The article frequently interchanges the terms evolution and adaptation as if they were the same thing. The snails adapted and were able to do so by expressing genes they already had.
Evolution means that genetic characteristics change through the generations of a population. Adaptation via selection is one process that can cause evolution. Sexual selection is another process that can cause evolution (male peacock's tails for example), but that is not caused by adaptation to the environment.
I like the build system analogy for the epigenetics, it is quite apt since the mechanism is to “turn and off features that are already in the code base”.
Not sure I get the preprocessor analogy though. Unless you mean specifically changing some #define constants and not stuff like preprocessor macros?
Build systems often define constants by passing them as -D defines, which toggle code in different preprocessor #ifdef sections, so the analogy isn’t far off.
Can you elaborate on your parentheses more? Not sure why epigenetics is to genetics as build system is to C code.
I was thinking more like genetics is the code base, epigenetics are like decorators that can modify function without changing the behavior without changing code.
Epigenetics is about regulating gene expression. That is, controlling which of the many genes in the organism's genome actually get "printed out" into actual proteins in a given situation).
Every cell, after all, contains the entire DNA library of the organism, but not every cell needs all of those proteins, and they must not all simply be made into proteins constantly.
It's a little bit like preprocessor directives ("if we're on x86, compile this bit; if we're on ARM, compile that bit").
Transcription and translation turns DNA into protein, in my analogy this is the compilation step.
Build systems, preprocessors, and C code are made by intelligent designers with precise designs. They are observed in reality, both forming and being iterated on, with results that work when others replicate them. They prove software requires intelligent designers. Further research on that showed highly-complex software that worked with 100% reliability required the much more intelligence to produce. There's debate in scientific communities, esp in fault-tolerance and formal verification, if our designs could ever achieve the longevity and reliability seen in the mechanics of our universe.
(Now, back to scientists seeing evolution which has none of these attributes of observation-driven science. An overloaded term meaning both adaptation and large-scale changes of which I'll focus on the unproven part.)
We'll start with the scientific method since it's usually absent in some way in these claims. We work from real-world observations to a hypothesis to testing that. There's usually predictions to confirm or falsify the theory. We must be willing to modify it or let it go entirely if we're scientists. There's also peer review by skeptical parties willing to consider alternatives. They're to be weighed on the bases of evidence, not feelings or politics. Dissent is always allowed regardless of credentials or numbers behind mainstream theories.
With this process, you'd have to look at the testable predictions of macro-evolution, observe them happening, observe no contradictions, and review by people who didn't have die-hard faith in evolution. Unfortunately, the theory fails in all of those areas.
First, we never see it happening in reality despite billions of observations over thousands of years. Second, life just appears out of nowhere fully formed in the fossil record, like the Cambrian explosion. Third, the man-made creatures don't change much or live long even under ideal, lab conditions but somehow random events worked better millions of times. Fourth, complexity science along with studies of life and the universe proved both are vastly more complex than initially assumed. We can't create them, esp self-sustaining. Yet, mainstream science keeps believing evolution just happened in a way that kept happening, doesn't now the same way, and just take their word for it. No dissent is allowed either with or without observations or experiments.
Eventually, there's going to be some actual science done. That requires evolution being marked as refuted by observed evidence. (Minor adaptation is proven, though.) They need to ask where we came from with a clean slate. They must factor in complexity theory, evidence of design, what optimization theory taught us about success rate of random vs intelligently-parameterized changes, and observations in programming like design and maintenance requirements. Whatever is predicted must match real-world observations. That will be science.
Christian scientists already do that. Our current theory is that the universe and humans must have been designed by a being whose power exceeds all human knowledge and technology. The purpose isn't scientifically discoverable. The Bible, separately proven, explains it's to know and glorify God (Jesus Christ) and reflect His character as we live together and love each other. The awe of the purpose, beauty, and brilliance of God's overall creation motivates us to dig deeper into it to understand it. That God requires truth to come first is why we can't allow popular, unproven lies about either science (macro-evolution) or theology (false religion).
This entire comment is amazing, but I particularly like how evolution is unproven but the Christian bible and existence of Christianity’s version of God are proven.
I wonder if we went out into the world which we would find more evidence in favor of?
Check how fast bacteria evolve. Google Antibiotic resistance. Thats not produced through intelligence.
Or look at recent examples of Covid strains evolving. There is not intelligence there either.
God (or what ever your source of faith is) will always exist, not because of anything Scientists uncover, but because all people are constantly faced with problems that require generation of Faith in themselves or others.
If you understand that you dont even need to use Science as part of you argument.
“Once again, evolution was not observed in real time. The snail remained a snail instead of turning into a new type of animal. Evolutionists are baffled by how what they claim about all the species on Earth never actually happens. Instead of being disproven, the proponents now say the lack of evidence is proof it happened… on extremely-long, time scales science can’t confirm. That science can’t prove everything, like their core beliefs. They called for believers to keep having faith.”
It would be a great news story. Especially if it contrasted the proof of minor adaptations within types of creatures vs lack of actual evolution of the kind we always read about. Then, explain what falsification is, evolution’s predictions, and how observations contrary to predictions should decrease belief in the theory.
Meanwhile, snails are still snails, ants are still ants, and chickens are still chickens. Billions of things not turning into new animals. It’s like God had to intervene to create these categories since it’s observationally impossible by chance.
The blame for that mostly lies on religion and human ego; the idea that humans gradually evolved like everything else and are no more biologically special than rats or monkeys is too much for some people to handle, so they cling to what they want to hear rather than what they can see with their own eyes.
> Changing into new species is just a longer time frame of more an more adaptations
Strictly speaking, this is a theory, however reasonable.
We know from history that life can be surprising, hence, from a truth point of view, it's better to be careful, avoid rushing to conclusions, especially if this implies closing all other doors.
