Evolutionary Theory predicts almost nothing?

[FarWanderer]

I would not turn to evolutionary theory because it predicts almost nothing.

Rarely have I encountered a statement that strikes me as ridiculous as this. What in biology does evolutionary theory NOT predict?

[Neatras]

I'll be borrowing from the incredibly information-dense content over at the Don Lindsay Archive.

Philosophers of science such as Popper and Kitcher say that it is. Scientists such as Mayr, Dobzhansky, and Ridley agree. Many organizations have passed resolutions to this effect. However, the important question is whether these authorities can back up what they say with evidence.

The following list gives a few of the predictions that have been made from the Theory of Evolution:

• Darwin predicted that precursors to the trilobite would be found in pre-Silurian rocks. He was correct: they were subsequently found.
• Similarly, Darwin predicted that Precambrian fossils would be found. He wrote in 1859 that the total absence of fossils in Precambrian rock was "inexplicable" and that the lack might "be truly urged as a valid argument" against his theory. When such fossils were found, starting in 1953, it turned out that they had been abundant all along. They were just so small that it took a microscope to see them.
• There are two kinds of whales: those with teeth, and those that strain microscopic food out of seawater with baleen. It was predicted that a transitional whale must have once existed, which had both teeth and baleen. Such a fossil has since been found.
• Evolution predicts that we will find fossil series.
• Evolution predicts that the fossil record will show different populations of creatures at different times. For example, it predicts we will never find fossils of trilobites with fossils of dinosaurs, since their geological time-lines don't overlap. The "Cretaceous seaway" deposits in Colorado and Wyoming contain almost 90 different kinds of ammonites, but no one has ever found two different kinds of ammonite together in the same rockbed. This lack of mixing stongly implies that the rockbeds have different ages.
• Evolution predicts that animals on distant islands will appear closely related to animals on the closest mainland, and that the older and more distant the island, the more distant the relationship.
• The theory of Common Descent predicts that the species alive today can be organized into one single family tree, where each species is a descendant of a parent species. (And therefore, there should be a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness.)
  For example, arthropods all have chitinous exoskeleton, hemocoel, and jointed legs. Insects have all these plus head-thorax-abdomen body plan and 6 legs. Flies have all that plus two wings and halteres. Calypterate flies have all that plus a certain style of antennae, wing veins, and sutures on the face and back. You will never find the distinguishing features of calypterate flies on a non-fly, much less on a non-insect or non-arthropod.
  
  Dogs are another example. There should be species we would group with dogs, and there are - such as wolves and coyotes. So we are not surprised when dogs and foxes turn out to share some peculiar features of the middle ear. This group - the Family Canidae - can be grouped with the bears, raccoons and weasels, because their ears have some similarities to those of dogs. All of these have carnassial teeth, but so do cats, civets and seals - so we group the entire lot as being Order Carnivora. Carnivores all have 3 middle ear bones, mammary glands, placental development, hair, a diaphragm, a four-chambered heart, and a larynx. But they share those features with humans, bats, elephants and whales. So we group that entire lot as being Class Mammalia. But mammals have amniote eggs, and so do birds, lizards, snakes and turtles. And amniote animals share with frogs and salamanders the property of having four legs - they're tetrapods. Tetrapods and fish both have backbones - they're vertebrates. Vertebrates and starfish are both deuterostomes because they share the way their embryos develop a mouth. Deuterostomes are left-right symmetric, so we group them and insects and snails as bilateral. The bilaterals, the jellyfish and sponges are all animals. Animals, fungi, rose bushes and amoebas all have a nucleus inside each cell - they're eukaryotes. Eukaryotes and bacteria and archaea share the DNA mechanism, lipid-based cell membranes, and hundreds of other biochemical details.
  
  (And that's the short version of the story! For all the fancy Latin names, see the Tree of Life.)
  
