…and this is a 
Josh Timonen has put up a video of my talk at AAI. Tear into it!
One of the things I neglected to say more clearly, but should have, is that what I'm complaining about is the creationists' blithe conflation of complexity with order. We can build up immense amounts of complexity from nothing but noise, so just babbling about how complicated something is says nothing about the impossibility of its origin from chance events. Order, functionality, and, as Joe Felsenstein defined it, adaptedness are more relevant properties, and we have a natural mechanism for generating those, too. It's called selection.
Someone over at the RDF also mentioned that he thought the Q&A was really good, too. I agree — I need to learn to shut up more and just get the interactivity going. Maybe my ideal talk would be 5 minutes of raillery and inflammatory incitement, followed by 55 minutes of questions and comments.
Life Science
Comments
Posted by: SciencePundit
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October 10, 2009 10:16 AM
All hail the secret atheist rabbi of morris!
:-P
Posted by: Peter Beattie
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October 10, 2009 10:39 AM
There's apparently also a torrent version around for download: PZ's talk at AAI.
Posted by: Alex
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October 10, 2009 11:13 AM
"Order, functionality, and, as Joe Felsenstein defined it, adaptedness are more relevant properties..."
Creationists are incredibly stupid. They don't care about the reasons for their beliefs. They just look for any reasons that sound convincing to people who don't know any better. With or without any evidence for their beliefs, they'll still believe them. That's why Creationism and Creationists are so willing to ignore criticism. They have no desire for the truth.
Posted by: Michael
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October 10, 2009 11:13 AM
I found it horribly sad that so many atheists must keep so very quiet about being an atheist and virtually have no social groups for support.
Posted by: DuckPhup
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October 10, 2009 11:19 AM
I really get annoyed when I observe that virtually everyone sees 'complex' ONLY as a less cumbersome way of saying 'complicatedness'. That is SO wrong. In this context, 'complicated' is the opposite of 'simple'; 'complex' is the opposite of 'independent'.
Posted by: SC OM
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October 10, 2009 11:37 AM
Nice!
I liked the brief discussion of multifunctionality, contingency, and kipple especially. Think there might be better examples and terms than the Radio Shack story for modularity and "tinkering," which carry connotations of conscious design that might confuse.
Q&A was good (though the questions didn't seem to have that much to do with the subject of the talk).
Posted by: Standard curve
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October 10, 2009 12:31 PM
I really appreciated the points made about how designed things are generally (inherently?) more simple than things that have evolved.
If I was to design a human knee, it would have fewer parts that would be placed in a more stable arrangement, and for me, not hurt so damn much.
Posted by: Sastra
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October 10, 2009 12:35 PM
Um, okay.
Why did you have to be so shrill and strident?
What about the sophisticated forms of creationism which don't claim that God actually created anything literally? Clearly you don't even know about those, so you've no right to criticize creationism.
And would you give this talk to your grandmother as she lay weak and feeble in bed, dying? No? Well, then you shouldn't give it to anyone.
That's all I can think of right now.
Posted by: CalGeorge
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October 10, 2009 12:36 PM
You are too modest, PZ! Great talk.
Posted by: Ivence
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October 10, 2009 1:04 PM
Only question I have is "Were you getting commissions on the beer? And if so, how does one go about securing that sort of agreement when scheduling a speech."
Posted by: timpanogos.wordpress.com
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October 10, 2009 1:13 PM
Hear, hear!
Whenever I run into someone who is a designer in any context, I ask them, what is "good design?"
Especially for engineers, the results I get run to "simplicity." Good design is simple, simplifying complex operations into fewer. Complexity, they tell me, it the hallmark of rushed or crappy design.
So, I guess intelligent design could be the sign of a crappy creator. Of course, actually advocating that would be heresy in most creationist circles.
Creationism is an odd cult. Are there any deprogrammers who specialize in deprogramming creationists?
Posted by: Lynna
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October 10, 2009 1:15 PM
PZ, you asked us to tear into the talk, so here's my take.
- Beginning with beer was good. If possible, always begin with beer. You set a limit for the talk, and gave the audience a good reason not to blame you when the question period was cut off. One beer mention at the beginning and one at the end is enough. Any more than that is too much.
- "Parasitize" was used well. Active verbs with some punch work really well and you should incorporate more of them.
- Don't announce that your next bit is going to be entertaining, like you did in the preface to the Intelligent Design talk. Presenting the condensed ID talk will be funnier if done with a straight face and an apparent lack of irony. Do your IDer imitation full bore.