Strictly speaking, plate tectonics is a theory as well. I get quite tired of people claiming something as a theory as if it casts doubt on it. Evolution is known and accepted by biologists to be an undeniable fact by all but the most fringe. Even the vast majority of Christian biologists accept this.
The problem is, conflating theories (beliefs really) with truth is one of the things reproached to past religious people. There's no shame in saying: "we don't know for sure, but this is reasonable so far".
If we don't, then we're sowing the seeds for discord for when our theories will need to be updated. And it's reasonable to think that they will, as, so far, most (all?) scientific theories has evolved.
IIRC, Darwin's views on evolution require patching e.g. to take into consideration chaotic incidents affecting mortality/genes propagation (e.g. asteroids, epidemics).
Maybe if that theory keeps accumulating patches, it'll end up very different from where it started!
The details, yes, but denying the fact that all life as we know it has evolved into what it is now from something markedly different is not at all reasonable. I'm not claiming that the entire body of accepted mechanisms and details about evolution are 100% accurate. I'm claiming that something being a theory is not reasonable grounds to disbelieve it entirely. There is no reasonable disbelief in evolution.
Again, as I've said, it's a reasonable theory. Using the word "theory" isn't about casting doubt, it's purely about intellectual honesty, at least as far as I'm concerned.
The way it's taught is often in an absolute way. The way science is taught in general is in an absolute way. That's because humans struggle immensely with nuance.
Typical traditional Eastern views transcend this creationism/evolution duality for example; one more door to explore.
Yes, that's kinda my point: Aristotle's physics worked well until it failed. Newton's worked well until it failed. General relativity works well, but some people look for where it might fail, so as to help reconcile it with QM.
Theories need to be considered for what they are, theories, and not dogmatically, for science to move forward. Evolution is a theory, and in its current form, already distant from Darwin's.
It's particularly amusing to have this discussion in the context of evolution, given that we have observed theories to systematically (AFAIK) evolve.
Why can't we extrapolate about the evolution of the theory of evolution then?
When you are a scientist talking to a scientist, yes that is all correct.
I think the reactions here are because a lot of creationist(others), will say things like "that is only a theory", thus "it was god, duh, I just owned you libtard".
Maybe that's how fairy tales work, but not science.
Changing your chromosome numbers is an entirely different (and unproven to have ever occurred) beast compared to simply expressing some different but previously already present genes due to changing environments (something easily observable).
There is lots of evidence in chromosome number changes, mostly duplications. Many grasses that we use as crops, such as wheat, have multiple genome copies and thus a much higher number of chromosomes.
Depends on how pedantic you want to be about "speciation". Humans have tons of adaptation just across ethnicities that likely originate in random mutations, sickle-cell anemia being an obvious one. If you're asking for full species change in a laboratory environment (ignoring the fact that what constitutes a "species" is somewhat arbitrary), there have been many studies on that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_sp...
Claiming that the science is bad because the time scales are large is to discount any hypotheses on large time scales. That blows away nearly all of astronomy and huge potions of geology. That's ridiculous. We can clearly learn about things that have happened in the past by piecing together the mountains of evidence that are available.
The problem with hypotheses on large time scales is that they are not falsifiable.
The even bigger problem is to, despite that, make them into de-facto doctrinal tenants such that any critic is automatically labelled a pseudo-scientific nutcase.
The additional problem with the hypothesis at hand (speciation-by-random-mutation) is that it has never been observed and thus confirmed.
Now what I just stated are simple objective facts that nobody who understands reasoning from first principles AND is academically honest should have any qualms with.
Ring species are an excellent way to show how speciation occurs. It’s not a cow giving birth to a chicken. It’s a series of biologically compatible sub-species where the start and end are no longer compatible.
You want the impossible so you never have to confront the fact that you’re wrong. It’s a wholly incurious attitude and really should be a hard line on a site that purports to be about intellectual curiosity.
What are you talking about? Of course chromosome number changes have been seen: see every Down's syndrome person ever. Had that been an advantageous change, Down's people would be successfully increasing their percentage of the population
Can you name a single species whose speciation-by-random-mutation we have witnessed? Have I missed the Down-syndrome one (or any analogous known gene mutation) which has been continuously procreating all this time?
Besides the fact that Down-syndrome is a terrible example since Down-syndrome-parents would not necessarily produce offspring with the same genetic disorder, hence no speciation-by-random-mutation.
Yeah man, totally. Creationists have been pushing this boulder up the hill as long as I can remember. Any day now there will be some aspect of evolution that will stump biologists indefinitely and will never be answered.
Meanwhile the proposed alternative seems to be: some dude just created it all and he's supernatural so we can't even conceive of a way to falsify his existence. Talk about fairy tales!
Fyi, I'm not negating evolution per se. I'm operating strictly within the realm of the empiricism-based scientific method. It should not be so sensitive to scrutiny and skepticism.
So creationism or not, let me pose the simple challenge to you as well:
Can you name a single species whose speciation-by-random-mutation we have actually observed?
You see, the hard fact, which many of my beloved scientistic friends have yet to come to terms with, is that technically speaking, the speciation-by-random-mutation is a scientifically invalid hypothesis because it is not even falsifiable. In other words, it is a mere conjecture (and sadly nowadays even a doctrinal belief) like any other, from an honest, objective, naturalistic point of view. But I don't even need to get into that because most of my beloved atheists will already have more of an impulsive emotional reaction to that rather than facing it head-on.
It does not work that way. Put (pseudo-)Popper aside and read Lakatos. They should first identify an experiment and - and then, if it fails, refine the experiment as reasonable assessment requires.
Edit: what? It is part of the sophisticated successor of falsification, it reflects the history of Science, and it just makes sense. I cannot give a course in a post. Find material Lakatos: it is more than absolutely worth it.
