Category Archives: Evolution

Natural selection is not the only source of design in nature, writes Richard O. Prum, an evolutionary biologist at Yale in a mischievous article for the New York Times (Are These Birds Too Sexy to Survive?).

Not the only source ofdesign? He wrote that? Where?

Dont get too excited. His article, excerpted from a new book, The Evolution of Beauty, isnt arguing for intelligent design. But he uses the word design several times four, to be exact in a relatively short article to characterize what accounts for the capacity of flight in birds. For more on that, see the explicitly ID-oriented Illustra documentary, Flight: The Genius of Birds.

This is what I mean by mischievous. Surely a professor at Yale is smart enough to know what a provocation it is to use such language.

He focuses on one South American bird, the club-winged manakin, that in terms of Darwinian natural selection ought not to exist. The male club-winged manakin has a distinctive song and dance. The song sounds something like, Bip-WANNGG!, Bip-WANNGG!, Bip-WANNGG! Thats how it is transcribed, anyway, though I am not sure I hear it that way.

These birds are adorable, and the song necessitates a unique motion of the wings and a heavy, club-like accompanying bone structure that almost certainly comes at a steep cost.

The problem for evolution?

The male club-wings cannot have it both ways: They cannot evolve simultaneously for the most efficient flight and the most beautiful wing songs. Because the birds are rare and live far from major research laboratories, we have no data yet on how their wings affect their flight. But its obvious they do: In the wild, it is easy to see that male club-wings fly awkwardly. Most likely they have diminished maneuverability and efficiency.

In other words, they have evolved to be worse at flying in order to be more attractive to mates.

Evolution knows how to deal with a paradox like this: explain it away, rationalize it. Thats how evolution skeptics would characterize the move. And Professor Prum does too:

Evolutionary biologists have tried to explain away the survival costs of sexual ornaments by imagining that beauty is a so-called honest handicap: By surviving despite his awkward wing bones, the male is displaying his superior quality to mates with every Bip-WAANGG.

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The clumsy wings of males could be rationalized as a handicap that provides information about the birds condition or genetic quality. But the observation that female club-wings have also probably made themselves less capable fliers can only be described as decadent sexual selection leading to a decline in the capacity for survival. [Emphasis added.]

The metaphor of sexual decadence is too obvious to neglect, and Prum does not neglect it:

Once organisms evolve the capacity for subjective evaluation, and the freedom of choice, then animals become agents in their own evolution. One of the hallmarks of autonomy, of course, is the freedom to mess up.

Prum suggests that the phenomenon, discarding survival for sexiness, is more widespread than youd think, and that it can lead species to their own destruction. Some have said much the same of national cultures, from Rome to Weimar Germany.

It is, in any event, another illustration of how evolution has the remarkable ability to explain anything and its opposite fitness, or decadence with equal ease. Call it rationalizing. Call it explaining away. But as others have asked, can a theory that seems to exclude nothing really be said to explain anything?

H/t: Denyse OLeary.

Original post:

Yale Biologist: Natural Selection Is Not the Only Source of Design - Discovery Institute

Education minister dismisses plea to teach creationism in schools.

The petition, which was addressed to the Ministry of Education and Science and the parliament, claims there is no scientific evidence for evolution and said "globalists and atheists" were responsible for the acceptance of evolution, writes the U.S. based National Center for Science Education.

Organizers of the petition said they want to challenge the dominant status of Darwinism in schoolbooks and present it alongside other theories of human evolution, RFE/RL says.

Even though Education Minister Mladen Sarcevic said the ministry would not comply with the petition, the science education group cites Tanjug as reporting on 10 May that this is not the first time creationism has been pushed by influential conservatives.

The countrys most famous advocate of creationism, former Education Minister Ljiljana Colic, told Danas.rs she agreed with everything in the petition, saying, "I tell you that the [Darwinian] theory of evolution and claiming that man came from monkeys offends all believers, not just Orthodox."

Colic, now a professor of Ottoman language and paleography at Belgrade University, resigned her cabinet post in 2004 after her proposal to oust Darwinian theory from the school curriculum failed.

In a rejoinder to the petition dated 9 May, the Serbian Biological Society together with other scientific societies and science faculty members said evolution is "the backbone of modern biology."

