

The Angry Evolutionist - amichail
http://www.newsweek.com/id/216140

======
RyanMcGreal
>It would be so nice if those who oppose evolution would take a tiny bit of
trouble to learn the merest rudiments of what it is that they are opposing.

Sigh. This depresses me more than anything else about the creationists I've
met: the stubborn, aggressive, unapologetic ignorance in which they happily
cloak themselves.

~~~
callmeed
Trust me, it depresses some creationists too.

~~~
netsp
Which ones?

~~~
jmtulloss
Probably those that don't deny evolution. I think they are more the
"intelligent design" camp. I'm not terribly familiar with what the labels
mean.

~~~
netsp
Intelligent design, as far as I understand, argues that there is (must be) a
conscious and deliberate designer. It doesn't specify who.

Most evolutionists think that intelligent design is a creationist conspiracy
to teach creationism under a different name and re-branded as a scientific
theory. It is usually presented as a conflicting theory.

~~~
pushingbits
I'd say it's more like cognitive dissonance on the part of educated
creationists. They have to reconcile the fact that they live in the modern
world with the fact that they believe in something that has no place in it.

~~~
netsp
I don't see a flood of educated creationists embracing intelligent design in
its common forms.

~~~
pushingbits
No? In my experience intelligent design proponents tend to be better educated
than plain old creationists. Moreover in environments where most people
embrace science, you are much more likely to find an IDer than a creationist.
Intelligent design makes it possible for people to keep their crufty notions
without feeling like troglodytes. But since it really is just a slim veneer of
jingoist science, on some level they still feel insecure about it, which is
why they need official institutions to recognize it.

Of course there some people who consciously use intelligent design to get
creationism back into the classroom, but I don't think that the majority of
people who subscribe to it are so calculating.

Never ascribe to malice what can be adequately explained by psychology.

~~~
netsp
Now I'm curious. Are there any real biologists promoting this?

------
jswinghammer
I always wonder why people care so much about this. There isn't a good reason
why this would ever matter to someone. If your case is strong make it and move
on. Most people don't have sufficient background in science to understand much
of physics or math these days but no one really gets mad about that. The truth
is the truth and it settles itself in the end. I'm yet to hear of a single
chair of a biology department of any major university who doesn't agree with
contemporary evolutionary theory and people in the US have doubted evolution
since it was first introduced. There isn't some looming threat to science and
no one needs to get so upset about this.

I'm a follower of Jesus who believes in angels but I don't have a super strong
belief about evolution either way. I'll probably teach evolution to my kids
who I plan on homeschooling and encourage them to consider how this might fit
with a world view that includes God. Believing or not believing in evolution
is just not a central issue to most people following Jesus. I've never met
anyone who this is a big issue for. I guess they're out there but it's never
really seemed like this massive issue for people.

~~~
jballanc
(Disclaimer: I'm reading HN because I'm procrastinating work on my Ph.D.
thesis...on an evolutionary model ;-)

 _There isn't a good reason why this would ever matter to someone._

How's this for a reason why it should matter: You pay taxes, as do your
neighbors. When you pay those taxes, you expect them to pay for things you
feel are worth while. You also vote, and you will probably vote for people who
you are confident will steer those tax dollars to projects you feel are worth
while.

I'm a scientist (or at least, I am for now...I don't think I'll be able to
make a living at it for much longer. I'll have to get a "real" job). Most of
the research I do is funded, directly or indirectly, by tax dollars. When the
people who value evolution and an understanding of the biological world had
their way, a lot of money was steered toward funding that sort of research.
Then, people who didn't accept evolution came into power. They steered money
away from this sort of research, and into fighting wars of aggression. For
nearly the past decade, funding has remained flat (after doubling in the
preceding 5 years...a rate which was probably too fast, but that's a whole
'nother story).

Why would you care about my research? Well, I research evolution.
Specifically, I'm interested in how to determine what factors will function as
selective pressures _a priori_. Why is that important? Remember last April
when OMG SWINE FLU!!!1!!11 Do you remember the pundits and professors and
learned people of all sorts that got on the TV and the radio? Do you remember
the hosts of all those show asking: Now what? How bad? And do you remember
that nobody could give a straight answer?

You know why they couldn't give a straight answer? It's not so much because
the don't know why the flu might be more or less severe. There's been a lot of
research into that lately, and we have a good idea what mutations might make
the flu a killer, and which are mostly harmless. No, the reason they couldn't
give you a straight answer is because which of those mutations would be
acquired, and in what proportions, depends on evolution, on selective
pressures...and we can't predetermine what those selective pressures will be!
Maybe we could, if you'd be ok giving some tax dollars to fund evolution
research, or at least vote for people who would be ok with that.

Oh, and for the entrepreneurs that will predictably say that I shouldn't rely
on the government for funding, and that I should instead count on the private
sector? Here's the deal I'll offer you (and I think you'll be hard pressed to
find a better offer): I give you a 5% probability that the research I will do
in the next, say, 40 years, at a cost of only $15mil a year, will lead to
being better able to predict where the next pandemic might occur. Would you
fund me? Or, more importantly, could you find a government that would allow us
to keep that information as a trade secret until the original investment of
$600mil (adjusted for 40 years of inflation, of course) was recouped?

/rant _phew_...now about that thesis...