Reading part way through an article on Lakatos makes it seem that he is the saint of modern non-replicable "science" (I put that word in quotes cuz I'm not sure what it means anymore)
Now look at that: I am academically qualified, I have _degrees_ on these topics, and I get sniped; an interlocutor takes the time to find and check and propose some material, finds enough life within to inquire, and gets sniped.
Moderators, we need to tackle all of this absurd incivility.
I would not put it that way - of course we want «replicable» Science, as we (and in particular Lakatos) want it to provide predictions, and we value Science primarily for that capacity.
Nonetheless, disappointing experiments must be treated reasonably (still Lakatos). We do not throw away theories - complex beasts that are best considered as "programmes" also to underline that they involve components - because an outcome was problematic: we investigate till we frame the problem in a sub-theory of "what could have gone wrong".
Going towards the case of OP's statements which I countered, to corroborate some theory you conceive experiments to see if it is fact-resistant (Popper - but also fact compliant, which remains the main basic thing), but then you would also refine it according to the complications given by facts. Maybe you need more sophisticated ways to assess your results.
> I put that word in quotes cuz I'm not sure what [science] means anymore
Well, since we are on Lakatos, let us rephrase him: Science would be something that allows predictions.
I'm a little shocked at the number of creationists on here. I thought it was a joke at first. Does this happen for every submission about evolution? Do we have young Earth creationists doing the same thing on posts about Earth's distant past as well?
The number of creationists here is probably higher than you think but also keep in mind a small single digit percentage that feels strongly about something would more than enough to create the number of comments you see in the thread. E.g. if you posed the question of whether animals have evolved by natural selection to a group of 1000 biologists you may still well end up with a handful of comments denying it for creationism vs the majority not really commenting much because they consider it a mundane question despite supporting evolution fully.
I'll also add creating a throwaway account to mention you thought other comments were jokes doesn't feel in particularly good taste, regardless of how surprised you were about it. Just asking how many here hold different creationist views suffices to start the discussion.
That's a fair enough point. A minority with more fervently held opinions is more likely to voice them. I am mostly surprised because of where we are. The hacker mindset is far more compatible with evolution than creationism, so I'd expect vanishingly few people who consider themselves hackers to be creationists. Creationism is kind of an antithesis of intellectual curiosity (even from somebody who has read lots of creationist philosophy and apologetics; there's always a logical leap of faith to God).
Not all new accounts are throwaways. I did create an account for this purpose, but not to avoid association with any main identity (I habitually delete or permanently abandon social media accounts on a regular basis, when I feel that my behavior is becoming too addictive, to enforce a break on myself). I did actually think the comments were jokes at first. I took the first one I saw as sarcasm. I didn't think the microevolution/macroevolution argument was still seriously peddled around. The last time I saw that one was in a Chick Tract, but I don't tend to see evolution discussed in places where creationists hang out often.
And though I am curious about the numbers, I'm also alarmed and dismayed that such intellectually dishonest positions are being seriously posited here, and I don't think they deserve to be treated as neutral and valid positions. They are offensive and extremist, and in many cases, actively harmful and disruptive. Almost every comment here is directly or indirectly debating the existence of macroevolution as a result.
Don't forget about the decent chunk that believe evolution occurs/occurred but was done or guided by a creator rather than natural selection as the mechanism (ignoring the subset that believe it's natural selection as designed by a creator, as they'd be in agreement in this particular case). Nobody really has a solid & reproducible answer for why the laws of the universe are the way they are, why any of it exists at all, or whether or not we'll be able to figure those things out with science or not. Just ways to try to figure out and assumptions at some point involving a leap of "and because that's just how it started and works. This reason it's that way makes the most sense to me so far". Personally I lean towards the belief and hope we'll one day be able to answer how things started in a reproducibly testable way using science but I don't necessarily consider that a prerequisite to thinking like a hacker. A hacker mindset, to me, is just that of one who wants to try and tinker with something to make it what they consider better or fun. You don't even need to be "correct" at your approach to figuring things out or successful in the outcomes, just believe you can try and tinker to make something better. I think certain types of other mindsets will make a more successful hacker, and they may disagree with what others think, but they aren't what I'd consider pre-requisites to thinking like a hacker.
Fair point on throwaways. I always call them throwaways out of lack of taking the time to think on what else to call them. "New accounts" feels wrong, even though technically accurate, as it can cause conflation with "new users". "Anonymous account" might be better phrasing for this case? I don't know if there is a more established term you/others use for accounts that hide community identity though. If there is please drop it in a reply so I can use that in the future.
However much I disagree with their reasons I don't necessarily think their comments make for bad discussion here or steer things in off-topic direction. A debate on what exactly this experiment is providing evidence of is good and healthy discussion of this article regardless which interpretation is correct, with those disagreeing the most likely to provide the critiques to consider. While they certainly aren't neutral positions (or ones I'd consider logical) that's not necessarily a mark of what's bad discussion or an excuse to announce I thought their comments were jokes/peddling. To us, some ideas offend, viewpoints alarm, or strike us as extremist - we don't have to treat those positions as neutral or valid but we should treat them kindly instead of always assuming the worst and commenting about it separately. That, ironically, is actually a distraction from discussion on the article (if you make a sincere Ask HN post about it some may be interested though).
> Don't forget about the decent chunk that believe evolution occurs/occurred but was done or guided by a creator rather than natural selection as the mechanism
I'd wager that represents the majority of religious scientists. I'm not disparaging faith itself (not here at least), just creationism and denial of evidence because it is contrary to preconceptions. Why I consider creationism as contrary to the hacker ethos is precisely because being a hacker involves thinking outside boundaries and engaging in playful curiosity (often with a disregard for established authority). Creationism is mental gymnastics to support an established orthodoxy. It's excessive effort spent to explicitly avoid exploring the boundaries of one's own beliefs.
Honestly, I don't know on the throwaways and I don't blame you for the assumption. By all accounts, this would look like a throwaway. I don't think there's a great word for it, and my pattern of social Internet use is admittedly uncommon.