Compiled by Ky Krauthamer

The rest is here:

Evolution Is a Western Plot: Serbian Intellectuals - Transitions Online

Editors note:The beginning of May was quite interesting as audiences of scientists, scholars, and students in very different parts of the world examinedthe evidence for intelligent design. Weve already highlightedthe launch of a new ID research centeratone of Brazils major universities. That was May 5-6. The same week, May 2-3, mathematician Granville Sewell of the University of Texas at El Paso was in Istanbul. With Winston Ewert, co-author of the new bookIntroduction to Evolutionary Informatics, herepresented the design perspective at a conference on evolution at Uskudar University. Dr. Sewell reports, and provides background on how the meeting came to be.

Unsatisfied and unconvinced by what he was being taught about evolution at Marmara University in Istanbul, Turkey, 21-year-old student Enes Kayan knew there was another side thatwas never presented in his courses. So in 2012, Enes, a member of the Marmara Young Vision Student Club, decided to organize a symposium in which he and other Marmara students could hear alternative views on evolution, including intelligent design.

The idea that evidence against Darwinism, and for intelligent design, could be freely presented at a university angered some students and professors. About 300 of them staged a protest, which Enes said actually worked to his advantage as it brought publicity to the event, which was held on May 16-17, 2012.

Above:Kubra Bingul.

Above:Enes Kayan.

Above: Professor Granville Sewell.

The symposium was such a success that Enes decided to organize a similar event the following year. He invited scientists from outside Marmara University, including some from outside Turkey. Thus the First International Conference on Queried Evolution was held on May 4, 2013, at Marmara University. The meeting was run entirely by students from Marmara Young Vision Student Club, who found sponsors to pay the expenses of the visiting scientists.

The following year Enes organized a second international conference with the Erzurum Young Vision Student Club. This time it was held at Ataturk University in Erzurum in eastern Turkey. Sponsors included the city government of Erzurum and the university itself. Enes invited me as one of the international speakers, and I decided to accept despite the fact that it was held in the middle of the last week of my classes. Andso on May 7, 2014, I was able to participate in the event and witness the work he and his fellow students had done in organizing it.

Since some of the talks were in English while others were in Turkish, a student interpreter provided simultaneous translation. I heard (through the interpreter) mentions of specified complexity, the explanatory filter, irreducible complexity, and other familiar ID terms during some talks. But other speakers presented a range of different viewpoints, including some who defended the traditional Darwinist viewpoint.

The meeting wasas well organized and well run as any scientific conference I have attended. Yet all of the organization and all the work was done by a group of 15to20 students.

In May 2015, athird Congress was held in Ankara. Discovery Institutes Paul Nelson was one of the invited speakers. At my suggestion, the organizers changed theEnglish translation of the title of the conference from Queried Evolution to Evolution under Scrutiny. Pauls report on his trip ishere.

This year, May 2-3, the Fifth International Congress of Evolution metat Uskudar University in Istanbul. There were three international invitees, as well as speakers from several Turkish universities. The lead organizer now was Kubra Bingul, a molecular biology and genetics student at Uskudar. Again, the conference organizers and workers were all students.

I was once moreasked to speak. The title of my talk was Why Evolution Is Different. You can finda video version of my presentation here:

Because of teaching obligations, I was only able to stay one day. However, on the first day it was clear that not only the name of the Congress had changed. Except for my talk, evolution was no longer under scrutiny.

Mustafa Sozen of Bulent Ecevit Universitesi recounted in detail how natural selection has changed the size of the beaks of finches on the Galpagos Islands. Hence we must accept that it can explain everything in evolution.

Rui Diogo of Howard University informedus that (contrary to what I had told the audience) there is no difficulty explaining major evolutionary steps, and gave salamanders developing syndactyly (with fused digits) as an example! Diogo argued that there is nothing special about humans, since, for example, rats have more bones and chimps have more muscles. Furthermore, God had nothing to do with evolution because some of our muscles are not optimally designed.

In short, all the other talks the first day were standard Darwinist fare. Again, simultaneous translation was provided, and again the meeting was run entirely by students, and organization was excellent.

Winston Ewertwas scheduled to speak about Digital Evolution the second day, but became ill the day of his talk. However, he told me his presentationwould be similar to points he makes in an ID the Future podcast here.

So at least two ID-friendly speakers were on the schedule, and that means this Congress wasstill special because it allowed different points of view to be presented. They did invite some other ID speakers from the U.S. who declined, however, citing aU.S. government travel warning for Istanbul.

It wasa nice trip and visitors are treated very well. Ihopethe travel warning will be lifted soon and that more ID-friendlyspeakers will accept next year.

