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One common objection to the theory of evolution claims that the theory is self contradictory. It says that it is impossible for complex features such as wings,

One common objection to the theory of evolution claims that the theory is self contradictory. It says that it is impossible for complex features such as wings, eyes etc to evolve because they will require a series of mutations that do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage. Since they do not have any evolutionary advantage, they cannot spread in the population. Therefore the chance of these mutations appearing in series is almost as small as these mutations appearing simultaneously. The chance of these mutations appearing simultaneously is, of course, astronomically small. The usual counterargument says that just one mutation is usually enough to create a functional prototype of a complex feature/organ (MVP, if you please). A series of mutations is not required. This study provides yet another example backing this counterargument. One single mutation can change an unicellular entity and make it behave like a multi cellular organism. Intuitively, one would think this would take many mutations. However, intuition is wrong in this case, and in many others.

aggie 11y ago
Even as someone fully accepting of evolutionary theory, this diagram felt like a revelation: http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/17/30/76/23/evolut10.jpg http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/17/30/76/23/evolut10.jpg
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  I don't understand what is the good from passing from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3.
  - tamana 11y ago
    More light collection and higher resolution of details
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    From 1 to 2 you get directionality. 2 to 3 improves directionality a great deal (it's basically a continuum from depression to pinhole eye).
  - PhasmaFelis 11y ago
    In 1, light from any direction will fall on all the pigment cells equally. Essentially, your camera only has a single pixel--you can't tell direction at all, only degree of brightness. In 2, light centered on the cup will fall on all the cells, but light from the side will be occluded by the edge of the cup and only fall on one side. Now you have a low-resolution camera, and can roughly tell which direction light is coming from. In 3, light from any angle will only light up a small part of the cup's interior, allowing for greater precision--effectively, higher resolution.
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  The mutation from 4 to 5 is enourmous.
  - Dylan16807 11y ago
    It is, but it's easy to imagine the continuum in your head. The lens getting sharper, getting muscles to shift it, the cornea getting clearer... Seeing how you go from nothing to spot to pinhole lens eye is the critical part.
  - trhway 11y ago
    i wonder about the evolution from 5 to 6 (along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge)
  - InclinedPlane 11y ago
    It's not a single step, it's just one sign post on a long highway (you can't show all of them). Every step along the way is pretty straightforward and immediately useful. Eyes are an interesting example, because they are seemingly incredibly complex systems, yet eyes have evolved independently dozens of times. For example, octopuses and humans have equivalently complex eyes which have entirely different origins and have slight differences (for example, human eyes have a blind spot due to the nerve fibers being on top of instead of behind the light receptors).
- DrScump 11y ago
  Did the original accompanying text say that each step was a single mutation, or is this just general evolution of sight?
- nimbs 11y ago
  Better: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Diagram_of_eye_evolution.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Diagram_...
  - emmelaich 11y ago
    I prefer @aggie's because it refers to actual species.
    - emmelaich 11y ago
      Also the use of words like "developed" in the text of the second is unfortunate.
- CaptSpify 11y ago
  I can't find the clip, but cosmos has a great segment on this. Here's a non-animated view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHgHI8YnsF8&feature=youtu.be&t=89 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHgHI8YnsF8&feature=youtu.be... Basically, they go through each of those stages, and shows what it would look like from the creatures point of view
user_0001 11y ago
>One common objection to the theory of evolution claims... There is a common objection?
- spacehome 11y ago
  There are plenty of objections. Polls consistently show that something like 40-50% of Americans are creationists [1]. And this doesn't mean something vague like God guided evolution, but that evolution is an outright lie promoted by scientists and possibly invented by nefarious metaphysical creatures and that in any case the Earth is only a few thousand years old, so there couldn't have been time for Evolution to happen. The fact that you probably don't know these people is more than likely a testament to how people self-segregate into like-minded groups who reinforce each others' beliefs. All these Creationists have heard of evolution and have reasons not to believe it. [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-h...
  - meric 11y ago
    They are probably similarly amazed so many other people don't believe in God and the literal word of the Bible as much as they do.
    - bediger4000 11y ago
      Probably, but that's very much beside the point that a huge pile of evidence points towards theory of evolution being true. An argument from authority (My Holy Bible says that God exists!) is quite a bit less convincing than many lines of inquiry ending up at the same place.
    - spdionis 11y ago
      A (pretty smart) friend of mine tried to show me that scientists' findings about he Earth's age are wrong because he read aome article about errors in the estimation technique. He then argued that therefore Earth is not very old and evolution didn't have time to happen. I was amazed...
redthrowaway 11y ago
Your comment suggests evolution is an open question. It is not.
- clock_tower 11y ago