I disagree that they aren't off-topic. It's an article about a specific observation of evolution, and their response is to question the entire reality of evolution as a whole. It's like the people who go into a programming language update announcement to complain and trash talk the language (which happens a lot in Rust submissions in particular). I also think it's inordinate. It's likely a tiny minority of people who think this way, but because they are the loudest, they still managed to determine the topic for the entire comment section. Thus there is much argument and disagreement over something that the vast majority of scientists and commenters here already agree on.
Edit: I also find it funny, in retrospect, that this is an exact example of Poe's Law as originally stated.
The Bible does not contradict itself. The male and female in Genesis chapter one was not Adam and Eve, but was the third advent of mankind (of six) that God created. Do a search for the "Observations of Moses".
> Creationism is mental gymnastics to support an established orthodoxy.
As a creationist, if I believe that God as described in the Bible exists, and I have a statement from Him on how the world was created, that also matches every observation I have made of the world around me, isn't it ridiculous to believe in something else that contradicts the Bible?
Yes, it is, if there is literally no evidence to the contrary, you have never heard any consistent claims otherwise, and you have never experienced anything that would cast it into doubt. That's not the reality we live in, though. The Bible can't even keep from contradicting itself, so external evidence isn't even necessary to doubt the literal word of it.
The article describes how a strong variation of the snail species "evolved" to a weak, degenerate version of the same species due to lack of predators.
Could it have been lack of food as well? Humans got taller after having wide access to milk etc.
How did they control the experiment, given that it was on a rock in the ocean? Could the smaller variation have come from somewhere else?
Experiments like this one will not turn skeptics into even micro evolution believers.
Darwin himself noted in the Origin of Species that there is not really any such thing as a "species." It is a poor abstraction we use to describe a group of closely related organisms, but the classifications are necessarily arbitrary and the lines are fuzzy. To visualize this more clearly, imagine that we resurrected every organism that ever lived. It would be easy to say that, say, your cat is felis catus, and so was his father, but scanning back through say, 2^32 ancestors, it would be impossible to point to any ancestor n, compare it with ancestor n + 1, and say this is one species, and that another. Of course, hybridization events make the picture even more complicated. This problem was of course already known at the time, and nothing has changed since, because of the nature of the underlying biological reality.
Thus, there is no distinction at all between "microevolution" and "macroevolution".
Do you think lions and tigers are the same species, then? Wolves and coyotes? Horses and donkeys? Camels and llamas?
“Can interbreed” is a fuzzy line too, the probability decreases as genetic distance increases but it doesn’t just suddenly stop. Sometimes very different species can interbreed, and sometimes a small change is enough to make it stop working. Of course, often breeding can be accomplished with human intervention, but never in nature, for simple mechanical or behavioral reasons.
Running an experiments isn't just about proving others wrong, it's also about adding confidence to current understandings and finding new details that might have been overlooked so far. Even as one who considers evolution a very solidly shown mechanism I'd like to see something like this be a bit of a "pitch drop experiment" equivalent where we run it as long as possible. Partially for the novelty, partially to see what the lab conditions result in over an extended period that we might not have intended, and partially to try and shore up even more support for what we think we're certain of. It'd also be nice to control for a few other considerations in the experiment... but I'll take what I can get on something so long running :).
Late (in their thirties) bloomers facing the question of their adequacy, sociability, fuckability, mental stability, resilience, physical fitness, cognitive abilities and of course liquidity will gain motivation and hope from the info in the title.
He is talking about what most people do, MACRO evolution or one species becoming another. That doesn't happen. Micro evolution does happen and this was just observing that (finally).
This is a distinction without difference. I could go on a "micro" trip to the corner store or a "macro" trip to the other side of the world. All that changes is the timescales required. There are swathes of evidence for """macro""" evolution, but the timescales involved are tens of thousands or millions of years. Can't run a controlled experiment on that timescale.
That's a weird way of thinking about it. What actually happens is that one species splits into two, when two populations of the species are separated for long enough to make them incapable of interbreeding.
> another argument is shot down, they have to move the goalposts and change the definition of what they actually wanted
Actually, a version of that is good part of the (scientific) game. Of course you have to criticize the theory, the experiments etc. Only, it has to be done in good faith - to look for the truth, not to defend a position.
The difference between Newton and Bohr, and Freud and Marx (to go for classical examples), is subtle, not gross. There is an entire Science, a whole field, about that.
The article frequently interchanges the terms evolution and adaptation as if they were the same thing. The snails adapted and were able to do so by expressing genes they already had.
Evolution means that genetic characteristics change through the generations of a population. Adaptation via selection is one process that can cause evolution. Sexual selection is another process that can cause evolution (male peacock's tails for example), but that is not caused by adaptation to the environment.
Adaptation has a specific meaning in the evolution context; it is a type of evolution.
The paper uses the term "adaptive evolution", so using the words interchangeably seems almost encouraged, definitely understandable.
Epigenetic changes (build system and preprocessor) can move a lot faster than genetic changes (C code).
I like the build system analogy for the epigenetics, it is quite apt since the mechanism is to “turn and off features that are already in the code base”.
Not sure I get the preprocessor analogy though. Unless you mean specifically changing some #define constants and not stuff like preprocessor macros?
Build systems often define constants by passing them as -D defines, which toggle code in different preprocessor #ifdef sections, so the analogy isn’t far off.
Can you elaborate on your parentheses more? Not sure why epigenetics is to genetics as build system is to C code.
I was thinking more like genetics is the code base, epigenetics are like decorators that can modify function without changing the behavior without changing code.
Epigenetics is about regulating gene expression. That is, controlling which of the many genes in the organism's genome actually get "printed out" into actual proteins in a given situation).
Every cell, after all, contains the entire DNA library of the organism, but not every cell needs all of those proteins, and they must not all simply be made into proteins constantly.
