Lecture 1 Flashcards
What does large size in animals indicate?
-an example of patterns in biology
Big Animals
- Why aren’t they even bigger
- How do we know the extinct ones existed?
- How do we know when they lived?
- Were they separately created or related by heredity?
- How can we reconstruct patterns through time?
- Are there underlying mechanisms?
Essential features of science?
- observation, hypothesis formation
- hypotheses are tentative, and used to predict outcomes of future observations or experiments in the real world
- hypothetical predictions must be falsifiable, i.e. they must be provably wrong by being stated in a form that allows failure in testing
- hypotheses that survive multiple testing become theories. Theories are well established, but still subject to falsification
- Ideas that do not meet the above criteria are not science, even though they may pretend to be. Know as the demarcation problem
Pseudo-science
- subjects that claim to be science but are based on dogmatic ideas and non-valid forms of investigation
- ex: homeopathic medicine, creationism, telekenisis
Near science
- topics that are not yet science, but could be in the future
- ex: existence of other universes
Former science
- topics once considered to provide explanations of the universe but shown false
- ex: astrology, phlogiston theory
Simplistic definition of evolution
- lower forms give rise to higher ones
- complex organisms by random accident
- survival of the fittest
- origin of species
- changes in allele frequency
Better definition of evolution
- heritable changes in the genome expressed in physiology, development, and morphology of an organismal lineage through time
- lacks reference to mechanisms–>important missing componenent
Definition of evolution tied to mechanism (Darwin 1859 Origin of Species)
- Not all progeny can survive
- variation among individuals
- advantageous variation will help some survive
- if favorable variation can be passed on to offspring, there will be evolutionary change=NATURAL SELECTION
Phylogeny
- all life is related by common descent in a branching pattern
- fundamental to genetic mechanisms in evolution–>Darwin
Can we know about the deep past?
- methodological naturalism
- inductive logic
- parsimony
- present is key to the past
Parsimony
-simplest explanation is the best
Role of theories as seen by creationists
-Question–>Theory–>Fact
Role of theories as used in science
Question–>Hypothesis–>Theory while Facts are pointed toward each of the arrows in the step.
Methodological Naturalism
- Viewpoint science takes
- natural world operates by regular rules that can be discovered, can be empirically tested, and are independent of any supernatural whim
- not identical to ontological naturalism but also does not contradict
Ontological naturalism
-says that what you see is all there is
Religious viewpoint on methodological naturalism
-can be used to allow room for both science and religion, although some religious views deny even this.
Inductive logic
- observations suggest hypotheses which imply consequences
- can test to see if it can be falsified
- this is the basis of the ultimate test-technology
Present is key to the past
-this is methodological naturalism applied in time
Pre Darwin
- some scientists realized evolution had taken place
- no convincing mechanism
- Lamarck (ca 1800) changed based on acquired features resulting from an improving tendency and a strengthening of organs by use
Darwin 1859
- The Origin of Species
- evidence for the fact of evolution plus a convincing mechanism of natural selection
Natural selection
- darwin recognized evolution had happened
- realized that evolution did not require design, instead if variations present in organisms could confer advantage, the bearer would leave more descendants, as a consequence those would carry the advantageous variation
- analogy of artificial selection conducted by people on domestic animals
Philosophical impact of Darwin
- static world replaced by evolving one
- creationism implausible
- refutes cosmic teleology
- questions anthropocentrism
- replaces design by natural selection
- essentialism replaced by populational thinking
Modern challenges to evolution
- mechanistic ideas by scientists opposed to Darwinian evolution
- religious-derived creationism (old Earth=”day age”, young earth literalism, intelligent design
Panspermia
- Chandra Wickramasinghe and Fred Hoyle
- genes form in cosmic dust (organic material is present) and fall to Earth
- alter course of evolution-not by selection
- introduce new pathogenic viruses
- accept old earth, but deny Darwinian evolution
Old Earth
- each day of the Bible is a long age, so “day age”
- creation by stages with humans last
- no evolution
Hare Krishna movement
-accept old Earth, old humans, but not human evolution
Young Earth creationists
- mainstream “creation science”
- tied to christian fundamentalism
- origins in protestant fundamentalism ca 1900
- absolute truth of Bible
Objections to evolution
- violates teachings of books of Genesis
- Evolution teaching is viewed as the root of all social evils Social Darwinism, man as an animal, humanism
Social Darwinism
- people with the most resources or have the ability to get the resources will have the better chance of survival
- survival of the fittest
- racial/wealth superiority used to justify colonialism, not related to Darwin
Intelligent design creationism
- accepts old Earth, Denies selection and posits that the organization of living things shows that there is a designer. Two claims: specified complexity, irreducible complexity
- documents of their organization show religious intent although pretend that the designer could be any agent
Young Earth Creationism Failure
-fails as a science, at best a former science, now falsified by data collected over the past 200 years
Intelligent design failure
- fails as science because it is a pseudoscience built upon two dubious claims, specified complexity and irreducible complexity
- one claim is non-testable, the other has been falsified
Creationism
- political movement in the US
- Attempts to reduce teaching evolution in public schools and balance with creation science or intelligent design
- court cases have ruled against both as religion rather than science
What kind of evolution?
-of those who accept evolution, more are likely to accept theistic evolution than undirected selection
Theistic flavors
- God directs the course of evolution=classic theistic evolution
- god set up the initial conditions of the universe, and then stood back to let nature run its course=Deism
Demarcation Problem
- ideas lik edeism or theistic evolution may have some philosophical validity, but they are not part of science.
- Can be held as personal views but are not amenable to investigation–>non-falsifiable