Read the rest here:

Intelligent Design Goes International A Report from Istanbul - Discovery Institute

An orchid found only in Madagascar. At one point, researchers could only find 12 specimens. Photograph: Alamy

It is a unique evolutionary hotspot home to thousands of plants found nowhere else on Earth. However, Madagascars special trees, palms and orchids which provide habitats and food for dozens of species of rare lemur and other animals are now facing catastrophic destruction caused by land clearances, climate change and spreading agriculture, scientists will warn this week.

Thousands of plant species could be lost to humanity in the near future according to a report, The State of the Worlds Plants, by scientists at the Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew, and due to be published on Thursday.

Forests and plants across the world are suffering from the effects of climate change, spreading agriculture and uncontrolled land use, but in Madagascar which is a focus of particular attention in the report the danger is particularly intense. Habitat degradation is substantial and continuing, it says.

Madagascar is the worlds fourth-largest island, having become detached from other land masses in the Indian Ocean about 88 million years ago, and this long isolation has made it a unique evolution laboratory, unmatched anywhere on Earth.

Today it is home to 11,138 native plant species, and of these 83% are found nowhere else on the planet. Yet almost half of these unique species are now at risk of extinction. In fact, these extinctions have already been going on for some time, said Stuart Cable, leader of Kews research team in Madagascar. Dozens of species are known from old collections but have not been seen since. Extinction is happening all the time here. It is very scary.

One of the most seriously affected plant groups are palms, a species whose position is particularly precarious. There are 204 species of palm found in Madagascar, and 200 are unique to the island. More than half of these palm species are known from a single site or have fewer than 100 individuals in the wild.

The Madagascar government is trying, and has increased its protected areas for plants from 3% to around 10% of its total land in recent years, added Cable. But we are finding many very rare species of plants in single tiny fragments of forest. We cannot protect these. They are disappearing all over the place, all the time.

Another especially threatened set of Madagascar plants is its orchids. The island has almost 1,000 species of orchid, of which 90% are unique to the island, and 70% are threatened with extinction. On a wider scale, the islands western dry forest, with its strangely shaped baobab trees and grasslands that consist of dozens of grass species unique to Madagascar, have both lost more than half their land cover since the 1970s.

The problem is that this is a desperately poor country and most people live as subsistence farmers, said Cable. They slash down forests and burn the trees to make charcoal and to free land to grow crops or graze cattle. Unless we can stop that, there is no hope.

A further problem was highlighted by David Goyder, an expert based at Kew on plants in Africa and Madagascar. A lot of invasive plant species are arriving from Australia and these are much more flammable than native plants. When the temperatures go up, they are much more likely to catch fire and cause even more damage.

In addition, climate change is beginning to take its toll on the islands land use. The south is becoming much drier, and people are moving north into areas that were previously not affected by slash-and-burn farming, added Goyder. The result has been even more habitat loss.

One solution has been the establishment of seed banks, and Kew has helped to store seeds from around 2,400 plant species as insurance against extinction. However, we can only focus on drier areas this way, added Cable. Plants from humid zones, from rainforests, have bigger fruit and seeds with higher water content so we cannot freeze them in seed banks. The only option is to try to preserve the forest and that is not proving easy.

Not every story is one of gloom, however. The orchid Angraecum longicalcar was found a few years ago in a small patch of Madagascars central highlands, though researchers could find only 12 individual plants.

Yet Angraecum longicalcar has the biggest flower of any of Earths 25,000 species of orchid and also possesses a huge spur, a 40cm hollow tube with nectar at its furthest end. This sugary inducement is designed to tempt hungry hawkmoths, who will then pick up pollen from the orchid that they will pass to fertilise other plants. Only hawkmoths that have 40cm tongues can reach that nectar, however.

We have set up camera traps near flowers to observe a moth visiting but have never seen one, said Cable. We think they may have gone extinct.

Geographically isolated and unable to be pollinated, the orchid looked doomed until a project led by Kew researchers, and involving local schoolchildren, arranged for specimens of Angraecum longicalcar to be hand pollinated, and seedlings grown in greenhouses. Today there are around 150 specimens growing at several locations in Madagascar, with another 500 ready to be introduced.

It is a heartening story but it is just one plant among thousands that are threatened in Madagascar, said Cable. How we save the others is a much bigger challenge.

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Time is running out for Madagascar evolution's last, and greatest, laboratory - The Guardian

Richard Prum spends most of his time studying birds. But this year, the award-winning evolutionary ornithologist has also produced an unexpected feminist manifesto.