It's a little bit like preprocessor directives ("if we're on x86, compile this bit; if we're on ARM, compile that bit").
Transcription and translation turns DNA into protein, in my analogy this is the compilation step.
Build systems, preprocessors, and C code are made by intelligent designers with precise designs. They are observed in reality, both forming and being iterated on, with results that work when others replicate them. They prove software requires intelligent designers. Further research on that showed highly-complex software that worked with 100% reliability required the much more intelligence to produce. There's debate in scientific communities, esp in fault-tolerance and formal verification, if our designs could ever achieve the longevity and reliability seen in the mechanics of our universe.
(Now, back to scientists seeing evolution which has none of these attributes of observation-driven science. An overloaded term meaning both adaptation and large-scale changes of which I'll focus on the unproven part.)
We'll start with the scientific method since it's usually absent in some way in these claims. We work from real-world observations to a hypothesis to testing that. There's usually predictions to confirm or falsify the theory. We must be willing to modify it or let it go entirely if we're scientists. There's also peer review by skeptical parties willing to consider alternatives. They're to be weighed on the bases of evidence, not feelings or politics. Dissent is always allowed regardless of credentials or numbers behind mainstream theories.
With this process, you'd have to look at the testable predictions of macro-evolution, observe them happening, observe no contradictions, and review by people who didn't have die-hard faith in evolution. Unfortunately, the theory fails in all of those areas.
First, we never see it happening in reality despite billions of observations over thousands of years. Second, life just appears out of nowhere fully formed in the fossil record, like the Cambrian explosion. Third, the man-made creatures don't change much or live long even under ideal, lab conditions but somehow random events worked better millions of times. Fourth, complexity science along with studies of life and the universe proved both are vastly more complex than initially assumed. We can't create them, esp self-sustaining. Yet, mainstream science keeps believing evolution just happened in a way that kept happening, doesn't now the same way, and just take their word for it. No dissent is allowed either with or without observations or experiments.
Eventually, there's going to be some actual science done. That requires evolution being marked as refuted by observed evidence. (Minor adaptation is proven, though.) They need to ask where we came from with a clean slate. They must factor in complexity theory, evidence of design, what optimization theory taught us about success rate of random vs intelligently-parameterized changes, and observations in programming like design and maintenance requirements. Whatever is predicted must match real-world observations. That will be science.
Christian scientists already do that. Our current theory is that the universe and humans must have been designed by a being whose power exceeds all human knowledge and technology. The purpose isn't scientifically discoverable. The Bible, separately proven, explains it's to know and glorify God (Jesus Christ) and reflect His character as we live together and love each other. The awe of the purpose, beauty, and brilliance of God's overall creation motivates us to dig deeper into it to understand it. That God requires truth to come first is why we can't allow popular, unproven lies about either science (macro-evolution) or theology (false religion).
This entire comment is amazing, but I particularly like how evolution is unproven but the Christian bible and existence of Christianity’s version of God are proven.
I wonder if we went out into the world which we would find more evidence in favor of?
The mind is a frustrating thing.
> The Bible, separately proven
This statement is doing a lot of work. I would be interested to see anything resembling proof that the bible is the inerrant word of a god.
Check how fast bacteria evolve. Google Antibiotic resistance. Thats not produced through intelligence.
Or look at recent examples of Covid strains evolving. There is not intelligence there either.
God (or what ever your source of faith is) will always exist, not because of anything Scientists uncover, but because all people are constantly faced with problems that require generation of Faith in themselves or others.
If you understand that you dont even need to use Science as part of you argument.
“Once again, evolution was not observed in real time. The snail remained a snail instead of turning into a new type of animal. Evolutionists are baffled by how what they claim about all the species on Earth never actually happens. Instead of being disproven, the proponents now say the lack of evidence is proof it happened… on extremely-long, time scales science can’t confirm. That science can’t prove everything, like their core beliefs. They called for believers to keep having faith.”
It would be a great news story. Especially if it contrasted the proof of minor adaptations within types of creatures vs lack of actual evolution of the kind we always read about. Then, explain what falsification is, evolution’s predictions, and how observations contrary to predictions should decrease belief in the theory.
Meanwhile, snails are still snails, ants are still ants, and chickens are still chickens. Billions of things not turning into new animals. It’s like God had to intervene to create these categories since it’s observationally impossible by chance.
Changing into new species is just a longer time frame of more an more adaptations. Not sure why people aren't able to extrapolate that.
The blame for that mostly lies on religion and human ego; the idea that humans gradually evolved like everything else and are no more biologically special than rats or monkeys is too much for some people to handle, so they cling to what they want to hear rather than what they can see with their own eyes.
> Changing into new species is just a longer time frame of more an more adaptations
Strictly speaking, this is a theory, however reasonable.
We know from history that life can be surprising, hence, from a truth point of view, it's better to be careful, avoid rushing to conclusions, especially if this implies closing all other doors.
Strictly speaking, plate tectonics is a theory as well. I get quite tired of people claiming something as a theory as if it casts doubt on it. Evolution is known and accepted by biologists to be an undeniable fact by all but the most fringe. Even the vast majority of Christian biologists accept this.
The problem is, conflating theories (beliefs really) with truth is one of the things reproached to past religious people. There's no shame in saying: "we don't know for sure, but this is reasonable so far".
If we don't, then we're sowing the seeds for discord for when our theories will need to be updated. And it's reasonable to think that they will, as, so far, most (all?) scientific theories has evolved.
IIRC, Darwin's views on evolution require patching e.g. to take into consideration chaotic incidents affecting mortality/genes propagation (e.g. asteroids, epidemics).
Maybe if that theory keeps accumulating patches, it'll end up very different from where it started!