- The runaway metaphor bit was great. Every thunderbolt having a Thunderer sounded funny (pure sound effects adding to meaning -- look for other opportunities to do this in your talk). The Thunderer was also conceptually funny, and it came off as childish (which reflected well the childish aspect of ID without you having to label it as such). You kept your head up, your voice clear, the emphasis correctly placed, and the match with the image well-timed. Performance quality was great.
- Clean up your appearance before you go on stage. Yes, what you say is more important that what you look like, but oddities like the unbuttoned cuff hanging out of your left sleeve are distracting. Straighten your collar, check your cuffs and jacket, remove the distracting name tag thingy from around your neck.
- Your hand gestures are quite effective. Not too much, not too little. Well done.
- Most of the concrete examples you gave to illustrate abstract points were well-chosen. For example, the ID repetition of "protoplasm" in the cell (and falsely attributing that to Darwin's viewpoint of the cell) was great. It's always a good idea to give a concrete example of an overall failure of ID, and your backup slides were good, especially the slide showing Darwin's work with plant cells.
- However, you weakened the good example given above by throwing the conclusion away. The propaganda approach, propaganda or truth through repetition, that IDers take was your main point. You made the point with an example and then flubbed the concluding sentence that would have sealed the issue for the audience.
- Speaking of conclusions, it is a good idea to pause briefly for a summary. You did this well when you stopped to say "This is what we have so far..." [may not be an exact quote]. Perfect timing for a summary, but you rushed it and left one item out. Don't speed up and assume everyone remembers your previous points. I got the feeling that you were afraid you'd bore the audience with repetition, or that you felt you were insulting their intelligence by summarizing for them. Not so. No matter how intelligent the audience, everyone benefits from a few good sub-summaries. This summary included the logical fallacies (circular thinking), and the runaway metaphors -- but you left out the point about repetition/propaganda. You had three main points to summarize and you only included two.
- The driftwood wall was a good example. You might look for an even better photograph. (I'll see if I can find you one.) Beauty is always good for getting the attention of the audience. In this part of the talk, go back and listen to yourself stressing the phrase "functionally unspecified" to see how effective that was. That's the tone and the energy you need throughout. Ditto for the emphasis on "sloppy". Your summary or concluding sentence here was better: "You can't use simple complexity as a measure of design", just drop "simple" out of that. At least you didn't rush the conclusion as much. "Lack of planning leads to complexity" was also a good round-it-up conclusion.
- The choanoflagellate slide was great! And the introduction to the "accident" or "glitch" that led to something like peanut butter-and-chocolate was memorable.
-"Fasteners" was a great word to use when talking about the cell components. Presenting the scientific terms and then several common-language terms for the same parts or concepts worked really well. Ditto for the single cell animals "cooperating" -- well done, and it makes the talk accessible for non-biologists.
-"Nature is Not and Engineer" -- good slide, good bit. Also, another good concluding sentence with "it's no longer chance when that change conferred a selective advantage" [quote may not be exact]. However, don't, don't, don't throw that conclusion away by speaking too fast, turning slightly away from the microphone, dropping your head, and letting your diction slur a bit as you start thinking about your next point.
- "Incremental tinkering" discussion was good, and the choice of phrase memorable. "The human genome is 95% kipple" was LOL-worthy.
- Read aloud at least most of the longer quotes you present from other authors, like the Vonnegut, and the Kipple quote. Yes, the text is right there for everyone to see, but you are talking at the same time and it's hard to split one's attention between listening to you and reading the text. Also, you speak rapidly and move right along, so we don't have time to enjoy or take in the quote.
- In the question/answer period, "The real heroes of science education..." and the emphasis on teaching critical thinking was great. There's a school in Chicago that is doing just that for second graders. I'll see if I can find an example for you. "Unteach all the crap..." was also great. The Calculus bit, the emphasis on math, could use a concrete example.
Well, you did ask.
Posted by: PZ Myers
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October 10, 2009 1:28 PM
I did ask, and always appreciate criticism. Yeah, I do need to tidy up a lot. I should bring along my wife as my personal assistant, 'cause she's so much better at noticing what a slob I am.
I talked with Dan Dennett a bit afterwards, and he disagreed strongly with the "Nature is not an engineer" slide -- he wants to rescue the word "design" from the creationists (Ken Miller makes a similar point). I disagree, and he failed to convince me, and I failed to convince him, which is OK. I'll invite people to criticize, but it doesn't mean I'll accept it!
Posted by: CamelsWithHammers
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October 10, 2009 1:44 PM
Great talk. And thanks for speaking out on behalf of philosophy education in pre-college education! It's crucial that scientists recognize that to combat religion, people need some basic philosophical sophistication as much as they do scientific awareness. I really appreciate how well you always communicate this.