In his new book, The Evolution of Beauty: How Darwins Forgotten Theory of Mate Choice Shapes the Animal WorldAnd Us, Prum, an evolutionary ornithologist at Yale, challenges the dominant narrative among evolutionary biologists: that beauty and sexual ornaments, such as a peacocks plumage, a deers antlers, or the size of a mans penis, evolve for adaptive reasons. Traditional theory holds that these ornaments are designed to display good genes, attract females, and help the species reproduce. It also tends to characterize the female orgasm as either a tool for genetic subterfuge, or an evolutionary mistake.

Per the adaptive theory, the male orgasm motivates men to seek out more opportunities for ejaculation, and subsequently, reproduction. The female orgasm, meanwhile, has remained something of a mystery. Some evolutionary biologists theorized that it evolved to literally upsuck the sperm of genetically superior men. (This would have let women raise their children with kind, reliable, not-so-hot partners, while passing on the superior genes of the men they mated with on the side.) The other dominant theory, championed by anthropologist Donald Symons in his 1979 book The Evolution of Human Sexuality, holds that the female orgasm, like male nipples, evolved as a byproduct of natural selection.

Prum posits a differentand coincidentally, far more appealingexplanation: that female sexual pleasure is in fact the central force behind the mating process. Basically, the female orgasm exists because it feels good, and women naturally sought out partners who could provide them with pleasurable feelings.

The aesthetic proposal is that human female sexual pleasure and orgasm have evolved because females have preferred to mate, and remate, with males who stimulated their own sexual pleasure, writes Prum, and that females have thereby also selected indirectly for those genetic variations that contributed to the expansion of their own pleasure. In other words, women had the ability to evaluate the experience of sex, and chose (naturally enough) to have sex with men who gave them orgasms. This led male mating behavior to coevolve with female desire. As male behavior evolved to meet womens preferences, so did womens capacity for sexual pleasure, becoming more complex, intense, and satisfying.

In this scenario, female orgasm is not an adaptation to accomplish any extrinsic, naturally selected function, writes Prum. Rather, female sexual pleasure and orgasm are the evolutionary consequences of female desire and choice, and they are ends unto themselves.

Prum puts forth several points to back up his theory about how pleasure influences evolution. For one thing, womens orgasms are highly variable. If they are the result of indirect sexual selection, rather than direct natural selection, it makes sense that female orgasms would be more inconsistent.

This theory could also explain why human copulation, which lasts several minutes on average, is significantly longer than gorillas and chimpanzees seconds-long sex. Copulating for a longer period of time doesnt increase the likelihood that the female will get pregnantbut humans may have evolved to have longer sexual encounters to enhance pleasure. The diversity of humans sex positions, compared to gorilla and chimpanzees consistent mounting from behind, also suggests that weve evolved toward the goal of servicing female clitoral stimulation and pleasure, says Prum.

Last, the pleasure theory completely aligns with the fact that female orgasm is unnecessary for procreation: The female orgasm might have evolved to be so expansive and prodigious because it has no evolved function, writes Prum. It is sexual pleasure for its own sake, which has evolved purely as a consequence of womens pursuit of pleasure. The same cannot be said of male orgasm, which is limited in magnitude, frequency, and duration because of the link between orgasm and ejaculation.

Perhaps the most astounding element of Prums feminist evolutionary theories is that hes not the first to think of them. In an under-cited passage of The Descent of Man, Charles Darwin, the revered father of evolutionary biology, proposed that sexual displays in animals evolve precisely because animals select for pretty thingsor, in his words through appreciation of the beautiful and through the exertion of a choice. This passageignored by centuries of biologists who fervently sidelined the influence of subjective pleasureis the driving force behind Prums narrative.

For too long, evolutionary biologists have ignored the subjective experience of pleasure. With any luck, Prums book will expose the ways in which patriarchal thinking shapes scientific researchand help the public to understand that evolution is the result of womens choice.

Learn how to write for Quartz Ideas. We welcome your comments at ideas@qz.com.

Read the rest here:

A forgotten Darwinian theory upends everything biologists thought about the female orgasm - Quartz

Summer of Love veteran Bob Mateo says he was disappointed, upon visiting the exhibition at the de Young Museum, to find tie-dye scarce. I noticed that the exhibition had not one photograph nor video showing anyone wearing anything tie-dyed.