The details, yes, but denying the fact that all life as we know it has evolved into what it is now from something markedly different is not at all reasonable. I'm not claiming that the entire body of accepted mechanisms and details about evolution are 100% accurate. I'm claiming that something being a theory is not reasonable grounds to disbelieve it entirely. There is no reasonable disbelief in evolution.
> There is no reasonable disbelief in evolution.
Again, as I've said, it's a reasonable theory. Using the word "theory" isn't about casting doubt, it's purely about intellectual honesty, at least as far as I'm concerned.
The way it's taught is often in an absolute way. The way science is taught in general is in an absolute way. That's because humans struggle immensely with nuance.
Typical traditional Eastern views transcend this creationism/evolution duality for example; one more door to explore.
Gravity is mostly theories. We cannot actually prove what it is or why it exists. We know how it affects things, but that’s about it.
Strictly speaking, Gravity is a Theory.
Yes, that's kinda my point: Aristotle's physics worked well until it failed. Newton's worked well until it failed. General relativity works well, but some people look for where it might fail, so as to help reconcile it with QM.
Theories need to be considered for what they are, theories, and not dogmatically, for science to move forward. Evolution is a theory, and in its current form, already distant from Darwin's.
It's particularly amusing to have this discussion in the context of evolution, given that we have observed theories to systematically (AFAIK) evolve.
Why can't we extrapolate about the evolution of the theory of evolution then?
When you are a scientist talking to a scientist, yes that is all correct.
I think the reactions here are because a lot of creationist(others), will say things like "that is only a theory", thus "it was god, duh, I just owned you libtard".
Maybe that's how fairy tales work, but not science.
Changing your chromosome numbers is an entirely different (and unproven to have ever occurred) beast compared to simply expressing some different but previously already present genes due to changing environments (something easily observable).
Not sure why people aren't able to grasp that.
There is lots of evidence in chromosome number changes, mostly duplications. Many grasses that we use as crops, such as wheat, have multiple genome copies and thus a much higher number of chromosomes.
Same challenge to you:
Can you name a single animal species whose speciation-by-random-mutation we have witnessed?
Depends on how pedantic you want to be about "speciation". Humans have tons of adaptation just across ethnicities that likely originate in random mutations, sickle-cell anemia being an obvious one. If you're asking for full species change in a laboratory environment (ignoring the fact that what constitutes a "species" is somewhat arbitrary), there have been many studies on that: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_sp...
Claiming that the science is bad because the time scales are large is to discount any hypotheses on large time scales. That blows away nearly all of astronomy and huge potions of geology. That's ridiculous. We can clearly learn about things that have happened in the past by piecing together the mountains of evidence that are available.
The problem with hypotheses on large time scales is that they are not falsifiable.
The even bigger problem is to, despite that, make them into de-facto doctrinal tenants such that any critic is automatically labelled a pseudo-scientific nutcase.
The additional problem with the hypothesis at hand (speciation-by-random-mutation) is that it has never been observed and thus confirmed.
Now what I just stated are simple objective facts that nobody who understands reasoning from first principles AND is academically honest should have any qualms with.
By the same reasoning, have you talked yourself out of plate tectonics?
What makes you assume I had talked myself into it before, or even have a stance on it at all?
I hope you don't think that was some kind of genius gotcha question on your part ...
Any ring species.
Ring species are an excellent way to show how speciation occurs. It’s not a cow giving birth to a chicken. It’s a series of biologically compatible sub-species where the start and end are no longer compatible.
You want the impossible so you never have to confront the fact that you’re wrong. It’s a wholly incurious attitude and really should be a hard line on a site that purports to be about intellectual curiosity.
What are you talking about? Of course chromosome number changes have been seen: see every Down's syndrome person ever. Had that been an advantageous change, Down's people would be successfully increasing their percentage of the population
Let's make it extremely simple for you:
Can you name a single species whose speciation-by-random-mutation we have witnessed? Have I missed the Down-syndrome one (or any analogous known gene mutation) which has been continuously procreating all this time?
Besides the fact that Down-syndrome is a terrible example since Down-syndrome-parents would not necessarily produce offspring with the same genetic disorder, hence no speciation-by-random-mutation.
I thought people learn this stuff in HS...
Yeah man, totally. Creationists have been pushing this boulder up the hill as long as I can remember. Any day now there will be some aspect of evolution that will stump biologists indefinitely and will never be answered.
Meanwhile the proposed alternative seems to be: some dude just created it all and he's supernatural so we can't even conceive of a way to falsify his existence. Talk about fairy tales!
Fyi, I'm not negating evolution per se. I'm operating strictly within the realm of the empiricism-based scientific method. It should not be so sensitive to scrutiny and skepticism.
So creationism or not, let me pose the simple challenge to you as well:
Can you name a single species whose speciation-by-random-mutation we have actually observed?
You see, the hard fact, which many of my beloved scientistic friends have yet to come to terms with, is that technically speaking, the speciation-by-random-mutation is a scientifically invalid hypothesis because it is not even falsifiable. In other words, it is a mere conjecture (and sadly nowadays even a doctrinal belief) like any other, from an honest, objective, naturalistic point of view. But I don't even need to get into that because most of my beloved atheists will already have more of an impulsive emotional reaction to that rather than facing it head-on.
It does not work that way. Put (pseudo-)Popper aside and read Lakatos. They should first identify an experiment and - and then, if it fails, refine the experiment as reasonable assessment requires.
Edit: what? It is part of the sophisticated successor of falsification, it reflects the history of Science, and it just makes sense. I cannot give a course in a post. Find material Lakatos: it is more than absolutely worth it.
Reading part way through an article on Lakatos makes it seem that he is the saint of modern non-replicable "science" (I put that word in quotes cuz I'm not sure what it means anymore)
https://plato.stanford.edu/entries/lakatos/#LakaBigIdea
Now look at that: I am academically qualified, I have _degrees_ on these topics, and I get sniped; an interlocutor takes the time to find and check and propose some material, finds enough life within to inquire, and gets sniped.