Posted by: Lynna
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October 10, 2009 1:47 PM
I understand where Dan Dennett is coming from, but so far we haven't been able to rescue the word "theory", so I don't know how successful a campaign to rescue "design" would be. For now, at least, I'd rather see speakers work around the appropriation of "design" by IDers. I'd keep the "Nature is not an engineer" slide, but I wonder if it would work as well if it read "Nature doesn't have a degree in engineering" -- that might be closer to placating Dan Dennett, and it might be closer to what you actually mean.Yes, your wife or daughter should clean you up before each public appearance. They could do it remotely if you use a webcam. I've seen worse though. :-) Your public self is quite presentable. I remember you caught flak for the athletic shoes pared with a pinstriped suit at the Creation Museum. Some personal eccentricities are a good thing.
Posted by: Lynna
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October 10, 2009 1:54 PM
Here is the story about teachers bringing critical thinking lessons into the curriculum for inner-city kids: http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=113683847
In the actual broadcast, we heard a second grader explain the thrust of a story he had read. The kid was reading for comprehension. 100 percent of the kids go on to college.
Posted by: Sastra
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October 10, 2009 1:55 PM
Perhaps you could try :
Nature is not an engineer -- it's an "engineer."
Nature doesn't have design -- it has "design."
Natural 'design' is not the same thing as deliberate design: we make this distinction when we look at a snow-flake, and then compare it to a human-made model of a snowflake. You don't have a problem knowing which is which. They both have lovely designs -- but only one is designed in the strong, willful-agent sense of the word.
Posted by: vanharris
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October 10, 2009 2:01 PM
timp... # 11 Whenever I run into someone who is a designer in any context, I ask them, what is "good design?"
Especially for engineers, the results I get run to "simplicity."
No! As a design engineer, i would say that good design is the proper balancing of the sometimes conflicting requirements of functionality, safety, economy, aesthetics, durability, & whatever else matters.
Evolution fails as a good design engineer, because it's constrained by the incremental nature of evolution by natural selection. It can't make a great leap of imagination, having no imagination to work with. This is a good rebuff to the Creationists because their magical designer would surely have bucket loads of imagination, & it would create new designs that are radically different from existing ones. But the fossil record, allowing for its incompleteness, shows only incremental change.
But i'll allow it still beats us human design engineers in some ways.
Posted by: Rey Fox
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October 10, 2009 2:37 PM
"I found it horribly sad that so many atheists must keep so very quiet about being an atheist and virtually have no social groups for support."
Which, of course, only feeds in to the image of atheists as bitter, angry individuals. It's the classic technique of the ruling hegemony, push the outgroup to the fringes, deny them social support and often education, and then proclaim that they're uncivilized and uncouth.
Posted by: RagingBullwinkle
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October 10, 2009 3:33 PM
A Jehovah's witness called me on the phone (the weather was bad or she was lazy) and we talked for forty minutes. Normally I ignore these kinds of things but I was bored and need to work on my argumentative skills. I stumped her a great deal as she's not used to talking to skeptics. I used the driftwood analogy and she didn't have an answer except to keep going back to the bible which I then countered with some delicious quotes from Julia Sweeney's Letting Go of God that I had just listened to. Amazing that people who claim to read the Bible don't actually understand it.
So thanks PZ. I couldn't have done it without you.
Posted by: se-rat-o-SAWR-us
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October 10, 2009 4:19 PM
Money quote for the "accommodationist" battles:
This is precisely why we "New Atheists" need the accommodationists: once you've openly declared your hostility and contempt for a superstition held dear by most of your peers, you cannot reasonably expect little else but hostility and contempt in return. It is the accommodationists who will be sitting at the table.
The two doubting Thomas's Jefferson and Paine aligned very closely in their contempt of Christianity and religion in general. Jefferson kept his public mouth shut and built a good deal of the country we live in. Paine didn't, and was run out on a rail. Both approaches are necessary. Just don't expect to be able to mix them up.
The fact that some of the noisier people pushing accommodation are either outright idiots or employ idiotic arguments, is irrelevant. Like it or not, accommodationists are our idiots, and we need to use them as such. So engaging in open hostility with the them is counterproductive, at best.
Certainly, PZ, given your acknowledgement of the reality above, this debate with the accommodationists can be accomplished with more sophistication and efficacy than we've seen. I thought that was the chief lesson of RD's recent appearance with O'Reilly: RD managed to drive the discussion, and was not sidelined or distracted into anger or irrelevance by O'Reilly's foolishness and baiting tactics.