  Notice that the dog-to-bacteria story has some apparent irregularities. For example, I said that elephants and whales are mammals, and that mammals have hair. It is not obvious, but elephants and whales do have a small amount of hair. Also, scientists group whales and snakes as tetrapods. So where are their four legs? From the theory of Common Descent, we see that they must be descended from four-legged creatures, and that they have lost their legs. (Loss is an easy mutation - as witness hairless dogs.) So, we predict that there should be fossils of whales with legs, and snakes with legs. These fossils have been found. Similarly, starfish outwardly have radial symmetry, but we classified them as bilateral. So Common Descent predicts that their group (echinoderms) had bilateral ancestors, and such a fossil has been found.
• Another prediction from Common Descent is that there will be species that are highly similar, so that they are fairly obviously a group. And, when we talk about groups of groups, we will see one notch less similarity. For example, we group the tree species that give oranges, mandarins, lemons, limes, tangelos, lemonades (a rounded fruit that's sweet like lemonade) and grapefruits. They're called citrus trees. We also group the stone fruit trees - those are the ones with peaches, apricots, plums, nectarines, peachcots (a cross between peaches and apricots) or peacherines. Gardeners can graft a branch from an orange tree onto a lemon tree, and get it to grow, so that they then have a tree that grows both oranges and lemons. Gardeners can mix any two citrus trees, and they can mix apple varieties, or pear varieties. But apples and peaches don't mix.
• Evolution predicts that simple, valuable features will evolve more than once. They will evolve in several species, quite independently of each other (because there has been time for that to happen). And, independent lines of evolution will most likely have differences not relevant to function. For example, the eyes of molluscs, arthropods, and vertebrates are extremely different, and ears can appear on any of at least ten different locations on different insects.
• In 1837, a Creationist reported that during a pig's fetal development, part of the incipient jawbone detaches and becomes the little bones of the middle ear. After Evolution was discovered, it was predicted that there would be a transitional fossil, of a reptile with a spare jaw joint right near its ear. A whole series of such fossils has since been found - the cynodont therapsids.
• It was predicted that humans must have an intermaxillary bone, since other mammals do. The adult human skull consists of bones that have fused together, so you can't tell one way or the other in an adult. An examination of human embryonic development showed that an intermaxillary bone is one of the things that fuses to become your upper jaw.
• From my junk DNA example I predict that three specific DNA patterns will be found at 9 specific places in the genome of white-tailed deer, but none of the three patterns will be found anywhere in the spider monkey genome.
• In 1861, the first Archaeopteryx fossil was found. It was clearly a primitive bird with reptilian features. But, the fossil's head was very badly preserved. In 1872 Ichthyornis and Hesperornis were found. Both were clearly seabirds, but to everyone's astonishment, both had teeth. It was predicted that if we found a better-preserved Archaeopteryx, it too would have teeth. In 1877, a second Archaeopteryx was found, and the prediction turned out to be correct.
• Almost all animals make Vitamin C inside their bodies. It was predicted that humans are descended from creatures that could do this, and that we had lost this ability. (There was a loss-of-function mutation, which didn't matter because our high-fruit diet was rich in Vitamin C.) When human DNA was studied, scientists found a gene which is just like the Vitamin C gene in dogs and cats. However, our copy has been turned off.
• In "The Origin Of Species" (1859), Darwin said:
  "If it could be proved that any part of the structure of any one species had been formed for the exclusive good of another species, it would annihilate my theory, for such could not have been produced through natural selection."
  Chapter VI, Difficulties Of The Theory
  This challenge has not been met. In the ensuing 140 years, no such thing has been found. Plants give away nectar and fruit, but they get something in return. Taking care of other members of one's own species (kin selection) doesn't count, so ants and bees (and mammalian milk) don't count.
• Darwin pointed out that the Madagascar Star orchid has a spur 30 centimeters (about a foot) long, with a puddle of nectar at the bottom. Now, evolution says that nectar isn't free. Creatures that drink it pay for it, by carrying pollen away to another orchid. For that to happen, the creature must rub against the top of the spur. So, Darwin concluded that the spur had evolved its length as an arms race. Some creature had a way to reach deeply without shoving itself hard against the pollen-producing parts. Orchids with longer spurs would be more likely to spread their pollen, so Darwin's gradualistic scenario applied. The spur would evolve to be longer and longer. From the huge size, the creature must have evolved in return, reaching deeper and deeper. So, he predicted in 1862 that Madagascar has a species of hawkmoth with a tongue just slightly shorter than 30 cm.
  The creature that pollinated that orchid was not learned until 1902, forty years later. It was indeed a moth, and it had a 25 cm tongue. And in 1988 it was proven that moth-pollinated short-spurred orchids did set less seed than long ones.
• A thousand years ago, just about every remote island on the planet had a species of flightless bird. Evolution explains this by saying that flying creatures are particularly able to establish themselves on remote islands. Some birds, living in a safe place where there is no need to make sudden escapes, will take the opportunity to give up on flying. Hence, Evolution predicts that each flightless bird species arose on the island that it was found on. So, Evolution predicts that no two islands would have the same species of flightless bird. Now that all the world's islands have been visited, we know that this was a correct prediction.
• The "same" protein in two related species is usually slightly different. A protein is made from a sequence of amino acids, and the two species have slightly different sequences. We can measure the sequences of many species, and cladistics has a mathematical procedure which tells us if these many sequences imply one common ancestral sequence. Evolution predicts that these species are all descended from a common ancestral species, and that the ancestral species used the ancestral sequence.
  This has been done for pancreatic ribonuclease in ruminants. (Cows, sheep, goats, deer and giraffes are ruminants.) Measurements were made on various ruminants. An ancestral sequence was computed, and protein molecules with that sequence were manufactured. When sequences are chosen at random, we usually wind up with a useless goo. However, the manufactured molecules were biologically active substances. Furthermore, they did exactly what a pancreatic ribonuclease is supposed to do - namely, digest ribonucleic acids.
• An animal's bones contain oxygen atoms from the water it drank while growing. And, fresh water and salt water can be told apart by their slightly different mixture of oxygen isotopes. (This is because fresh water comes from water that evaporated out of the ocean. Lighter atoms evaporate more easily than heavy ones do, so fresh water has fewer of the heavy atoms.)
  Therefore, it should be possible to analyze an aquatic creature's bones, and tell whether it grew up in fresh water or in the ocean. This has been done, and it worked. We can distinguish the bones of river dolphins from the bones of killer whales.
  