Moderators, we need to tackle all of this absurd incivility.
I would not put it that way - of course we want «replicable» Science, as we (and in particular Lakatos) want it to provide predictions, and we value Science primarily for that capacity.
Nonetheless, disappointing experiments must be treated reasonably (still Lakatos). We do not throw away theories - complex beasts that are best considered as "programmes" also to underline that they involve components - because an outcome was problematic: we investigate till we frame the problem in a sub-theory of "what could have gone wrong".
Going towards the case of OP's statements which I countered, to corroborate some theory you conceive experiments to see if it is fact-resistant (Popper - but also fact compliant, which remains the main basic thing), but then you would also refine it according to the complications given by facts. Maybe you need more sophisticated ways to assess your results.
> I put that word in quotes cuz I'm not sure what [science] means anymore
Well, since we are on Lakatos, let us rephrase him: Science would be something that allows predictions.
I'm a little shocked at the number of creationists on here. I thought it was a joke at first. Does this happen for every submission about evolution? Do we have young Earth creationists doing the same thing on posts about Earth's distant past as well?
The number of creationists here is probably higher than you think but also keep in mind a small single digit percentage that feels strongly about something would more than enough to create the number of comments you see in the thread. E.g. if you posed the question of whether animals have evolved by natural selection to a group of 1000 biologists you may still well end up with a handful of comments denying it for creationism vs the majority not really commenting much because they consider it a mundane question despite supporting evolution fully.
I'll also add creating a throwaway account to mention you thought other comments were jokes doesn't feel in particularly good taste, regardless of how surprised you were about it. Just asking how many here hold different creationist views suffices to start the discussion.
That's a fair enough point. A minority with more fervently held opinions is more likely to voice them. I am mostly surprised because of where we are. The hacker mindset is far more compatible with evolution than creationism, so I'd expect vanishingly few people who consider themselves hackers to be creationists. Creationism is kind of an antithesis of intellectual curiosity (even from somebody who has read lots of creationist philosophy and apologetics; there's always a logical leap of faith to God).
Not all new accounts are throwaways. I did create an account for this purpose, but not to avoid association with any main identity (I habitually delete or permanently abandon social media accounts on a regular basis, when I feel that my behavior is becoming too addictive, to enforce a break on myself). I did actually think the comments were jokes at first. I took the first one I saw as sarcasm. I didn't think the microevolution/macroevolution argument was still seriously peddled around. The last time I saw that one was in a Chick Tract, but I don't tend to see evolution discussed in places where creationists hang out often.
And though I am curious about the numbers, I'm also alarmed and dismayed that such intellectually dishonest positions are being seriously posited here, and I don't think they deserve to be treated as neutral and valid positions. They are offensive and extremist, and in many cases, actively harmful and disruptive. Almost every comment here is directly or indirectly debating the existence of macroevolution as a result.
Don't forget about the decent chunk that believe evolution occurs/occurred but was done or guided by a creator rather than natural selection as the mechanism (ignoring the subset that believe it's natural selection as designed by a creator, as they'd be in agreement in this particular case). Nobody really has a solid & reproducible answer for why the laws of the universe are the way they are, why any of it exists at all, or whether or not we'll be able to figure those things out with science or not. Just ways to try to figure out and assumptions at some point involving a leap of "and because that's just how it started and works. This reason it's that way makes the most sense to me so far". Personally I lean towards the belief and hope we'll one day be able to answer how things started in a reproducibly testable way using science but I don't necessarily consider that a prerequisite to thinking like a hacker. A hacker mindset, to me, is just that of one who wants to try and tinker with something to make it what they consider better or fun. You don't even need to be "correct" at your approach to figuring things out or successful in the outcomes, just believe you can try and tinker to make something better. I think certain types of other mindsets will make a more successful hacker, and they may disagree with what others think, but they aren't what I'd consider pre-requisites to thinking like a hacker.
Fair point on throwaways. I always call them throwaways out of lack of taking the time to think on what else to call them. "New accounts" feels wrong, even though technically accurate, as it can cause conflation with "new users". "Anonymous account" might be better phrasing for this case? I don't know if there is a more established term you/others use for accounts that hide community identity though. If there is please drop it in a reply so I can use that in the future.
However much I disagree with their reasons I don't necessarily think their comments make for bad discussion here or steer things in off-topic direction. A debate on what exactly this experiment is providing evidence of is good and healthy discussion of this article regardless which interpretation is correct, with those disagreeing the most likely to provide the critiques to consider. While they certainly aren't neutral positions (or ones I'd consider logical) that's not necessarily a mark of what's bad discussion or an excuse to announce I thought their comments were jokes/peddling. To us, some ideas offend, viewpoints alarm, or strike us as extremist - we don't have to treat those positions as neutral or valid but we should treat them kindly instead of always assuming the worst and commenting about it separately. That, ironically, is actually a distraction from discussion on the article (if you make a sincere Ask HN post about it some may be interested though).
> Don't forget about the decent chunk that believe evolution occurs/occurred but was done or guided by a creator rather than natural selection as the mechanism
I'd wager that represents the majority of religious scientists. I'm not disparaging faith itself (not here at least), just creationism and denial of evidence because it is contrary to preconceptions. Why I consider creationism as contrary to the hacker ethos is precisely because being a hacker involves thinking outside boundaries and engaging in playful curiosity (often with a disregard for established authority). Creationism is mental gymnastics to support an established orthodoxy. It's excessive effort spent to explicitly avoid exploring the boundaries of one's own beliefs.
Honestly, I don't know on the throwaways and I don't blame you for the assumption. By all accounts, this would look like a throwaway. I don't think there's a great word for it, and my pattern of social Internet use is admittedly uncommon.