  Writing as a practicing Catholic, I'd say that your tone sounds too peremptory, but what you're saying is right. The Church, at least, isn't in the business of second-guessing the fossil record -- and besides, there are two contradictory Creation-myths in Genesis anyways, so they must not have been meant to be taken literally. (The Church traditionally allowed and encouraged two or three different ways of understanding Biblical texts figuratively; insisting that the surface meaning is the only meaning is a Protestant thing.) For the curious, look up _Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?_ by Guy Consolmagno SJ and Paul Mueller, which discusses this and other science-y subjects.
  - redthrowaway 11y ago
    It's not an accident that my tone is peremptory. There is a push from certain religious groups to paint the theory of evolution as being scientifically controversial. It is not. Evolution is a fact. There is no scientific debate about that. There are only some people who read the Bible as contradicting science, and who therefore attempt to cast doubt on science so as to defend their interpretation of the Bible. You are correct that the Catholic Church is not one of those groups, and hasn't been for many years. The Church's official position is that God is the architect of evolution.
    - craigds 11y ago
      I'm a (protestant, FWIW) Christian and I also believe evolution. This has taken some wrestling over the years. My current understanding is that the creation myths in Genesis are non-literal stories, intended to be taken in ancient Mesopotamian context, primarily describing that the cosmos is God's temple. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative#Mesopotamian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative#Mes... ) My main problem at this point is that a central theme in the Bible as a whole is that death was caused by original sin, and wasn't originally part of God's creative plan. Obviously by the time mankind had evolved and sinned, death must have occurred, so I'm struggling to reconcile this one. How do other Christians resolve this discrepancy?
x3n0ph3n3 11y ago
> It says that it is impossible for complex features such as wings, eyes etc to evolve because they will require a series of mutations that do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage. This is just false. Evolutionary theory requires no such thing and there's plenty evidence that each step towards the evolution of things like the eye provides marginal advantage to the organism even though it's not fully an eye.
fpgaminer 11y ago
Indeed, the old local maxima problem. Why doesn't evolution get stuck in local maxima; what pushes it out of those valleys and into the mountains? Why have all our evolution simulations gotten stuck? Luckily machine learning came along and has shown empirically that the solution is to increase the number of dimensions. Our tiny neural nets of the 90s also got stuck in local maxima. But when we could finally make huge and deep networks, the problem more or less disappeared. I believe this is the real solution to the local maxima problem in evolution. Real evolution works with a massive number of parameters, which means exploration of the problem space doesn't get stuck in local maxima, just as it doesn't in Deep Learning. When the number of tweakable parameters outstrips the dimensionality of the problem space then there is always some angle pointing up out of the valleys. This is a different, and I think more general way of expressing the typical counterargument which you explained. "There is always some angle pointing up" is a more general way of saying "just one mutation is usually enough to create a functional prototype".
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  I don't understand the comparison with the neural nets of the 90s and deep learning today. There was _human intelligence_ operating on the transition between these two technologies. How does evolution compare to this? (honest question, because I probably didn't get the angle and problem space thing)
  - pyre 11y ago
    It sounds like @fpgaminer is saying that when humans created something similar (the neural nets of the 90's) it had issues (local maxima) until we increased the complexity (the number of variables that the system could/did respond to) in a way that started approaching the complexity of evolution.
    - fiatjaf 11y ago
      Thank you.
  - hiddencost 11y ago
bmer 11y ago
I'm a math biology (in other words, I use math to model biology problems) student, and not an evolution nay-sayer, and...the scientific work isn't at all about showing how the amazingly (I'm a student, I learn to respect my opponent) complex phenomena underlying the emergence of organs can be neatly associated with single events. In particular, this article was of interest to me simply because of how grand a claim it makes. In general, grand claims are something to approach with skepticism, because of laws of probability number 35, which states that: "few complex non-linear phenomena have a beautifully simple explanation, and if a grand claim purports to be such an explanation, then it most likely is not such an explanation". It is worth reading law 36 of probability as well: "the maker of a grand claim is more likely to be a 'journalist' or a PR department person, than a scientist". How do the laws of probability hold up? Pretty darn well, I'd say. Here's the abstract (by the way, eLife IS an open source journal, so the journalist had no excuse here): > To form and maintain organized tissues, multicellular organisms orient their mitotic spindles relative to neighboring cells. A molecular complex scaffolded by the GK protein-interaction domain (GKPID) mediates spindle orientation in diverse animal taxa by linking microtubule motor proteins to a marker protein on the cell cortex localized by external cues. Here we illuminate how this complex evolved and commandeered control of spindle orientation from a more ancient mechanism. The complex was assembled through a series of molecular exploitation events, one of which – the evolution of GKPID’s capacity to bind the cortical marker protein – can be recapitulated by reintroducing a single historical substitution into the reconstructed ancestral GKPID. This change revealed and repurposed an ancient molecular surface that previously had a radically different function. We show how the physical simplicity of this binding interface enabled the evolution of a new protein function now essential to the biological complexity of many animals. Key takeaways: 1) "A molecular complex scaffolded by the GK protein-interaction domain (GKPID) mediates spindle orientation in diverse animal taxa by linking microtubule motor proteins to a marker protein on the cell cortex localized by external cues" Explanation: in this sentence, the scientists are carefully pointing out where the 'thing' (a protein domain) they are going to make a claim about fits into the biological picture. No, there isn't one superhero -- there's a carefully choreographed concert that their 'thing' is a part of. 2) "we illuminate how this complex evolved and commandeered control of spindle orientation from a more ancient mechanism" Very cool. Simple statement. Interesting, but no grand claim. 