Curator Jill DAlessandro responds that there is one tie-dye tank top (worn under a purple suede outfit) in the show, and two wall hangings. Long and short, she writes, people started playing with tie-dye mid-60s. Diggers taught it in their store in 1967. At first, it was used mostly for home furnishings.

It was really at Woodstock in 1969 where it gained mass appeal and was as popular in mainstream fashion as it was in the counterculture, she adds.

Early tie-dye was crude, said the curator, who would have liked to include some crushed velvet tie-dye in the show, but never found a piece that I felt was museum quality.

For summertime fun, Vegansaurus is inviting revelers to travel to Ireland, where The vegan food scene is exploding. ... Well be doing all sorts of fun, chill and amazing things like traipsing through castles, low-key hanging with donkeys at a donkey sanctuary, and foraging and cooking a meal with yummy plant geniuses. (I do think thats a typo and they meant genuses but maybe it takes a vegan to appreciate the genius in a genus.)

At Point Isabel, the waterfront dog park of El Cerrito, Nina Shoehalter watched while a woman admired a shaggy dog being walked by an elderly gentleman. Looking proud, he beamed, she said, and told his dog, Show us your trick, Pixie. Shed!

And Adda Dada was in line at the post office on 20th Avenue in San Francisco, when he overheard a woman he described as panicked: I need to mail this as fast as possible! Its the dogs birthday!

Event designer/artist Robert Fountain threw a luxurious party at Filoli the other day to celebrate the 20th anniversary of his business. The party was catered by Taste, and everything was perfect, I am told. Fountains a man of great taste, essential, of course, to his success.

In order to pay party tribute to his beloved French bulldogs, Doris and Duke, he had his cake baker, Beth Ann Goldberg of Studio Cakes in Menlo Park, create life-size cake replicas of the dogs. Audible gasps were heard, says an eyewitness, when Robert cut into Doris, revealing her red velvet insides.

A report from Native Son Carl Nolte about the Sunday, May 7, party at Reds Java House to honor Tom McGarvey, the original Red in the joints name, on his 90th birthday. McGarvey, whose hair is white nowadays, is one of the last users of the old Potrero Hill accent, which Nolte says is part of S.F. subculture. Its Potrera Hill, ya know, and doan forget it, kid.

Pride of the Sunset boxer Irish Pat Lawler attended, as did many other old-timers, says Nolte. Makes you realize that the old city is fading away faster than the smile on a Cheshire cats puss.

Leah Garchik is open for business in San Francisco, (415) 777-8426. Email: lgarchik@sfchronicle.com Twitter: @leahgarchik

Public Eavesdropping

That was awesome, man. My life sucks.

Man coming out of Victoria Theater after watching Under an Arctic Sky, a documentary about surfing in Iceland, overheard by Mark Aronoff

Link:

Evolution of tie-dye and the Summer of Love - San Francisco Chronicle

Yankees outfielder, and golf fanatic, Aaron Hicks takes a swing at some Q&A with Post columnist Steve Serby.

Q: What drives you? A: Probably just the love of the sport of baseball is probably what drives me. And also, I mean, I want to prove people wrong, that Im a good player.

Q: What is the biggest criticism youve heard that bothers you the most? A: I dont want to be considered I want to be a starter. I dont want to be a fourth outfielder. Thats kind of something that I dont like. Im better than a fourth outfielder.

Q: Whats the difference between the Aaron Hicks we see today and the one the Twins gave up on after the 2015 season? A: I dont know, Im just more confident. Im confident in my approach. From spring training I was trying to hit for power this year and being able to drive the baseball. When I was in Minnesota, I was just trying to have a good approach into making solid contact at the big league level and telling myself that I belong there.

Q: Are you on your way to reaching your personal goals for this season? A: I think Im off to a good start.

Q: And what were those goals? A: Theyre personal goals!

Q: Career goals? A: I just kind of want to be a player that people remember.

Q: Describe teammate Aaron Judge. A: He looks like a confident player.

Q: Whats it like watching him in batting practice? A: It kind of hurts your neck (laugh).

Q: Gary Sanchez. A: He wants you to run just so he can throw you out. Hes an amazing catcher.

Q: How good do you think this team is? A: This team is very good. Its a dangerous team. A combination of veteran players and young players that are hungry and that they want to win.

Q: This team is for real? A: Very for real.

Q: What is your on-field mentality? A: Im a relaxed player while Im playing. I mean, when something pumps me, Im gonna be excited, thats for sure.