I disagree that they aren't off-topic. It's an article about a specific observation of evolution, and their response is to question the entire reality of evolution as a whole. It's like the people who go into a programming language update announcement to complain and trash talk the language (which happens a lot in Rust submissions in particular). I also think it's inordinate. It's likely a tiny minority of people who think this way, but because they are the loudest, they still managed to determine the topic for the entire comment section. Thus there is much argument and disagreement over something that the vast majority of scientists and commenters here already agree on.
Edit: I also find it funny, in retrospect, that this is an exact example of Poe's Law as originally stated.
The Bible does not contradict itself. The male and female in Genesis chapter one was not Adam and Eve, but was the third advent of mankind (of six) that God created. Do a search for the "Observations of Moses".
> Creationism is mental gymnastics to support an established orthodoxy.
As a creationist, if I believe that God as described in the Bible exists, and I have a statement from Him on how the world was created, that also matches every observation I have made of the world around me, isn't it ridiculous to believe in something else that contradicts the Bible?
Yes, it is, if there is literally no evidence to the contrary, you have never heard any consistent claims otherwise, and you have never experienced anything that would cast it into doubt. That's not the reality we live in, though. The Bible can't even keep from contradicting itself, so external evidence isn't even necessary to doubt the literal word of it.
Two long comments by the same person as far as I can see.
The article describes how a strong variation of the snail species "evolved" to a weak, degenerate version of the same species due to lack of predators.
Could it have been lack of food as well? Humans got taller after having wide access to milk etc.
How did they control the experiment, given that it was on a rock in the ocean? Could the smaller variation have come from somewhere else?
Experiments like this one will not turn skeptics into even micro evolution believers.
A "weak, degenerate" version? It's just better adapted to an environment without crabs and strong wave action.
Nice, micro evolution got demonstrated. Now it's time to show macro-evolution/speciation to actually observe emergence of new species.
Wikipedia has a list of such experiments: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Laboratory_experiments_of_spec...
Darwin himself noted in the Origin of Species that there is not really any such thing as a "species." It is a poor abstraction we use to describe a group of closely related organisms, but the classifications are necessarily arbitrary and the lines are fuzzy. To visualize this more clearly, imagine that we resurrected every organism that ever lived. It would be easy to say that, say, your cat is felis catus, and so was his father, but scanning back through say, 2^32 ancestors, it would be impossible to point to any ancestor n, compare it with ancestor n + 1, and say this is one species, and that another. Of course, hybridization events make the picture even more complicated. This problem was of course already known at the time, and nothing has changed since, because of the nature of the underlying biological reality.
Thus, there is no distinction at all between "microevolution" and "macroevolution".
https://dictionary.cambridge.org/dictionary/english/species
"set of animals or plants in which the members have similar characteristics to each other and can breed with each other"
Breeding is a criteria for differentiating species and also there is a lot of difference between theory and practice.
Do you think lions and tigers are the same species, then? Wolves and coyotes? Horses and donkeys? Camels and llamas?
“Can interbreed” is a fuzzy line too, the probability decreases as genetic distance increases but it doesn’t just suddenly stop. Sometimes very different species can interbreed, and sometimes a small change is enough to make it stop working. Of course, often breeding can be accomplished with human intervention, but never in nature, for simple mechanical or behavioral reasons.
This took 30 years.
For Macro, isn't it just longer. 300 years, 3000 years.
How would that be done in a lab to the satisfaction of anybody that would deny evolution to begin with.
There is no experiment that will satisfy people of this because they don't want to know.
Running an experiments isn't just about proving others wrong, it's also about adding confidence to current understandings and finding new details that might have been overlooked so far. Even as one who considers evolution a very solidly shown mechanism I'd like to see something like this be a bit of a "pitch drop experiment" equivalent where we run it as long as possible. Partially for the novelty, partially to see what the lab conditions result in over an extended period that we might not have intended, and partially to try and shore up even more support for what we think we're certain of. It'd also be nice to control for a few other considerations in the experiment... but I'll take what I can get on something so long running :).
This has been done countless times with Bacteria... Bury your head in the sand as much as you want...
Are all experiments done on bacteria directly applicable to multi celled organism?, that's something new :)
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Explain what you tried to say.
Late (in their thirties) bloomers facing the question of their adequacy, sociability, fuckability, mental stability, resilience, physical fitness, cognitive abilities and of course liquidity will gain motivation and hope from the info in the title.
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uncivil language to match the weakness of a position :)
Adaptation != Evolution
The article demonstrated adaptation
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He is talking about what most people do, MACRO evolution or one species becoming another. That doesn't happen. Micro evolution does happen and this was just observing that (finally).
This is a distinction without difference. I could go on a "micro" trip to the corner store or a "macro" trip to the other side of the world. All that changes is the timescales required. There are swathes of evidence for """macro""" evolution, but the timescales involved are tens of thousands or millions of years. Can't run a controlled experiment on that timescale.
"MACRO evolution or one species becoming another"
That's a weird way of thinking about it. What actually happens is that one species splits into two, when two populations of the species are separated for long enough to make them incapable of interbreeding.
> MACRO evolution or one species becoming another. That doesn't happen.
Can you elaborate on what you mean by this?
What they mean is that since another argument is shot down, they have to move the goalposts and change the definition of what they actually wanted.
You show one species becoming another, they’ll complain about how it was done. Or how long it took, etc.
For instance, ring species are pretty good evidence of speciation. But that’s not good enough because all those animals exist right now.
> another argument is shot down, they have to move the goalposts and change the definition of what they actually wanted
Actually, a version of that is good part of the (scientific) game. Of course you have to criticize the theory, the experiments etc. Only, it has to be done in good faith - to look for the truth, not to defend a position.
The difference between Newton and Bohr, and Freud and Marx (to go for classical examples), is subtle, not gross. There is an entire Science, a whole field, about that.
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MICRO evolution. Never was in question but cool to see it observable.
What is the difference besides timescales?