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Re: [Phys-l] Another alternative theory horror

I would be fairly careful about mentioning the "gill stage". This comes
from the long discredited Haekel theory. There are some similarities in
structures in early embryonic development, but these similarities diverge
with time. See:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recapitulation_theory

Recapitulation theory is a hot button item with anti-evolutionists because
Haekel "simplified" or "prettied" his pictures and they ignore differences
between various species embryos. These erroneous pictures have been used in
many biology texts and anti-evolutionists claim that this discredits
evolution. But Darwin's view of embryonic development is closer to the
modern view. In either case Haekel's view is not really important to the
modern evolutionary model.

When people attack evolution as being faschist of communist, they ignore the
fact that laissez faire economics has a lot of similarities to evolution in
that it proposes economic survival of the fittest. Actually for various
reasons people have attacked relativity, the big bang model, the
heliocentric model ... Misunderstanding of the "scientific method" is
rampant in the US. Then the fact that it is mistakenly or perhaps
avariciously liked to politics is causing problems in education and science.
Some politicians do this just to appease their base, while other really
believe their nonsense rhetoric.

The original question about how you can use evolution to explain all data
and then claim that the data confirms evolution is similar to what happens
in all of science. You use your existing model to explain all phenomena,
but should be looking out for deviations. The fact that the existing model
works is the confirmation. But if you find deviations, then either the
existing model is modified or discarded in favor of a model that works
better. And of course we do not allow divine beings of any kind to be the
movers in our models because then one can explain everything by divine
intervention and science no longer exists. Newton did that with respect to
orbital stability, and then no longer made progress on the problem. Of
course he might just have done that as a means for giving up on the problem.
It fell to others to solve it.

Incidentally the official state climatologist in TX has written extensively
on why anthropogenic global warming is real. Apparently the governor never
bothered to pay attention to his scientists. But then he got Cs and Ds in
most science and economics courses.

John M. Clement
Houston, TX


I think that bc is confused. I don't believe tht I wrote
those pieces.
Jack Uretsky

"Trust me. I have a lot of experience at this."
General Custer's unremembered message to his men,
just before leading them into the Little Big Horn Valley

On 2008, Feb 10, , at 14:05, Jack Uretsky wrote:

Why evolution?
Because it is the economical explanation of an overwhelming set of
facts. For example:
Why is it that your DNA is essentially the same as that of a yeast
cell?
Why is it that we can trace out the development of critters, as
revealed by paleobiology, also in DNA, by looking at the conserved
regions? In that connection, see the evolutionary biology article in
Nature. 14 September '06, p. 149, tracing out the human accelerated
regions of the human genome in compariswon with similar regions of the
chimpanzee and other mammalian genomes; this research is leading to an
awareness of the importance of non-coding regions of the genome.
Why, in fact are all genomes so similar?
Why is there a gill stage in human development?
Perhaps you wife can equip you with a few more "why" questions.
Regards,
Jack

On Sat, 9 Feb 2008, Steve Clark wrote:

This evolution thing sure is a hot button for many. Not entirely sure
why.

I have a question. This may not be the best forum to ask it in, but
here goes:

Why is evolution considered the central tenet of biology? I'm not a
biologist (although I married one), but it looks to me like evolution
has become a philosophy and everything in biology is explained with
the assumption that evolution is true. And evolution is then
supported by using the ideas that were explained by evolution.

I think we could teach every aspect of high school biology in the
curriculum without mentioning evolution and have our students know
the same concepts as we do now with evolution (of course, with the
exception of evolution, itself). If that's true (it may not be), then
why is evolution a fundamental principle?

And, please, no attacks on religion or people of faith. This is
supposed to be a scientific issue. If you have to attack people's
faith, then there is something else at issue here than just a
question of good science.

Steve Clark