Posted by: Woof
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October 10, 2009 4:42 PM
The first part of the talk reminded me of Doug Zongker's (in)famous Chicken Chicken Chicken presentation (video at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yL_-1d9OSdk, PDF at http://isotropic.org/papers/chicken.pdf).
Posted by: Rorschach
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October 10, 2009 9:14 PM
Good speech for an american audience.
I like the summary of creationist arguments at the start, also the historical context of what Darwin knew about cells etc.
Keep in mind for overseas talks that creationists are much less present in everyday life out of the US, and most Australians, say, probably have no idea who, for example, Ray Comfort or Michael Behe are.
Posted by: who is your creator
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October 10, 2009 9:25 PM
In regard to:
"We can build up immense amounts of complexity from nothing but noise, so just babbling about how complicated something is says nothing about the impossibility of its origin from chance events. Order, functionality, and, as Joe Felsenstein defined it, adaptedness are more relevant properties, and we have a natural mechanism for generating those, too. It's called selection."
Since it's so easy to create complexity from noise and natural selection, why is it that PZ, Dawkins, and Scott can't figure out how to 'evolve' an eye?
http://whoisyourcreator.com/how_does_evolution_occur.html
Posted by: se-rat-o-SAWR-us
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October 10, 2009 10:21 PM
why is it that PZ, Dawkins, and Scott can't figure out how to 'evolve' an eye?
Hey cretinous Christian moron: Go read about PAX genes and eye evolution, or just read a book. Mayr on this subject:
Posted by: PZ Myers
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October 10, 2009 10:25 PM
Man, that 'who is your creator' site is like distilled dimwittery. It simply takes every explanation a scientist offers and says "nuh-uh".
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 10, 2009 10:37 PM
Like you have shown any physical evidence for your imaginary creator. Zip, zero, nada. Whereas evolution has a good idea on how eyes evolve. Keep deluding yourself. We know better, as your deity doesn't exist.Posted by: Lynna
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October 11, 2009 12:43 AM
Yes, but they also use big words, like neurotransmitters, so they must know what they're talking about. Right?I liked the links to the forum replies, where the Christian perpetrator claims that evolutionists have retreated into silence because they can't take up the challenge. Problem is, when you look at the forum examples you see replies like:
and
Doesn't sound like the sound of silence to me.
Posted by: Kel
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October 11, 2009 12:49 AM
Watched the lecture, it was interesting stuff.
Posted by: MAJeff, OM
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October 11, 2009 12:50 AM
Who is my creator?
I'm kinda hoping for Miles Davis. Motherfucker created some amazing shit.
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 11, 2009 1:05 AM
Say, what's this?
Why, it's an entire free science outreach journal dedicated to explaining the evolution of eyes!
Of course, creationists hate science, so that's probably useless. Oh, well.
PS: A first-baseman is not my creator.
Posted by: who is your creator
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October 11, 2009 9:06 AM
Thank you for reminding me to cite the 'free science outreach journal' as it is also perfect for dodging explanations for the evolution of eyes.
Let's make it simple for you guys:
Why don't one of you give the details of how neurotransmitters evolved (re #28)? So far, the usual dodging is stunning.
Go ahead and give it a whirl ... anyone??? Try to use your own words so we don't have to refer to nonsense links.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 11, 2009 9:16 AM
whoisyourcreator,
I understood your religion deprecated lying. Why do you continue to do it?
Posted by: $ 1.386sx ¢
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October 11, 2009 9:29 AM
I understood your religion deprecated lying.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pio_of_Pietrelcina
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Benny_Hinn
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Miracles_attributed_to_Jesus
Yeah, lying is real "deprecated".
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
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October 11, 2009 9:47 AM
A point for the referring to the Abbott and Costello "Who's On First" routine.
Posted by: Knockgoats
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October 11, 2009 9:56 AM
Thou mewling...,
Your examples show that Christians lie. They do not show that Christianity does not deprecate lying. I was thinking in particular of the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness"; whoisyourcreator is doing exactly that.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 11, 2009 9:57 AM
Why don't you give me some physical evidence for your imaginary deity/creator. So far your silence is stunning. You have nothing.Posted by: $ 1.386sx ¢
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October 11, 2009 10:08 AM
Your examples show that Christians lie. They do not show that Christianity does not deprecate lying. I was thinking in particular of the commandment "Thou shalt not bear false witness"; whoisyourcreator is doing exactly that.
Okay but it is kind of ironic that story of the ten commandments itself is a fabrication though!