3) "The complex was assembled through a series of molecular exploitation events, one of which – the evolution of GKPID’s capacity to bind the cortical marker protein – can be recapitulated by reintroducing a single historical substitution into the reconstructed ancestral GKPID." Again, they reiterate how there was actually a bunch of things happening ("a series of molecular exploitation events"), ONE of which is the cool one they want to talk about. 4) "This change revealed and repurposed an ancient molecular surface that previously had a radically different function." If you were wondering what's cool, this is what's cool. 5) In conclusion: "We show how the physical simplicity of this binding interface enabled the evolution of a new protein function now essential to the biological complexity of many animals." Hmm...no grand claim finishing claim made regarding how this ONE thing changed EVERYTHING. Again, we are reminded of the whole picture: "so yeah guys, here's how this protein function, which is essential (because it's part of a super complex dance number) for so many living things, probably came about". I'm going to go commission a gold filigree copy of the laws of probability.
fiatjaf 11y ago
One common counterargument I ever head when talking to evolutionists is that some mutations are linked to others, so a mutation can spread through the population even though it does not confer any evolutionary advantage because it genetically linked to another evolution somewhere else that indeed confer advantage. What do you think of it? Is it serious enough? Because I think there is an obvious flaw in it, the question: why are these mutations linked?
- xenadu02 11y ago
  There are many reasons. Life re-uses structures, hormones, and proteins in different areas of the body for different functions. A mutation can make a structure more efficient in one area and have little effect in another... for now, but many mutations later that mutation can become a key enabler of a whole new class of features from the secondary structure. It may also be that the gene doesn't confer any specific advantage but a population bottleneck or isolation event can spread it nonetheless.
- steinsgate 11y ago
  I think you are talking about something known as hitchhiking mutations. Suppose an organism develops two mutations A and B, which lie close together in the chromosome. A is beneficial and B is neutral. When the chromosome is copied during reproduction, the copy will contain both A and B (because they are nearby). This copy will have an overall advantage because of the presence of A, and will spread in the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_hitchhiking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_hitchhiking
  - fiatjaf 11y ago
    Right. Thank you, that's probably this. But the question remains: who put these genes near each other, so that something would evolve without being naturally selected just because its gene was near another gene? What is the likeness of a gene near a gene that's "evolving" to be important somehow in the future of the evolution of that species?
    - 11y ago
cperciva 11y ago
it is impossible for complex features such as wings, eyes etc to evolve because they will require a series of mutations that do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage The answer to this proposition is that the fact we aren't aware of the evolutionary advantages which were obtained en route doesn't mean there weren't any. The feathered wing is very complex and it won't fly until it has fully evolved, for example -- but as we learned quite recently, feathers evolved (and were an evolutionary advantage) because dinosaurs needed to stay warm. Birds can fly because a feather which is efficient at capturing air and keeping a giant lizard warm also turns out to be very efficient at pushing air and keeping a proto-avian aloft.
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  > The answer to this proposition is that the fact we aren't aware of the evolutionary advantages which were obtained en route doesn't mean there weren't any. Your argument begs the question. It is the same as saying: "since evolution actually happened, these mutations must have conferred some evolutionary advantage".
  - cperciva 11y ago
    That wasn't an argument. That was pointing out a flaw in the counter-evolution argument. The fact that we are not aware of any evolutionary advantage conferred by a change yields no information in either direction about the validity of the evolutionary theory.
  - nitrogen 11y ago
    You might enjoy reading this book: http://smile.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649 http://smile.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/01... It summarizes the strongest evidence for evolution in several categories, including the fossil record; the evolution of various features like feathers, eyes, and wings; sings of path dependence that can only be explained by evolution, like the recurrent laryngeal nerve[0]; etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evidence_of_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evid...
  - 11y ago
epistasis 11y ago
>Since they do not have any evolutionary advantage, they cannot spread in the population This is not true, the question isn't whether neutral changes can spread, but simply what percentage of molecular changes that spread are neutral. In fact I think that molecular evidence has shown pretty convincingly that on the genome scale most changes are neutral, vindicating the Neutral theory of evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_ev...
