Lecture 1

Question 1

What does large size in animals indicate?

Answer 1

-an example of patterns in biology

Question 2

Big Animals

Answer 2

• 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?

Question 3

Essential features of science?

Answer 3

• 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

Question 4

Pseudo-science

Answer 4

• subjects that claim to be science but are based on dogmatic ideas and non-valid forms of investigation
• ex: homeopathic medicine, creationism, telekenisis

Question 5

Near science

Answer 5

• topics that are not yet science, but could be in the future
• ex: existence of other universes

Question 6

Former science

Answer 6

• topics once considered to provide explanations of the universe but shown false
• ex: astrology, phlogiston theory

Question 7

Simplistic definition of evolution

Answer 7

• lower forms give rise to higher ones
• complex organisms by random accident
• survival of the fittest
• origin of species
• changes in allele frequency

Question 8

Better definition of evolution

Answer 8

• heritable changes in the genome expressed in physiology, development, and morphology of an organismal lineage through time
• lacks reference to mechanisms–>important missing componenent

Question 9

Definition of evolution tied to mechanism (Darwin 1859 Origin of Species)

Answer 9

• 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

Question 10

Phylogeny

Answer 10

• all life is related by common descent in a branching pattern
• fundamental to genetic mechanisms in evolution–>Darwin

Question 11

Can we know about the deep past?

Answer 11

• methodological naturalism
• inductive logic
• parsimony
• present is key to the past

Question 12

Parsimony

Answer 12

-simplest explanation is the best

Question 13

Role of theories as seen by creationists

Answer 13

-Question–>Theory–>Fact

Question 14

Role of theories as used in science

Answer 14

Question–>Hypothesis–>Theory while Facts are pointed toward each of the arrows in the step.

Question 15

Methodological Naturalism

Answer 15

• 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

Question 16

Ontological naturalism

Answer 16

-says that what you see is all there is

Question 17

Religious viewpoint on methodological naturalism

Answer 17

-can be used to allow room for both science and religion, although some religious views deny even this.

Question 18

Inductive logic

Answer 18

• observations suggest hypotheses which imply consequences
• can test to see if it can be falsified
• this is the basis of the ultimate test-technology

Question 19

Present is key to the past

Answer 19

-this is methodological naturalism applied in time

Question 20

Pre Darwin

Answer 20

• 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

Question 21

Darwin 1859

Answer 21

• The Origin of Species

- evidence for the fact of evolution plus a convincing mechanism of natural selection

Question 22

Natural selection

Answer 22

• 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

Question 23

Philosophical impact of Darwin

Answer 23

• static world replaced by evolving one
• creationism implausible
• refutes cosmic teleology
• questions anthropocentrism
• replaces design by natural selection
• essentialism replaced by populational thinking

Question 24

Modern challenges to evolution

Answer 24

• mechanistic ideas by scientists opposed to Darwinian evolution
• religious-derived creationism (old Earth=”day age”, young earth literalism, intelligent design

Question 25

Panspermia

Answer 25

• 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

Question 26

Old Earth

Answer 26

• each day of the Bible is a long age, so “day age”
• creation by stages with humans last
• no evolution

Question 27

Hare Krishna movement

Answer 27

-accept old Earth, old humans, but not human evolution

Question 28

Young Earth creationists

Answer 28

• mainstream “creation science”
• tied to christian fundamentalism
• origins in protestant fundamentalism ca 1900
• absolute truth of Bible

Question 29

Objections to evolution

Answer 29

• violates teachings of books of Genesis

- Evolution teaching is viewed as the root of all social evils Social Darwinism, man as an animal, humanism

Question 30

Social Darwinism

Answer 30

• 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

Question 31

Intelligent design creationism

Answer 31

• 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

Question 32

Young Earth Creationism Failure

Answer 32

-fails as a science, at best a former science, now falsified by data collected over the past 200 years

Question 33

Intelligent design failure

Answer 33

• 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

Question 34

Creationism

Answer 34

• 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

Question 35

What kind of evolution?

Answer 35

-of those who accept evolution, more are likely to accept theistic evolution than undirected selection

Question 36

Theistic flavors

Answer 36

• 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

Question 37

Demarcation Problem

Answer 37

• 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