Posted by: Dania
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October 11, 2009 10:32 AM
Lazy creationist. Says he wants to know how the eye evolved, but doesn't want to read about it...
Well, if you really wanted to know you'd be trying to get some background in the relevant field and you'd be looking for answers in the scientific literature.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/120049842/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/2830635
But you just came here to waste everyone's time...
I'm sure you'll consider links to the peer reviewed scientific literature to be "nonsense links", being the lazy and ignorant creationist you are. But if you know nothing about the subject and are not interested in learning about it just STFU and let the people who know do their work.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 11, 2009 12:02 PM
I just started watching the talk and have to say — great opening! It is hard not to laugh and feel smugly self-satisfied (little jab there at Nathan) in comparison to people who throw up their hands to the monkey in the sky if nature gets too complicated for them. Theists like to call us reductionists; I would like to call them inflationists. When they hit something too complex for their understanding, they inflate the size of the problem until it requires a god-sized solution.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 11, 2009 12:32 PM
Finally found time to watch the video. Interesting talk. I always like it when we find proteins that are seen in multicellular animals have analogs in simpler animals. That really ties the tree of life together. But the creobots and IDiots simply won't see that. The point of complexity versus simplicity for real design was very good.
I did find the consistent mention of beer somewhat distracting, but I understood its purpose.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 11, 2009 12:55 PM
Reese's Peanut Butter Cups — the intelligent designer's nightmare!
See, chance. All because two sloppy people happened to be eating peanut butter and chocolate in close proximity. Yes, Reese's Peanut Butter Cups are nothing but kipple.It looks like they were designed, but they weren't. The chocolate and peanut butter came together by chance, forming a ridged disc that fits perfectly in the "U" of your thumb and forefinger and quite circumstantially also fits right into the standard adult human mouth like a nickel in a slot machine. The sugary milk chocolate coats the gooey peanut butter making the mouth salivate, which lubricates the esophagus to aid swallowing and prevents the peanut butter from sticking to the roof of the mouth. And it all happened by chance! No designer required (via Wikipedia):
What's that? ... nevermind.
Posted by: 'Tis Himself
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October 11, 2009 1:09 PM
No, no, no. Reese's Peanut Butter Cups were designed by space aliens. The concept is much too advanced to have happened by mere chance. The aliens needed something to do beside anal probing so, in their copious free time they invented peanut butter cups.
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 11, 2009 1:10 PM
You dismiss actual peer-reviewed science pretty much like a geocentrist dismisses an astronomy reference or a flat-earther dismisses a cartography/geography reference.
Fine. Be ignorant. Love ignorance. Hate science as much as you want. But we all know you're just a bigoted hypocrite, because you will dodge explanations for the following simple questions:
1) Why does a "creator" powerful enough and knowledgeable enough to create eyes and neurotransmitters and all the rest of the stuff that you find so impressive need a loser like you to speak for him?
2) If your "creator" is real, why doesn't this supposed creator speak for itself, giving explanations for eyes and neurotransmitters and all the rest of the stuff that you find so impressive?
Posted by: Groo
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October 11, 2009 1:10 PM
Well, i liked the talk a lot and i've learned something about chance. It's refreshing... and a bit different from what i've learned from Dennett and others. I like PZ ideas on this a bit more...
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 11, 2009 1:44 PM
Why did their curiosity go from anal probing to oral insertions? Bad aliens!Posted by: who is your creator
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October 11, 2009 1:55 PM
In regard to #39, why don't you use the information and give us your play-by-play for how they actually evolved instead of claiming (without ANY supporting empirical evidence) that they evolved from something else.
Surely, you guys can up with some empirical evidence .. right?
Posted by: scooter
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October 11, 2009 2:08 PM
BRAVO: I missed it in person.
Clearly articulated for the science impaired but not over-explained.
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 11, 2009 2:10 PM
who is your
daddycreator, try these search links to earlier posts on the topic by PZ that include:Evolution of vertebrate eyes and,
The eye as a contingent, diverse, complex product of evolutionary processes.
You are guaranteed to find empirical evidence in those links, if you dare!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 11, 2009 2:20 PM
Where is yours for your imaginary deity. We are still waiting, as no presuppositions of his existence are valid...Posted by: Dania
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October 11, 2009 2:39 PM
Sorry, I won't waste my time on you before I see any evidence that it would be worthwhile to familiarize myself with a subject I'm not that familiar with and then explain it in layman terms to you. Show me you're interested in actually learning and having an honest debate by reading the articles on the evolution of eyes you were directed to and making some substantive comments on them, and I might change my mind.
But you're not gonna Gish Gallop on us.