mgkimsal 11y ago
> Since they do not have any evolutionary advantage, they cannot spread in the population. I think it's more the case that things may spread if they don't have any disadvantage (like causing death).
- aaron695 11y ago
  This goes against evolution theory. In evolution theory things that do not have any evolutionary advantage neither spread or die off. But in practice everything comes at a cost, so generally they will die off. It cost calories to create feathers, so if not useful they will disappear.
xixixao 11y ago
But why would a single mutation immediately disappear? Isn't it possible that several generations carried on without significant advantage or disadvantage, experiencing series of mutations until the last one provided the true advantage? (I would love to know if this is completely wrong)
- steinsgate 11y ago
  It is possible, but I think if you calculate the probability of the neutral mutations happening in series, this probability is astronomically small. It is possible for all the mutations to appear simultaneously as well. But again, the probability would be astronomically small.
pvg 11y ago
The usual counterargument says that just one mutation is usually enough to create a functional prototype of a complex feature/organ (MVP, if you please). A series of mutations is not required. That doesn't sound right at all. Look at the some of discussion of the 'Irreducible Complexity' examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Stated_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Stated_...
- teraflop 11y ago
  You're going to have to be more specific about what doesn't "sound right", because I don't see anything in that article that contradicts what you quoted.
  - pvg 11y ago
    An injection system is not an 'MVP' of a flagellum, an organ for propulsion. What doesn't sound right is the idea that single mutations often produce essentially working versions of future complex features.
  - TeMPOraL 11y ago
    One mutation being enough to create "a functional prototype of a complex feature/organ (MVP, if you please)"? That's not how reality works! You can't introduce a complex organ out of the blue by flipping a single gene anymore than you can add HTTPS handling to your webapp by changing a single opcode in your binary. For that to work, the structural and operational information must have already been there in the organism.
    - deleted 11y ago
      [deleted]
    - ionforce 11y ago
      I think that's exactly it. The groundwork for "complex" features must already be there in some sense, maybe through mutations or hitchhiking. The last mutation is probably like flipping the on-off boolean. Or maybe something dramatic like a keystone. I.e. the parts alone don't do anything, but you have this magical bit flipped that suddenly turns everything on and gives them significance. But yeah one bit/mutation does not a feature make. Not without some prior stuff to latch on to, in my opinion.
thescriptkiddie 11y ago
> do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage Genes which do not confer any advantage are just as likely to spread as ones that do. Evolution doesn't select for advantages, it selects against disadvantages. Evolution is just an emergent property of death.
- Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
  Not having an advantage that others have is a disadvantage, though.
  - deleted 11y ago
    [deleted]
  - thescriptkiddie 11y ago
    The point is that a mutation that causes no harm can persist, resulting in traits that serve no discernible function. Later on, multiple harmless but non-useful mutations might together make something interesting happen. Therefore the local maxima problem is not really a problem.
kashyapc 11y ago
Speaking of the evolution of the eye, recently I began reading the book The Vital Question (Nick Lane), and incidentally, last night I closed my reading on a discussion on that exact topic. Allow me to quote [topic: 'The missing steps to complexity', page-45]: "In The Origin of Species Darwin made the point that that natural selection actually predicts that intermediates should be lost. In that context, it is not terribly surprising that there are no surviving intermediates between bacteria and eukaryotes [e.g. plants, humans]. What is more surprising, though, is that the same traits do not keep on arising, time and time again -- like eyes. We do not see the historical steps in the evolution of eyes, but we do see an ecological spectrum. From a rudimentary light-sensitive spot on some early worm-like creature, eyes have arisen independently on scores of occasions. That is exactly what natural selection predicts. Each small step offers a small advantage in one particular environment, with the precise advantage depending on the precise environment. Morphologically distinct types of eye evolve in different environments, as divergent as the compound eyes of flies and mirror eyes of scallops,or as convergent as the camera eyes that are so similar in humans and octopuses. Every conceivable intermediate from pinholes to accommodating lenses, is found in one species or another. We even see miniature eyes, replete with a 'lens' and a 'retina', in some single-celled protists [e.g. amoeba]."
empressplay 11y ago
If this seriously _had_ happened all on its own (apparently it didn't) then I'd be thinking the exact opposite -- this would tend to make me re-consider intelligent design. However, it didn't.
digi_owl 11y ago
That objection is too hung up on advantage. Best i can tell, all that is needed for something to be carried forward is for it to not be a hindrance. Thus, a proto-wing could very well linger for generations without going anywhere simply because it does not hinder the lineage's survival. Never mind that the planet has not been the shape we see it in for the entire time.
aaron695 11y ago
This is just plain wrong and a scary strawperson. Google how the eye evolved, it didn't just mutate it was a series of slow gradual mutations. What you are suggesting goes against evolution theory (which is ok with proper evidence) It's a mutation theory which is hard to find a lot of info on and I can't find the proper name of. But it is considered incorrect.