Q: What is your favorite catch? A: Probably my rookie year [2013] against Adam Dunn, when I robbed him of a home run.

Q: Youve robbed a few guys of home runs. What was special about that one? A: That was my first one ever.

Q; How great a feeling is that? A: Its an amazing feeling! When you see the guys face that thought they had a homer and now they dont its awesome.

Q: You threw out Oaklands Danny Valencia out at home from left field with a record 105.5 mph bullet in April 2016. You threw 97 as a high school pitcher. Were colleges looking at you as a pitcher? A: Yeah, but I told everybody that I dont want to pitch.

Q: Why dont you like pitching? A: I dont know, I just dont enjoy it. I like playing every day.

Q: You were criticized publicly in Minnesota for not knowing who the opposing starting pitcher was. A: Yeah. Guys would tell me and Id go look at video of him.

Q: Did that bother you, being criticized publicly like that? A: Not really, because that just comes with knowing how to become a big leaguer.

Q: Who is one pitcher in history you would want to test your skills against? A: [Clayton] Kershaw.

Q: If you could pick the brain of one hitter in history A: Ted Williams.

Q: Describe Rod Carews influence. A: He helped me out a lot when I was in the minor leagues. He helped me out a lot with bunting.

Q: What specifically did he work on with you other than bunting? A: Being able to drive the ball to left-center.

Q: Describe Yankees fans. A: Passionate fans.

Q: Who are athletes in other sports you admire? A: I enjoyed Tiger Woods coming up, just because of the dominance and he kind of changed the way golf athletes perform nowadays with weightlifting, and hitting the ball very far away.

Q: Does it sadden you, all the troubles hes gone through? A: Of course. I just cant wait for him to get back to the old Tiger and back on the course.

Q: Do you think hell win another major one day? A: Yeah. I mean, he has to stay fully healthy though to be able to do it. I dont know, theres some really good young players (chuckle). Theyre not gonna make it easy.

Q: What is your favorite golf course? A: I dont know, I played Hudson the other day. Thats an amazing course.

Q: How so? A: Just the view of the Hudson River, and just the course layout was awesome. The greens were amazing.

Q: Is turning pro one day something youve thought about or dreamed about? A: Of course! Yeah, definitely. Id love to try to make it.

Q: But you want to play baseball for a long time first. A: Yes!

Q: Other than you, who is the best Yankees golfer? A: Tyler Clippard.

Q: How good is he? A: Hes like a scratch golfer.

Q: And what are you? A: Im like a 1.

Q: Who was your boyhood idol? A: Torii Hunter.

Q: What did the Urban Youth Academy mean to you? A: It just gave me the guidance that I needed to become a better baseball player.

Q: Three dinner guests? A: Martin Luther King, Mickey Mantle, Jackie Robinson.

Q: Favorite movie? A: 61*.

Q: Favorite actor? A: Denzel Washington.

Q: Favorite actress? A: Scarlett Johansson.

Q: Favorite singer/entertainer? A: John Legend.

Q: Favorite meal? A: In-N-Out Burger.

Q: Flowers for your mother on Sunday? A: Flowers, of course.

Q: How would you describe your mother? A: She loves her kids. Shes someone that will always be there for them.

Visit link:

Aaron Hicks on his evolution, becoming golf pro and why he's not a 4th OF - New York Post

The letter dated May 1, 2017, by Douglas K. Turner titled What is, and isnt science states that Hindus, like others, bow to the faith of evolution. That simply is incorrect.

Hindus (Like Buddhists and Jains) have believed in spiritual, mental and physical evolution since ages. Various reincarnations of Vishnu roughly follow modern evolution. In the epic Ramayana, Rama takes the help of talking apes (Vanaras) to defeat evil ruler Ravana. A survey conducted by PEW Forum in 2007 showed that almost 80 percent of Hindus believe in evolution.

Monier-Williams wrote in 1875 Hindus were Darwinians centuries before the birth of Darwin, and evolutionists centuries before the doctrine of evolution had been accepted by the Huxleys of our time and before any word like evolution existed.

Hindus believe that the Earth is several billion years old and so is evolution. Ardha-Kalpa (half the time period between creation and destruction) is equal to 4.32 billion years which approximates the age of the Earth. Buddhists have always believed in billions of galaxies and the size of the atom given in Lalitvistara (200 BC) is fairly close to modern measurement. Jains believe that consciousness evolves as we grow.