  Now for the prediction. We have fossils of various early whales. Since whales are mammals, evolution predicts that they evolved from land animals. And, the very earliest of those whales would have lived in fresh water, while they were evolving their aquatic skills. (Skills such as the ability to do without fresh water.) Therefore, the oxygen isotope ratios in their fossils should be like the isotope ratios in modern river dolphins.
  
  It's been measured, and the prediction was correct. The two oldest species in the fossil record - Pakicetus and Ambulocetus - lived in fresh water. Rodhocetus, Basilosaurus and the others all lived in salt water.

The point is not that these prove evolution right. The point is that these were predictions that could have turned out to be wrong predictions. So, the people who made the predictions were doing science. The Theory of Evolution was also useful, in the sense that it suggested what evidence to look for, and where.

I got bored copy-pasting links in the body of the post where the original author put them, you can just go to the page here for more information.

So there are quite a number of evolutionary theory predictions out there. My favorite is the ERV example, which shnarkle skipped over as he barged in to bring in irrelevant quotes from long-dead theologians when I brought it up at the beginning of this very thread. Hm.

Shnarkle, did it never occur to you that you could've just asked scientists directly? Instead you quote C.K. Chesterton, a, and I quote:

an English writer,[2] poet, philosopher, dramatist, journalist, orator, lay theologian, biographer, and literary and art critic.

Who died in 1936. Not exactly an authority on the subject. Is there some reason you offer this insubstantial, unconvincing quote from a lay theologian from a century ago to dismiss a field of science that has continued collecting evidence for 150 years?

[FarWanderer]

"Evolution as an explanation does not explain anything. As for the idea of natural selection and "survival of the fittest', if it means
only that things fitted for survival do in fact survive, well, that
does not really give you much actual information. Nobody needs to be
told that in a flood fish live and cattle die. The question is: How
soon do cattle turn into fish? Our logic consists mostly of missing
links."

"Their myth is called the Missing Link. They know nothing of their own
argument except that it breaks down somewhere."