aggie 11y ago

Even as someone fully accepting of evolutionary theory, this diagram felt like a revelation: http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/17/30/76/23/evolut10.jpg http://i58.servimg.com/u/f58/17/30/76/23/evolut10.jpg

fiatjaf 11y ago
I don't understand what is the good from passing from 1 to 2 or 2 to 3.
- tamana 11y ago
  More light collection and higher resolution of details
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  From 1 to 2 you get directionality. 2 to 3 improves directionality a great deal (it's basically a continuum from depression to pinhole eye).
- PhasmaFelis 11y ago
  In 1, light from any direction will fall on all the pigment cells equally. Essentially, your camera only has a single pixel--you can't tell direction at all, only degree of brightness. In 2, light centered on the cup will fall on all the cells, but light from the side will be occluded by the edge of the cup and only fall on one side. Now you have a low-resolution camera, and can roughly tell which direction light is coming from. In 3, light from any angle will only light up a small part of the cup's interior, allowing for greater precision--effectively, higher resolution.
fiatjaf 11y ago
The mutation from 4 to 5 is enourmous.
- Dylan16807 11y ago
  It is, but it's easy to imagine the continuum in your head. The lens getting sharper, getting muscles to shift it, the cornea getting clearer... Seeing how you go from nothing to spot to pinhole lens eye is the critical part.
- trhway 11y ago
  i wonder about the evolution from 5 to 6 (along the lines of https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geordi_La_Forge)
- InclinedPlane 11y ago
  It's not a single step, it's just one sign post on a long highway (you can't show all of them). Every step along the way is pretty straightforward and immediately useful. Eyes are an interesting example, because they are seemingly incredibly complex systems, yet eyes have evolved independently dozens of times. For example, octopuses and humans have equivalently complex eyes which have entirely different origins and have slight differences (for example, human eyes have a blind spot due to the nerve fibers being on top of instead of behind the light receptors).
DrScump 11y ago
Did the original accompanying text say that each step was a single mutation, or is this just general evolution of sight?
nimbs 11y ago
Better: https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Diagram_of_eye_evolution.svg https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/b/b6/Diagram_...
- emmelaich 11y ago
  I prefer @aggie's because it refers to actual species.
  - emmelaich 11y ago
    Also the use of words like "developed" in the text of the second is unfortunate.
CaptSpify 11y ago
I can't find the clip, but cosmos has a great segment on this. Here's a non-animated view: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHgHI8YnsF8&feature=youtu.be&t=89 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SHgHI8YnsF8&feature=youtu.be... Basically, they go through each of those stages, and shows what it would look like from the creatures point of view

user_0001 11y ago

>One common objection to the theory of evolution claims... There is a common objection?

spacehome 11y ago
There are plenty of objections. Polls consistently show that something like 40-50% of Americans are creationists [1]. And this doesn't mean something vague like God guided evolution, but that evolution is an outright lie promoted by scientists and possibly invented by nefarious metaphysical creatures and that in any case the Earth is only a few thousand years old, so there couldn't have been time for Evolution to happen. The fact that you probably don't know these people is more than likely a testament to how people self-segregate into like-minded groups who reinforce each others' beliefs. All these Creationists have heard of evolution and have reasons not to believe it. [1] http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-human-origins.aspx http://www.gallup.com/poll/170822/believe-creationist-view-h...
- meric 11y ago
  They are probably similarly amazed so many other people don't believe in God and the literal word of the Bible as much as they do.
  - bediger4000 11y ago
    Probably, but that's very much beside the point that a huge pile of evidence points towards theory of evolution being true. An argument from authority (My Holy Bible says that God exists!) is quite a bit less convincing than many lines of inquiry ending up at the same place.
  - spdionis 11y ago
    A (pretty smart) friend of mine tried to show me that scientists' findings about he Earth's age are wrong because he read aome article about errors in the estimation technique. He then argued that therefore Earth is not very old and evolution didn't have time to happen. I was amazed...

redthrowaway 11y ago

Your comment suggests evolution is an open question. It is not.