It really is a wonder how you dismiss peer-reviewed science as if it were totally irrelevant.
Yes, yes we can. Can you come up with some empirical evidence for the existence of your "creator"?
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 11, 2009 2:39 PM
Says that dodging loser who wouldn't know empirical evidence if it literally poked you in the eye...
Posted by: who is your creator
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October 11, 2009 3:37 PM
In regard to #49:
Since you offer NO empirical evidence and instead point to fantasies like PZ's "simplified schematic molecular phylogenetic tree inferred by the neighbor-joining method showing the seven known opsin subfamilies," we'll assume that none of you can articulate the step-by-step scenario of how an neurotransmitter arose, let alone any component of an eye.
Thank you for more material on our "How Does Evolution Supposedly Work?" page!
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 11, 2009 3:44 PM
Still no evidence for your imaginary deity WIYC. Pitiful on your part. Like you know you have nothing...
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 11, 2009 3:56 PM
We'll assume that you're a hypocritical loser who hates science.
Since the "How Does The Creator Supposedly Work?" page doesn't exist, and would be blank if it did, you're tacitly admitting that you have nothing, and that science does, in fact, have all the evidence.
Ha-ha!
Posted by: Dania
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October 11, 2009 4:04 PM
You're a liar, did you know that? We linked to empirical evidence documented in the scientific literature, but you're too lazy to read it so you simply dismiss it without offering any substantive argument. Lazy, ignorant and lying creationist.
Even if that's true, so fucking what? This is a blog, and what the commenteres here can or cannot do has absolutely nothing to do with evolution being true or not. Science is not done on blogs, you know...
Posted by: aratina cage
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October 11, 2009 4:05 PM
who is your
daddycreator, uhh.... you're welcome? The more material you have and don't get, the more idiocy there is for us to laugh at.Posted by: Groo
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October 11, 2009 5:21 PM
Whoisyourcreator(answer: Thor) says
"Since it's so easy to create complexity from noise and natural selection, why is it that PZ, Dawkins, and Scott can't figure out how to 'evolve' an eye?"
Old.
You know it by inference. Like in a detective story. Many things about evolution are like that. You can't know it directly. But the evidence is overwhelming... beyond any reasonable doubt.
Posted by: Groo
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October 11, 2009 5:36 PM
Post 32 whoisyourcreator (answer: Bumba)
"Why don't one of you give the details of how neurotransmitters evolved"
You can have a glimpse of the kind of explanation if you were paying attention to PZ Myers talk. Communication is usefull... probably the neurotrasmitters once did something else when brains didn't exist. Obviously they wouldn't be named neurotrasmiters by an alien scientist passing by. Only in brains you can use the name neurotrasmitter. Sometime in the evolution, probably by chance, 2 proto neurons trade a few molcules. They enjoy it and saw it was usefull. It probaby happend by chance.
Now, how do we prove it? I have no idea, i'm no scientist Maybe Thor did it...
Posted by: PZ Myers
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October 11, 2009 5:48 PM
Neurotransmitters must be magical, complex chemicals that would be impossible to simply evolve, huh?
Not so. Many neurotransmitters are simply amino acids. Others, like catecholamines, we know function as signaling molecules in bacteria. They didn't have to 'evolve', they are small, common molecules that were coopted for a specific job in cell-cell signaling.
Posted by: Ichthyic
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October 11, 2009 6:09 PM
Since you offer NO empirical evidence and instead point to fantasies like PZ's "simplified schematic molecular phylogenetic tree inferred by the neighbor-joining method showing the seven known opsin subfamilies
how is phylogenetic analysis NOT empirical?
explain why comparison between related families is fantasy.
go on.
oh wait...
You can't, can you.
laughs on you then, right?
right.
Posted by: Wowbagger, OM
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October 11, 2009 6:48 PM
Why would a omnipotent creator god need neurotransmitters to be explicable by science in the first place?
If this god actually existed, our brains could be made of peanut butter and fairy floss and ooze cough syrup and work just fine if a god existed; the fact that there are physical mechanisms we can explain with science is enough to cast a significant amount of doubt on the exisence of a god.
In short: god has infinitely powerful magic - why does he need anything to make sense?