~~~
rv77ax
(^ that was the longest comment i ever read on HN)

there is one thing that i don't understand about evolution.

if evolution is true than human, bear, elephant, and any-big-animal-that-
exist-today-except-whale should be the "biggest" thing that happened today,
after evolving. but, why there is exist monstrous animal like t-Rex, whale,
mammoth, etc. ?

EDIT: for anyone who could not see my face when typing this, "that was the
longest comment i ever read on HN" is a compliment, not a sarcasm.

~~~
dkokelley
Natural selection states that the most fit for survival will survive. When
applied to evolution, it means that humans were better-suited for survival
than t-rexes.

Think about it like this: A T-Rex has to eat a lot of food to survive. What
happens when there is a shortage of food? The T-Rex can kill and eat just
about anything, but it need s a lot of it to survive. Humans aren't as fit to
kill things as T-Rexes, but they are smarter, and they don't need to eat as
much, and they can survive on plants too. Humans could grow and store food, so
they survived. Dinosaurs weren't smart enough to grow or store food, so they
had to eat when they found food, or not eat. They didn't survive.

(Please, nobody 'correct' me by saying that a meteor killed the dinosaurs. For
this example, it was their small brains.)

~~~
gort
"humans were better-suited for survival than t-rexes"

A bizarre statement, given that the two never existed at the same time.

Yes, it was indeed a meteor that killed almost all the dinosaurs (except a
group of theropods that had evolved wings and survive to this day). Evidently
the shrew-like mammals of the time were better suited to the post-impact
environment. We evolved from them.

~~~
rv77ax
so, every body know that meteor killed almost all the dinosaurs. but no body
is telling me ? it's some kind of public secret or what ?

~~~
gort
Apparently.

The first major clue is the presence of iridium (a metal common in asteroids)
at exactly the right place in the rocks (the Cretaceous-Tertiary or "KT"
boundary, dating to 65 million years ago, which is also when non-avian
dinosaurs went extinct). That was discovered around 1980 by Alvarez et al.

Further research has led us to the Chicxulub crater near the Yucatan Peninsula
as the impact site.

Now you know.

------
chrischen
Believing in angels and believing in evolution evolution are not mutually
exclusive. The statement is misleading. Most people believe in evolution, not
creationism. Those who do believe in creationism have detached themselves from
logic and reality, so there's _no point_ in arguing with them.

------
lazyant
I've read this calling Dawkins 'angry' a few times already and the stupid
sensationalism bothers me: I've never seen him "angry", neither have I come
across a written rant; he's always pretty calm.

------
giardini
Derek Bickerton dissects Dawkins (and others) nicely:

[http://beyondscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/2009/09/four...](http://beyondscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/2009/09/four-
guys-against-god-5-richard-dawkins.html)

[http://beyondscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/2009/09/four...](http://beyondscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/2009/09/four-
guys-against-god-6-dawkins-vgod-20.html)

Bickerton's blog "Beyond science versus religion":

[http://beyondscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/2009/09/miss...](http://beyondscienceversusreligion.blogspot.com/2009/09/mission-
statement.html)

From Bickerton's mission statement:

[He has an] "unwavering commitment to seek out bullshit and destroy it in all
of its varying forms and disguises" [shades of the Augean stables!].