clock_tower 11y ago
Writing as a practicing Catholic, I'd say that your tone sounds too peremptory, but what you're saying is right. The Church, at least, isn't in the business of second-guessing the fossil record -- and besides, there are two contradictory Creation-myths in Genesis anyways, so they must not have been meant to be taken literally. (The Church traditionally allowed and encouraged two or three different ways of understanding Biblical texts figuratively; insisting that the surface meaning is the only meaning is a Protestant thing.) For the curious, look up _Would you baptize an extraterrestrial?_ by Guy Consolmagno SJ and Paul Mueller, which discusses this and other science-y subjects.
- redthrowaway 11y ago
  It's not an accident that my tone is peremptory. There is a push from certain religious groups to paint the theory of evolution as being scientifically controversial. It is not. Evolution is a fact. There is no scientific debate about that. There are only some people who read the Bible as contradicting science, and who therefore attempt to cast doubt on science so as to defend their interpretation of the Bible. You are correct that the Catholic Church is not one of those groups, and hasn't been for many years. The Church's official position is that God is the architect of evolution.
  - craigds 11y ago
    I'm a (protestant, FWIW) Christian and I also believe evolution. This has taken some wrestling over the years. My current understanding is that the creation myths in Genesis are non-literal stories, intended to be taken in ancient Mesopotamian context, primarily describing that the cosmos is God's temple. (see https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative#Mesopotamian_influence https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genesis_creation_narrative#Mes... ) My main problem at this point is that a central theme in the Bible as a whole is that death was caused by original sin, and wasn't originally part of God's creative plan. Obviously by the time mankind had evolved and sinned, death must have occurred, so I'm struggling to reconcile this one. How do other Christians resolve this discrepancy?

x3n0ph3n3 11y ago

> It says that it is impossible for complex features such as wings, eyes etc to evolve because they will require a series of mutations that do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage. This is just false. Evolutionary theory requires no such thing and there's plenty evidence that each step towards the evolution of things like the eye provides marginal advantage to the organism even though it's not fully an eye.

fpgaminer 11y ago

Indeed, the old local maxima problem. Why doesn't evolution get stuck in local maxima; what pushes it out of those valleys and into the mountains? Why have all our evolution simulations gotten stuck? Luckily machine learning came along and has shown empirically that the solution is to increase the number of dimensions. Our tiny neural nets of the 90s also got stuck in local maxima. But when we could finally make huge and deep networks, the problem more or less disappeared. I believe this is the real solution to the local maxima problem in evolution. Real evolution works with a massive number of parameters, which means exploration of the problem space doesn't get stuck in local maxima, just as it doesn't in Deep Learning. When the number of tweakable parameters outstrips the dimensionality of the problem space then there is always some angle pointing up out of the valleys. This is a different, and I think more general way of expressing the typical counterargument which you explained. "There is always some angle pointing up" is a more general way of saying "just one mutation is usually enough to create a functional prototype".

fiatjaf 11y ago
I don't understand the comparison with the neural nets of the 90s and deep learning today. There was _human intelligence_ operating on the transition between these two technologies. How does evolution compare to this? (honest question, because I probably didn't get the angle and problem space thing)
- pyre 11y ago
  It sounds like @fpgaminer is saying that when humans created something similar (the neural nets of the 90's) it had issues (local maxima) until we increased the complexity (the number of variables that the system could/did respond to) in a way that started approaching the complexity of evolution.
  - fiatjaf 11y ago
    Thank you.
- hiddencost 11y ago

bmer 11y ago

I'm a math biology (in other words, I use math to model biology problems) student, and not an evolution nay-sayer, and...the scientific work isn't at all about showing how the amazingly (I'm a student, I learn to respect my opponent) complex phenomena underlying the emergence of organs can be neatly associated with single events. In particular, this article was of interest to me simply because of how grand a claim it makes. In general, grand claims are something to approach with skepticism, because of laws of probability number 35, which states that: "few complex non-linear phenomena have a beautifully simple explanation, and if a grand claim purports to be such an explanation, then it most likely is not such an explanation". It is worth reading law 36 of probability as well: "the maker of a grand claim is more likely to be a 'journalist' or a PR department person, than a scientist". How do the laws of probability hold up? Pretty darn well, I'd say. Here's the abstract (by the way, eLife IS an open source journal, so the journalist had no excuse here): > To form and maintain organized tissues, multicellular organisms orient their mitotic spindles relative to neighboring cells. A molecular complex scaffolded by the GK protein-interaction domain (GKPID) mediates spindle orientation in diverse animal taxa by linking microtubule motor proteins to a marker protein on the cell cortex localized by external cues. Here we illuminate how this complex evolved and commandeered control of spindle orientation from a more ancient mechanism. The complex was assembled through a series of molecular exploitation events, one of which – the evolution of GKPID’s capacity to bind the cortical marker protein – can be recapitulated by reintroducing a single historical substitution into the reconstructed ancestral GKPID. This change revealed and repurposed an ancient molecular surface that previously had a radically different function. We show how the physical simplicity of this binding interface enabled the evolution of a new protein function now essential to the biological complexity of many animals. Key takeaways: 1) "A molecular complex scaffolded by the GK protein-interaction domain (GKPID) mediates spindle orientation in diverse animal taxa by linking microtubule motor proteins to a marker protein on the cell cortex localized by external cues" Explanation: in this sentence, the scientists are carefully pointing out where the 'thing' (a protein domain) they are going to make a claim about fits into the biological picture. No, there isn't one superhero -- there's a carefully choreographed concert that their 'thing' is a part of. 2) "we illuminate how this complex evolved and commandeered control of spindle orientation from a more ancient mechanism" Very cool. Simple statement. Interesting, but no grand claim. 3) "The complex was assembled through a series of molecular exploitation events, one of which – the evolution of GKPID’s capacity to bind the cortical marker protein – can be recapitulated by reintroducing a single historical substitution into the reconstructed ancestral GKPID." Again, they reiterate how there was actually a bunch of things happening ("a series of molecular exploitation events"), ONE of which is the cool one they want to talk about. 4) "This change revealed and repurposed an ancient molecular surface that previously had a radically different function." If you were wondering what's cool, this is what's cool. 5) In conclusion: "We show how the physical simplicity of this binding interface enabled the evolution of a new protein function now essential to the biological complexity of many animals." Hmm...no grand claim finishing claim made regarding how this ONE thing changed EVERYTHING. Again, we are reminded of the whole picture: "so yeah guys, here's how this protein function, which is essential (because it's part of a super complex dance number) for so many living things, probably came about". I'm going to go commission a gold filigree copy of the laws of probability.