Posted by: Rorschach
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October 11, 2009 6:54 PM
I'm curious how dimwit explains the fact that the neurotransmitter Glycin has been found in comet dust.As in, in space.Not on earth.
http://www.physorg.com/news169736472.html
Posted by: Creature of the Universe
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October 11, 2009 7:48 PM
I really liked your talk, thank you. One part I especially enjoyed was in regards to kipples. I think I understand what you were saying about chance and randomness, but I must have lost your deeper connection (and your understanding) between kipples and evolution. Probably because my understanding of kipples is that they ‘are objects that have become useless after their primary purpose has been fulfilled'. So, with my understanding of kipples, I began to think of how evolution uses uselessness to form something useful, in certain aspects of evolution. It sort of reminds me of the Taoist views on the usefulness of uselessness, although I'm not sure if that is something you were alluding too.
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 11, 2009 8:03 PM
See, what you don't understand is that none of that is good enough for "Bud Abbott's first-baseman is your creator". Oh, you think you can get away with broad statements like "Many neurotransmitters are simply amino acids" and "they are small, common molecules that were coopted for a specific job in cell-cell signaling" and "Glycin has been found in comet dust". No, no, no. "Bud Abbott's first-baseman is your creator" is not actually interested in learning anything about biology or chemistry or physics. "Bud Abbott's first-baseman is your creator" just wants to nod, and blow past all of the hard, technical words like "coopted" and "comet", and get to asking a question for which the answer is "nobody knows". At which point "Bud Abbott's first-baseman is your creator" can smirk triumphantly and say "so you don't know everything, and can't provide a complete explanation of the evolution of eyes/neurotransmitters/ears/brains/the liver/whatever".
It's just a big game of "Gotcha!" combined with the creator-of-the-gaps. If no human knows the answer, creator did it.
That's why I say, don't play that game. Point out that for something that's supposed to be real, this creator plays real hard to get. You have to go all the way into these "gaps" of ignorance to even find a hint of this so-called "creator".
Posted by: Mr T
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October 11, 2009 9:39 PM
I enjoyed the talk, PZ. Bringing in Vonnegut and Dick was a nice touch. I'm still confused why Dennett thinks we could somehow rescue the word "design" from the IDiots. I guess I just don't understand how the word would be useful.
MAJeff, OM #30:
I'll drink to that.*cracking open a random page from Miles' autobiography*... and I quote (p. 276):Miles = badass motherfucker.
I certainly agree, but perhaps "conflationists" is even better. They do tend to conflate nature with morality, to conflate the meaning of technical terms with their common usage, and more generally to conflate scientific problems with whatever problem they may have apologizing for their own religious nonsense. Also, the alliteration between conflationism and creationism will surely bring much rejoicing...aratina cage, #40:
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 11, 2009 10:01 PM
*Raises tankard of grog in salute*Posted by: J. Matthan Brown
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October 12, 2009 3:41 AM
PZ did a fabulous job demonstrating how one can distinguish between something which is the product of undirected natural causes (e.g. drift wood walls on the beach) and something which is the product of intelligent design (e.g. a brick wall). It seems that our ability to distinguish between natural causes and intelligent causes is a crucial part of science. Indeed, many scientific disciplines—forensic science, archeology, S.E.T.I--heavily depend upon our ability to make such distinctions. It’s simply delightful to see PZ using such design detecting methods in his own lectures!
However, his method of design detection lacks the mathematical rigor and precision one would expect from a scientist—after all, simplicity is not always the mark of intelligent agency. For this I’d suggest he reference the work of William Dembski in his book The Design Inference published by Cambridge University Press.
Also, PZ’s acceptance and use of design detection begs the question: why can’t these same methods be used to detect design in biology? In point of fact, this is what ID Theorists are doing—so, what’s the problem?
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 12, 2009 12:55 PM
<*facepalm*>
The problem, of course, is that "ID Theorists" are most certainly not doing "design detection" in biology. Not with "mathematical rigor and precision". Not at all.
Posted by: Nebula99
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October 12, 2009 2:04 PM
Hey, who is your creator, check out "The Greatest Show on Earth" by Richard Dawkins. If you are really interested in finding out our evidence, that is (so far as I've heard) the place to go. I haven't been able to read it yet, but I'ts supposed to be very thorough. If the curiousity I'm going to politely assume you have isn't enough to put up with reading a book by Dawkins, you could try going to http://www.talkorigins.org/ as it is also quite popular. Hope you have fun and learn lots!
As for who my creator was, it was a team effort between my mother and my father.
Posted by: J. Matthan Brown
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October 12, 2009 5:43 PM
Hello Owlmirror,
Just a couple of thoughts on your response,
“The problem, of course, is that "ID Theorists" are most certainly not doing "design detection" in biology.”
This is a rather odd statement to make—considering the entire goal of the ID movement is to show that we can detect design in nature. At the heart of ID theory is the idea that the same methods we use to distinguish between undirected natural causes and intelligent causes in other scientific disciplines can be used in biology.