In Hinduism, you will find monotheists, polytheists and atheists and therefore one can find various flavors of their thoughts. Rig Veda 10.129 states that nobody knows when creation started because even gods were created after the first creation, and perhaps he who sits in the highest heaven does not know.

Vir V.Gupta

Springfield

Read more here:

Letter: Spiritual, mental and physical evolution - The State Journal-Register

The gifted philosopher and theologian Stephen H. Webb (1961-2016) appeared on our radar screen all too briefly before his very untimely passing. Please see my remembrance of him here. Our old friend and colleague Casey Luskin interviewed Dr. Webb for the ID the Future podcast, and Im glad to offer a pair of those interviews that have been newly reposted this week in Webbs honor.

Find them here:

If the term occasionalism doesnt ring a bell for you, its one of the more bizarre accusations that have been aimed at the ID movement by people smart enough to know better.

After receiving his PhD from the University of Chicago, Professor Webb taught at Wabash College where he wrote, among other books, The Dome of Eden: A New Solution to the Problem of Creation and Evolution. He spoke with Casey about his experience of academic persecution after seeking to teach a course on evolutionary theories of the origin of religion. Webb observes the irony that when it comes to religion, Darwinists are of course free to apply their corrosive analysis, but when others turn a critical gaze on Darwinian thinking, that is considered out of bounds.

Webb describes his own origins as a Darwin skeptic with interests in intelligent design. He traces his initial explorations to a recognition of the brittle defensiveness that is a familiar aspect of Darwinian apologetics. He noticed the strange way that otherwise thoughtful and independent scholars turned into servile lackeys when the subject of evolution came up.

Enjoy these two fascinating conversations between Casey Luskin and Stephen Webb.

Photo: Stephen Webb, via YouTube.

Here is the original post:

In Remembrance: Conversations with Stephen Webb on Evolution and Intelligent Design - Discovery Institute

If you took a high school biology class, youre probably familiar with Jean-Baptiste Lamarcks theory of evolution and its emphasis on the inheritance of acquired characteristics think giraffes stretching their necks longer to reach the leaves high in trees. In textbooks Lamarcks theory is often presented as a rival to Charles Darwins theory of evolution by natural selection. The simplistic storyline is that the two theories battled it out in the 19th century and that Darwinism won, leading to Lamarckisms demise and the rise of what biologists call the Modern Synthesis.

But recent discoveries have exhibited a remarkably Lamarckian flavor. One example is the CRISPR-Cas system, which enables bacteria to pass information about viruses they have encountered to their offspring. There are also clear-cut examples of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance, in which higher animals affected by environmental factors transmit favorable genetic changes to their offspring across generations. Such mechanisms make sense to us as designers: An animal should pass on, in its genes, information that it has gained about the environment. Such discoveries have sparked debate about the possibility of an update to the Modern Synthesis. Is there a role for Lamarckian mechanisms in modern evolutionary theory?

At the level of specific mechanisms, yes. At a deeper level of causes, though, the answer is a resounding no natural selection reigns supreme. How can that be, you ask? The simplistic juxtaposition of Darwin and Lamarck in elementary biology courses is a false equivalence. If Lamarckian patterns of inheritance do exist, and are indeed beneficial to the organism (that is, they are evolutionary adaptations), then the only way that they could have arisen and been maintained over evolutionary time is by Darwinian natural selection. Theres simply no way around it. Our puzzles for this month explore a simple version of transgenerational epigenetic inheritance and show how natural selection across multiple generations can, under certain conditions, favor the individuals who possess such mechanisms.

First, lets recap the differences between Lamarcks and Darwins ideas by revisiting that frequently cited example: the giraffes long neck. According to Lamarck, the giraffe got its long neck because its ancestors stretched theirs to eat leaves that were just out of reach. This stretching of the neck was passed on to their offspring, over generations, until it reached its current length. On the other hand, the mainstream Darwinian view is that, within the giraffes ancestors, there was a variation in neck sizes, as there is in any population. The giraffes with longer necks were more successful in getting food and produced more longer-necked offspring. Long necks were thus selected for in every generation, gradually lengthening the giraffes neck over evolutionary time. The reason we no longer believe Lamarcks version is that genetic material is transmitted to the next generation through germ cells, and most acquired changes simply do not influence germ cells; they are, to a large extent, isolated from the environment. If this were not true, mice whose tails are cut off for many generations, as the scientist August Weismann tried to do, would be born without tails. (They are not!) Furthermore, Jewish and Muslim males would be born without foreskins. (Despite many generations of circumcision, mohels can still make a living.)