fiatjaf 11y ago

One common counterargument I ever head when talking to evolutionists is that some mutations are linked to others, so a mutation can spread through the population even though it does not confer any evolutionary advantage because it genetically linked to another evolution somewhere else that indeed confer advantage. What do you think of it? Is it serious enough? Because I think there is an obvious flaw in it, the question: why are these mutations linked?

xenadu02 11y ago
There are many reasons. Life re-uses structures, hormones, and proteins in different areas of the body for different functions. A mutation can make a structure more efficient in one area and have little effect in another... for now, but many mutations later that mutation can become a key enabler of a whole new class of features from the secondary structure. It may also be that the gene doesn't confer any specific advantage but a population bottleneck or isolation event can spread it nonetheless.
steinsgate 11y ago
I think you are talking about something known as hitchhiking mutations. Suppose an organism develops two mutations A and B, which lie close together in the chromosome. A is beneficial and B is neutral. When the chromosome is copied during reproduction, the copy will contain both A and B (because they are nearby). This copy will have an overall advantage because of the presence of A, and will spread in the population. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_hitchhiking https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genetic_hitchhiking
- fiatjaf 11y ago
  Right. Thank you, that's probably this. But the question remains: who put these genes near each other, so that something would evolve without being naturally selected just because its gene was near another gene? What is the likeness of a gene near a gene that's "evolving" to be important somehow in the future of the evolution of that species?
  - 11y ago

cperciva 11y ago

it is impossible for complex features such as wings, eyes etc to evolve because they will require a series of mutations that do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage The answer to this proposition is that the fact we aren't aware of the evolutionary advantages which were obtained en route doesn't mean there weren't any. The feathered wing is very complex and it won't fly until it has fully evolved, for example -- but as we learned quite recently, feathers evolved (and were an evolutionary advantage) because dinosaurs needed to stay warm. Birds can fly because a feather which is efficient at capturing air and keeping a giant lizard warm also turns out to be very efficient at pushing air and keeping a proto-avian aloft.

fiatjaf 11y ago
> The answer to this proposition is that the fact we aren't aware of the evolutionary advantages which were obtained en route doesn't mean there weren't any. Your argument begs the question. It is the same as saying: "since evolution actually happened, these mutations must have conferred some evolutionary advantage".
- cperciva 11y ago
  That wasn't an argument. That was pointing out a flaw in the counter-evolution argument. The fact that we are not aware of any evolutionary advantage conferred by a change yields no information in either direction about the validity of the evolutionary theory.
- nitrogen 11y ago
  You might enjoy reading this book: http://smile.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/0143116649 http://smile.amazon.com/Why-Evolution-True-Jerry-Coyne/dp/01... It summarizes the strongest evidence for evolution in several categories, including the fossil record; the evolution of various features like feathers, eyes, and wings; sings of path dependence that can only be explained by evolution, like the recurrent laryngeal nerve[0]; etc. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evidence_of_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Recurrent_laryngeal_nerve#Evid...
- 11y ago

epistasis 11y ago

>Since they do not have any evolutionary advantage, they cannot spread in the population This is not true, the question isn't whether neutral changes can spread, but simply what percentage of molecular changes that spread are neutral. In fact I think that molecular evidence has shown pretty convincingly that on the genome scale most changes are neutral, vindicating the Neutral theory of evolution: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_evolution https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neutral_theory_of_molecular_ev...

mgkimsal 11y ago

> Since they do not have any evolutionary advantage, they cannot spread in the population. I think it's more the case that things may spread if they don't have any disadvantage (like causing death).