C.K. Chesterton

You know, I agree it’s not a very profound idea when you think about it, which is exactly why it baffles me why an otherwise intelligent person would deny it. Natural selection plus random variation plus time equals speciation. It’s a logical inevitability; not even something that requires evidence.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to post 11 by Neatras]

There are two kinds of whales: those with teeth, and those that strain microscopic food out of seawater with baleen. It was predicted that a transitional whale must have once existed, which had both teeth and baleen. Such a fossil has since been found.

And I have already addressed this issue. How many morphological changes are required before a whale may live on land? We see people who live on the street and people living in houses. It is predicted that a transitional dwelling must exist. Such dwellings have since been found in the form of tents, vans, travel trailers etc.

Evolution predicts that we will find fossil series.

So does Intelligent Design, and the biblical accounts as well. I'm not buying either one. No one is disputing that there are morphological changes, nor would we dispute that if you dig down into the earth you're going to find their remains, and those same morphological changes will still be evident. This isn't much of a prediction.

Evolution predicts that the fossil record will show different populations of creatures at different times. For example, it predicts we will never find fossils of trilobites with fossils of dinosaurs, since their geological time-lines don't overlap.

Evolution predicts that Ford manufacturing plants will stock and sell only Ford quality parts unless a plant is bought or taken over by a competitor. For example, it predicts we will never find GM quality parts at a Ford manufacturing plant.

"Cretaceous seaway" deposits in Colorado and Wyoming contain almost 90 different kinds of ammonites, but no one has ever found two different kinds of ammonite together in the same rockbed. This lack of mixing stongly implies that the rockbeds have different ages.

And a garbage dump when covered with dirt looks just like a tell. There is a strong suggestion that the junk at the bottom is older than the junk at the top. Perhaps we could predict that larger populations will also have larger garbage dumps as well.

Evolution predicts that animals on distant islands will appear closely related to animals on the closest mainland

So evolution predicts that life on other planets won't be as closely related to animals on the closest mainland.

and that the older and more distant the island, the more distant the relationship.

The older and more distant the planet, the more distant the relationship. Things farther away have a more distant relationship. If I swim out to a rock off the coast of Florida, chances are I will swim back to shore rather than to Africa, and my offspring will have a closer relationship to me than people in Africa. Got it.

The theory of Common Descent predicts that the species alive today can be organized into one single family tree, where each species is a descendant of a parent species. (And therefore, there should be a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness.)

The Theory of common descent predicts that an automobile today can be organized into one single family tree, where each model is a descendant of a parent model. (and therefore, there should be a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness)

Common descent predicts that my children and their children, and their childrens' children can all be traced back to me, and there should be a hierarchical arrangement of relatedness. Teeth on one species perform the same function as teeth in other species, lungs breath regardless of whether it be in a human being or a pig. Calling someone a homosapien rather than Joe doesn't add credibility to your theory. When the meticulously accurate and oh so descriptive nomenclature is distilled down, the essential theory is pure twaddle. Cattle have lungs and fish have gills; so in a flodd cattle will drown and fish will continue to swim. Fish with gills are related to other fish with gills. If they don't have gills then they're not fish. Got it.

[shnarkle]

"Evolution as an explanation does not explain anything. As for the idea of natural selection and "survival of the fittest', if it means
only that things fitted for survival do in fact survive, well, that
does not really give you much actual information. Nobody needs to be
told that in a flood fish live and cattle die. The question is: How
soon do cattle turn into fish? Our logic consists mostly of missing
links."

"Their myth is called the Missing Link. They know nothing of their own
argument except that it breaks down somewhere."

C.K. Chesterton

You know, I agree it’s not a very profound idea when you think about it, which is exactly why it baffles me why an otherwise intelligent person would deny it. Natural selection plus random variation plus time equals speciation. It’s a logical inevitability; not even something that requires evidence.

I'm not denying it. I'm pointing out that it has practically no explanatory power. The problem we have is that when we get back to the origin of each species we run into a road block. Where did this fully formed species come from? Scientists can't even take all of the component pieces and put them together to make anything function like it already does. Even when the stuff is already here for us to play with, it doesn't work.

Pray tell, where did that first strand of dna come from? There is no way natural selection, random variation, and 14 billion years is going to give you half as much information. It's impossible and anyone who has looked at the problems knows this.

