Huybensz		...decvax!genrad!mit-eddie!cybvax0!mrh