But there is an obvious way that germ cells can be affected by the environment when the changes are caused by ill health and are deleterious. Infections, toxins or just old age can affect germ cells and produce offspring that are less healthy in various ways. We dont really think of this as unusual, or as anything to do with evolution. But what if the changes turned out to be good? A famous Swedish study of 300 people who were exposed to famines in the early 1900s, the verkalix study, showed a remarkable result. The amount of food supply that a persons grandparents were exposed to in their pre-pubertal years had a measurable effect on that persons cardio-vascular risk two generations later. In one specific association, men who were were exposed to a poor food supply at a critical age were found, two generations later, to have conferred a measurably lower risk of cardiovascular death to their grandchildren. Apparently it helps to have had a paternal grandfather who starved between the ages of 9 and 12! Similar changes have been found in animal experiments. For instance, survivors of famines among nematode worms are smaller and less fertile than normal worms, but they acquire a toughness that lasts at least two generations. Whats more, scientists have also found that such transmission across generations does not happen through a change in DNA coding in the genes in the manner heredity usually works, but rather through epigenetic mechanisms such as the inactivation of certain genes by the attachment of methyl groups (DNA methylation) or through changes in the configuration of the protein that packages the DNA (histone modification). These non-standard Lamarckian mechanisms certainly do have the potential to confer good or adaptive changes on individuals, and they could spur evolution. But how could they have arisen, and how are they maintained? Well, it has to be by random variation and standard Darwinian natural selection, of course! Lets explore this in our puzzle questions.

Imagine there exists an animal that has a new generation every year. Every normal individual has an average of 1.6 surviving offspring in a normal year, which can be defined as the animals fitness (lets call it f), after which the animal dies. During a famine year, f falls to 1.3. Now suppose there are a bunch of smaller individuals whose f values are 1.5 in normal years but 1.35 in famine years: their smaller food requirement helps them survive famines better. How long would a famine have to last for the small individuals to do better than normal ones? How many famine years before small individuals make up 90 percent of the population?

Suppose there exists an initially normal mutant group of individuals called Epi2s, whose germ cells are affected by a year of famine in such a way that their progeny changes to the small type for two generations before they revert back to normal in the third generation, through epigenetic mechanisms. Consider a 13-year period that starts and ends with normal years but has a one-year famine, two two-year famines and a three-year famine in between. Which of the three groups (normal, small, Epi2s) will be most successful? Are there famine patterns in which Epi2s overwhelm the other two groups over the very long term?

Lets add another type of animal to the above: the Epi1s, which like the Epi2s switch to small progeny after a famine, but in this case the progeny revert back to normal after just one generation. Over a period of 20 years, can you come up with a famine-year schedule such that all four types of animals (normal, small, Epi1s and Epi2s) exist in virtual equilibrium over this time period?

As these vignettes show, it does not matter to natural selection whether characteristics are controlled by genetic or epigenetic mechanisms. What matters is the fitness advantage that is selected by an organisms environment. If the conditions that confer a fitness advantage on a given group last long enough and select that group across multiple generations, then that group will dominate the population, and the species characteristics will change. So if there is a sizable subset of a population that exhibits advantageous epigenetic inheritance, natural selection is very likely to maintain it. On the other hand, if epigenetic modifications in a population are deleterious, natural selection will eliminate it. There is no top-down, purposeful information passing across generations here, no matter how sensible that seems to us. Based on these considerations, can you speculate how the elegant information transfer across generations that is embodied by the CRISPR-Cas system in bacteria could have evolved?

So deep and so inexorable is the blind, bottom-up process of natural selection in evolution that there is no way to contain its potency, and no rival mechanism for creating adaptation. It is no wonder that the philosopher Daniel Dennett has likened natural selection to a universal acid that cannot be contained. Natural selection and its analogs in non-biological spheres may well be the major or only processes that create complex novelty at all levels of the universe. And that includes the complex novelty created by us.

Editors note: The reader who submits the most interesting, creative or insightful solution (as judged by the columnist) in the comments section will receive a Quanta Magazine T-shirt. And if youd like to suggest a favorite puzzle for a future Insights column, submit it as a comment below, clearly marked NEW PUZZLE SUGGESTION. (It will not appear online, so solutions to the puzzle above should be submitted separately.)

Note that we may hold comments for the first day or two to allow for independent contributions by readers.

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Can Darwinian Evolution Explain Lamarckism? - Quanta Magazine