[rikuoamero]

[Replying to post 14 by shnarkle]

I'm not denying it. I'm pointing out that it has practically no explanatory power.

None? None whatsoever? How can that be?

The problem we have is that when we get back to the origin of each species we run into a road block.

We don't.

Where did this fully formed species come from?

From its parents or ancestors, obviously.

Scientists can't even take all of the component pieces and put them together to make anything function like it already does.

Do you mean design and build a creature? Is this what you demand scientists be able to do?

Pray tell, where did that first strand of dna come from?

From a world of RNA, from what I hear.

There is no way natural selection, random variation, and 14 billion years is going to give you half as much information.

Half as much info as...?

[Neatras]

Well, at least shnarkle admits that the theory does have predictive power.

Though why he doesn't address ERV's is beyond me.

Looks like this topic has effectively been resolved, because the statement "the theory has no predictive power" is demonstrated to be false. The simple prediction: "We will find hierarchical distribution of ERV's across species matching the modeled tree of life via common ancestry" is just one such prediction, and future evidence can turn up to ratify or refute it.

Good topic, everybody. Next time, swing around the science sub-forum, since that's where this belongs. I don't mind the company.

[FarWanderer]

I'm not denying it. I'm pointing out that it has practically no explanatory power. The problem we have is that when we get back to the origin of each species we run into a road block. Where did this fully formed species come from?

The theory of gravity does not explain where matter came from. Does it therefore have "practically no explanatory power"?

There is no way natural selection, random variation, and 14 billion years is going to give you half as much information. It's impossible and anyone who has looked at the problems knows this.

This is sheer personal incredulity. What nature can and cannot do is not subject to your sentiments.

[shnarkle]

[Replying to post 14 by shnarkle]

The problem we have is that when we get back to the origin of each species we run into a road block.

We don't.

We most certainly do.

Where did this fully formed species come from?

From its parents or ancestors, obviously.

Obviously you don't understand the meaning of "origin". The original has no ancestors.

Scientists can't even take all of the component pieces and put them together to make anything function like it already does.

Do you mean design and build a creature? Is this what you demand scientists be able to do?

I'm not demanding anything. I'm pointing out what scientists already observe and admit from their own ineptitude. It can't be done intentionally or intelligently. Even when we know how it's supposed to go together in order to function, we can't design a stationary flagellum.

Pray tell, where did that first strand of dna come from?

From a world of RNA, from what I hear.

Again there isn't enough time for one strand of dna to form due to natural selection,and random variation.

There is no way natural selection, random variation, and 14 billion years is going to give you half as much information.

Half as much info as...?

...as found in one single strand of dna.

[shnarkle]

I'm not denying it. I'm pointing out that it has practically no explanatory power. The problem we have is that when we get back to the origin of each species we run into a road block. Where did this fully formed species come from?

The theory of gravity does not explain where matter came from. Does it therefore have "practically no explanatory power"?

I'm not asking where the material for this fully formed creature came from. I'm asking where is the original? The theory of gravity isn't the best example either. Density and electromagnetism have more explanatory power than the theory of gravity.

There is no way natural selection, random variation, and 14 billion years is going to give you half as much information. It's impossible and anyone who has looked at the problems knows this.

This is sheer personal incredulity. What nature can and cannot do is not subject to your sentiments.

My sentiments are subject to my observations, and my observations are the same observations of those who have looked at the fact that you can't get half as much information in one strand of dna to randomly arrange themselves in a coherant configuration in 14 billion years. Thirty years ago they knew that life couldn't have evolved here on earth. Now they're saying the time it took the universe to take its present form isn't long enough.

Darwin has already taken a seat next to all the other discarded gods from history, it's only a matter of time before his creations follow him there as well.

[Neatras]

[Replying to post 19 by shnarkle]

If you think evolution is gonna be discarded from the scientific community, then I have some bad news for you: That's an even worse prediction than what you accuse evolution of being capable of.

I've got a prediction. The theory of evolution will continue to be a part of the scientific community, there will be a constant scientific consensus of the validity of the theory of evolution, it will be used as a foundation for biology, and creationism will utterly fail to garner any widespread support among biologists.

I'm eager to see which one of us turns out to be right.