aaron695 11y ago
This goes against evolution theory. In evolution theory things that do not have any evolutionary advantage neither spread or die off. But in practice everything comes at a cost, so generally they will die off. It cost calories to create feathers, so if not useful they will disappear.

xixixao 11y ago

But why would a single mutation immediately disappear? Isn't it possible that several generations carried on without significant advantage or disadvantage, experiencing series of mutations until the last one provided the true advantage? (I would love to know if this is completely wrong)

steinsgate 11y ago
It is possible, but I think if you calculate the probability of the neutral mutations happening in series, this probability is astronomically small. It is possible for all the mutations to appear simultaneously as well. But again, the probability would be astronomically small.

pvg 11y ago

The usual counterargument says that just one mutation is usually enough to create a functional prototype of a complex feature/organ (MVP, if you please). A series of mutations is not required. That doesn't sound right at all. Look at the some of discussion of the 'Irreducible Complexity' examples. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Stated_examples https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irreducible_complexity#Stated_...

teraflop 11y ago
You're going to have to be more specific about what doesn't "sound right", because I don't see anything in that article that contradicts what you quoted.
- pvg 11y ago
  An injection system is not an 'MVP' of a flagellum, an organ for propulsion. What doesn't sound right is the idea that single mutations often produce essentially working versions of future complex features.
- TeMPOraL 11y ago
  One mutation being enough to create "a functional prototype of a complex feature/organ (MVP, if you please)"? That's not how reality works! You can't introduce a complex organ out of the blue by flipping a single gene anymore than you can add HTTPS handling to your webapp by changing a single opcode in your binary. For that to work, the structural and operational information must have already been there in the organism.
  - deleted 11y ago
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  - ionforce 11y ago
    I think that's exactly it. The groundwork for "complex" features must already be there in some sense, maybe through mutations or hitchhiking. The last mutation is probably like flipping the on-off boolean. Or maybe something dramatic like a keystone. I.e. the parts alone don't do anything, but you have this magical bit flipped that suddenly turns everything on and gives them significance. But yeah one bit/mutation does not a feature make. Not without some prior stuff to latch on to, in my opinion.

thescriptkiddie 11y ago

> do not individually confer any evolutionary advantage Genes which do not confer any advantage are just as likely to spread as ones that do. Evolution doesn't select for advantages, it selects against disadvantages. Evolution is just an emergent property of death.

Al-Khwarizmi 11y ago
Not having an advantage that others have is a disadvantage, though.
- deleted 11y ago
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- thescriptkiddie 11y ago
  The point is that a mutation that causes no harm can persist, resulting in traits that serve no discernible function. Later on, multiple harmless but non-useful mutations might together make something interesting happen. Therefore the local maxima problem is not really a problem.

kashyapc 11y ago

Speaking of the evolution of the eye, recently I began reading the book The Vital Question (Nick Lane), and incidentally, last night I closed my reading on a discussion on that exact topic. Allow me to quote [topic: 'The missing steps to complexity', page-45]: "In The Origin of Species Darwin made the point that that natural selection actually predicts that intermediates should be lost. In that context, it is not terribly surprising that there are no surviving intermediates between bacteria and eukaryotes [e.g. plants, humans]. What is more surprising, though, is that the same traits do not keep on arising, time and time again -- like eyes. We do not see the historical steps in the evolution of eyes, but we do see an ecological spectrum. From a rudimentary light-sensitive spot on some early worm-like creature, eyes have arisen independently on scores of occasions. That is exactly what natural selection predicts. Each small step offers a small advantage in one particular environment, with the precise advantage depending on the precise environment. Morphologically distinct types of eye evolve in different environments, as divergent as the compound eyes of flies and mirror eyes of scallops,or as convergent as the camera eyes that are so similar in humans and octopuses. Every conceivable intermediate from pinholes to accommodating lenses, is found in one species or another. We even see miniature eyes, replete with a 'lens' and a 'retina', in some single-celled protists [e.g. amoeba]."

empressplay 11y ago

If this seriously _had_ happened all on its own (apparently it didn't) then I'd be thinking the exact opposite -- this would tend to make me re-consider intelligent design. However, it didn't.

digi_owl 11y ago

That objection is too hung up on advantage. Best i can tell, all that is needed for something to be carried forward is for it to not be a hindrance. Thus, a proto-wing could very well linger for generations without going anywhere simply because it does not hinder the lineage's survival. Never mind that the planet has not been the shape we see it in for the entire time.

aaron695 11y ago

This is just plain wrong and a scary strawperson. Google how the eye evolved, it didn't just mutate it was a series of slow gradual mutations. What you are suggesting goes against evolution theory (which is ok with proper evidence) It's a mutation theory which is hard to find a lot of info on and I can't find the proper name of. But it is considered incorrect.