"This blog goes beyond the currently escalating struggle between science and
religion, seeking new ways to reconcile them ... We'll go fearlessly where
neither atheists nor believers have gone, submitting both sides to searching
criticism they have not yet received. Earlier posts feature shortcomings of
the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse--Harris, Hitchens, Dawkins, Dennett--but
then the religious get their turn."

------
jonny_noog
To be clear, I am squarely on Dawkins's side, I am not a Creationist, or a
follower of any religion. What Dawkins is saying makes perfect sense to me.
Having said that, I have often found it curious the number of times I have
seen Dawkins interviewed or read his writings, he does tend to talk down to
his foes or use a rather snide style. I can totally understand that he must be
very frustrated by now that the completely logical position he has championed
for so long garners a surprising amount of rejection in certain circles.

However, if he truly feels that "It would be so nice if those who oppose
evolution would take a tiny bit of trouble to learn the merest rudiments of
what it is that they are opposing." he might do well to take a different tone
in his writings.

If however, he is really just preaching to the converted, then this would
likely explain the tone that he often seems to take.

------
davidw
This is one of those debates/issues that is not going to be solved on HN, is
more likely to generate heat than light, and thus is probably more appropriate
for some other forum.

~~~
thismat
I agree, this has nothing to do with hackernews and is only serving to isolate
people.

------
brisance
The fact that we share so much of our genetic code with other animals shows
that we are linked in some way.

~~~
amichail
This doesn't follow since in a creationist view it is possible that the more
similar the animals, the more similar their DNA.

However, one can make a very strong argument for evolution by looking at non-
functional parts of DNA. For example, our DNA contains a program for producing
vitamin C but it doesn't work. A similar program in other animals does work.

~~~
ash
Interesting - I haven't heard about non-functional vitamin C-producing program
before... Could you point to an article/book with some details about it?

~~~
amichail
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pseudogene>

------
modelic3
Dawkins is awesome. The man cares enough to educate and debunk myths. I wish
all academics had such passion and devotions to their craft.

------
amichail
While evolution is true, it doesn't explain the most interesting aspects of
life -- namely, consciousness and (apparent) free will.

This is an enormous gap in understanding and it would be nice if Dawkins were
to acknowledge this more in his talks. Evolution doesn't really explain life.

~~~
unalone
Perhaps life has no explanation. Perhaps the fact that every person who tries
to understand life reaches a different "answer" implies that life is life to
be life, and that any other meaning is personal in nature.

Evolution is describing something objective—it describes _how_ something
happens. You're looking for the subjective realm of philosophy.

~~~
amichail
Consciousness is a real phenomenon. Although it is a subjective experience,
the fact that it exists is entirely objective.

~~~
gloob
The fact that a single, first-person consciousness exists is entirely
objective. To the best of my knowledge, there is no scientific way to go about
verifying the consciousness of others; despite this (and despite the
traditional "lack of evidence _is_ evidence of lack" bent of Popperian
science), most people work from a default assumption that other people have an
existence somewhat similar to their own.

~~~
maxwell
> The fact that a single, first-person consciousness exists is entirely
> objective.

I wouldn't describe my consciousness as 'single or 'first-person. It often
runs multiple threads, and by no means exclusively thinks of itself in the
first-person.

Additionally, it really doesn't identify with this body much more than, say,
this house or computer. My consciousness isn't 'human any more than it's
"ranch-style" or 'x86. Our language has already adopted inorganic technologies
as extensions of ourselves (e.g. I say "I'll come over" which expands to "I'll
come over in my car").

~~~
tome
You might be interested in Thomas Nagel's "What is it like to be a bat?" which
takes the opposite stance to you, i.e. that bat consciousness is inseparable
from being a bat (and analogously, human).

See e.g. <http://www.consciousentities.com/bats.htm>