“Not with "mathematical rigor and precision". Not at all.”
You can “facepalm” me all you want but the fact of the matter is, The Design Inference is a rigorous mathematical formulation of “design detection.” The aim of the book is to provide a comprehensive account and justification for design inferences—like the type PZ makes in his lecture when he notes the difference between a drift wood wall and a brick wall.
Posted by: Nerd of Redhead, OM
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October 12, 2009 5:53 PM
Mr. Brown. No scientific research is going on to detect design. Just a lot of vague handwaving. If anybody says they are doing research, ask them for a Science or Nature article to demonstrate their science. After all, if evolution is shown to be wrong, a Nobel prize is waiting, and those journals pride themselves on publishing that type of work. But to get it, they have to publish in the peer reviewed scientific literature.
So don't lie to us about the real amount of scientific research being done. We know better.
Posted by: CJO
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October 12, 2009 6:22 PM
SETI is a complete red herring in the discussion. The current state of the field has no intention of looking for any kind of message, and the methodology behind determining what kind of signal would be a valid candidate for a "designed" signal has nothing at all to do with complexity, "specified complexity" or any other ID propagandist's bogus metric.
As for archaeology and forensics, it's a curious thing: the agent believed responsible for any designed features of a crime scene or archaeological dig is extremely well understood in terms of motives and capabilities. Without this level of understanding, "design inferences" are little better than the subjective belief that a given object looks designed. Science doesn't stop at superficial observations distorted by magical thinking. In fact, it doesn't even start there.
You're making a category error. Living organisms reproduce, imperfectly, and over long spans of time, imperfect reproduction in a limiting environment demands that distributed "design work" occurs without conscious intent by any agent because of the differential survival and reproduction of varying replicating forms. "These same methods" (archaeology et al) are completely inapplicable; no object is a candidate for having been designed by rational methods unless a rational agent with commensurate capabilities can be identified. If you want to "detect design in biology," first you have to identify where the apparently unbroken chain of reproduction was broken in order to do this design work, and second you have to identify an agent capable of conceiving and carrying out the design. How's it coming on that?
Posted by: B166ER
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October 13, 2009 2:11 AM
P.Z., I'm glad you enjoyed yourself at the conference, great speech on complexity, and I wish I could have been there. On to the question of the use of the term design, my roommate and I have been discussing this and we came to the conclusion that it isn't about 'should' we use the word design, but 'can' we. We came to the conclusion that it just doesn't fit. By the dictionary definition, ALL of the ways in which it can be used imply intent, usually by an intelligence. Unless the definition is changed, it implies that some thinking agent used forethought to shape it. As much as I love Dan's writing, on the use of the term design, Dan=0, P.Z.=1.
http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/design
http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/design
Posted by: Owlmirror
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October 14, 2009 4:17 AM
It asserts that we can detect design in nature. But there is no method. There is nothing that has been submitted for peer-review that can even pretend to approach such a method.
Oh? So there does exist an ID method that definitely distinguishes a simple stone arrowhead, a simple clay pot, and a simple fishhook as being the results of intelligent causes?
Pray tell, what is this method?
Nonsense.
Don't talk to me about "irreducable complexity". As Jason Rosenhouse points out in "How Anti-evolutionists Abuse Mathematics":
(Rosenhouse is a Ph.D mathematician)
Talk is cheap. Publish -- in the peer-reviewed scientific literature -- or perish. Dembski doesn't need to convince me, a layperson; Dembski needs to convince microbiologists and biostatisticians and mathematicians that he actually has something other than garbage math.
Posted by: Mike | October 25, 2009 10:01 PM
I watched the video of your talk and the bit about integrins in choanoflagellates stuck in my mind. I've done some phylogenies of the integrin gene family, and I think the mention of 'integrin alpha domains' in the paper describing the genome may be a little misleading. It seems that the automatic genome analysis has labelled some domains as resembling most closely integrin alpha subunit propeller domains or integrin alpha I domains. There are no integrin beta subunits in the choanoflagellate genome, nor are the integrin alpha-like domains in the context of a full-lenght alpha subunit. From a brief look at some of the domains, they don't look like extracellular proteins. These sorts of sequence similarity hits can also be found in bacteria, and the matching proteins don't have anything to do with cell adhesion. In other words, there are in the choanoflagellate genome some bits that look like some bits in one half of an integrin. I'd say there is no evidence of a functional integrin in choanoflagellates at this point.
This whole story just goes to show that automatic genome annotation has it limitations and that when a limited number of people produce a description of a newly sequenced genome in one short paper, a few corners are going to be cut.