Interbane wrote:Short term predictions can be made, antibiotic resistance based on how prevalent an infectious disease is, and how much variety there is in the effective arsenal of medicines. Small ocean-dwelling organisms are predicted to adapt to a more acidic ocean. Some short term predictions come true, some don't.

Like our grasp of the weather, it's not our understanding that prevents accurate predictions. It's the complexity of the systems. We understand weather quite well, but to model the entire system is not in our reach. We can describe all the factors that gave rise to perfect storms after they happen, but predicting them is different.

This doesn't mean our understanding of evolution or the weather is bad, as ant says. But we do have a ways to go before our computers reach the required processing power to encompass enough of the systems for accurate modeling.

Hi, Interbane;

Thanks for simply mischaracterizing my position instead of merely being condescending. I appreciate it.

I don't think TOE is bad theory. I simply think it isn't as robust as other theories that have stronger PREdictive power. In certain aspects, TOE is incomplete. I guess because atheists are so very religious about TOE it's sort of the equivalent of someone telling them their God is absent, or impotent in telling ways.

Looking at flowers and conjecturing that an insect or animal must be around somewhere that has a snout shaped to benefit from its nutrients is not what I'd call a "WOW" moment. Quantum mechanics and physics are remarkably predictive in their descriptions/predictions of movement. Math (the language of nature) is what they're based on.

I think TOE is magnificently descriptive. But it's predictive power falls short in certain instances as I've pointed out, and as a theory, it points to no specific Law of Nature that is "obeyed."
TOE can point to no law that would predict with accuracy if we wound the clock back we'd all be here again.
It's anybody GUESS at that point.
If we did wind the clock back and we all found ourselves here on BT again it'd be like MAGIC!

Evolution is like the theory/law of erosion (according to Geo) - you never know where the river will run through.


I know this is a sensitive subject, so I'm sorry if I upset anyone.
Religion and politics never fails to generate heat.

Look at this article. I haven't finished it yet, as it is quite lengthy:

http://aeon.co/magazine/science/evoluti ... rfly-wing/

I ran into this in the article:

Over the decades, a mountain of support has emerged [divergence between groups in close proximity]. In Southern California, there are two species of stick insect that live just metres from each other but look distinct, each having adapted to a different type of bush. In Connecticut, groups of salamanders living 100 metres apart behave and eat differently. Plantain plants adapted to better fend off fungi than their neighbours can be separated by just 10 metres. The list goes on.

In the oceans, scientists have long viewed species as part of a practically boundary-free single population – a giant soup of the larval forms of species travelling for weeks on ocean currents, creating strong and widely distributed gene flow. Nonetheless, there are many examples of adapted groups living just 50 metres apart. A recent review paper found no fewer than 59 studies documenting evolutionary adaptation where marine biologists had long thought they would find none. ‘This historical idea that local adaptation doesn’t occur in marine systems has fallen away,’ says Eric Sanford, a marine biologist at the University of California, Davis. ‘Now there’s growing interest in understanding when and where it might occur in marine species.’

Only in the past few decades have biologists come to understand that evolutionary divergence within a population can arise quickly, over a very short span of time. Wingless insects and small amphibians living in your backyard might be diverging right now – looking a little different, behaving a bit differently, or otherwise taking the first shaky steps toward becoming a new species, separate from the group down the block. Right there, as you enjoy a cocktail and watch the sun go down, evolution cracks its whip over the creatures and plants in your yard.

One thing I take from the above: little chance at predictability when local evolution is remarkably rapid.
And it has just been recently discovered that it can be this rapid and divergence between species can have a hair's width of spacing geographically.

As I said before; TOE is an incomplete theory (not "bad"). its PREdictive power is quite modest.
If we dare compare it to theories generated by, say, QM, it falls short because of the countless variables involved.

(and it doesn't tell us how "life started" - not even close)

EDITED

‘Evolution at small spatial scales has not been a focus,’ says Richardson, ‘and, I would argue, has even been avoided to a large degree in order to ensure that you find evolutionary divergence that you expect to happen.’

ant wrote:Thanks for simply mischaracterizing my position instead of merely being condescending. I appreciate it.

How is it mischaracterizing if I used the same word you used? Perhaps the issue is that you didn't use the right word, an honest mistake.

ant wrote:Quantum mechanics and physics are remarkably predictive in their descriptions/predictions of movement. Math (the language of nature) is what they're based on.

The mechanisms in these fields are also not contingent. Apples to oranges.

ant wrote:But it's predictive power falls short in certain instances as I've pointed out, and as a theory, it points to no specific Law of Nature that is "obeyed."

What goal does the predictive power fall short of? If the goal is that we want evolution to offer the same strong predictions as physics, then our goal is flawed. Because one theory consists of contingent events, and the other consists of necessary events. If the goal is that we want evolution to predict what animals will evolve in ten years, then you're right. But that isn't a weakness, any more than the inability to predict rain or shine on a specific day in ten years is a weakness in our understanding of weather.

Yet even if it's not a weakness, it's an area to improve. To improve, we need computers powerful enough to model contingent systems. Even then, mutations come from such random sources that it will be nearly impossible short of modelling every particle in the entire solar system(radiation from the sun causes mutations).

We also have a lot to learn regarding the mechanisms. We may know a great deal, but the mechanisms that gave rise to all life on Earth are of course ungodly complex.

ant wrote:One more thing. I was surprised at the total inaccuracy of this statement by you:

In fact, if you place a few critters on an island, you can predict that that they will get bigger over thousands of years.

That was and still is patently false.
I'm surprised because this is your arena here - the doctrine of evolution.

"critters" have both increased and decreased their size within isolated environments.
The Hobbit's size was a total surprise. it made sense, but was not something that was predictable.

Gigantism and dwarfism of isolated critters is not predictable.
Are you going to insist that it is?
PROVE IT.
(good luck)

I should have my head examined for putting my toes in these waters again, but here goes.

I was tossing out a few examples of what I see (as a layperson) as predictive events in evolution. Just shooting from the hip as it were. I recalled gigantism and so I mentioned it.

I could easily amend my original statement and say something like this: over time animal species that are geographically isolated will tend to drift apart genetically. And, yes, we have gigantism and dwarfism (thanks for that, Ant) that serve as pretty good examples. Hardly a scientific hypothesis, I know. But you can hardly argue with the fact that animal species on islands tend to evolve to be larger (or smaller) than their mainland counterparts., and that this is predictable. I wouldn't think that leaving out dwarfism really changes my basic point.

Here's an article by the National Center for Science Education that addresses predictability in evolution in response to anti-evolutionary (let's face it, Creationist) propaganda that insists evolutionary theory lacks predictive power.

An excerpt:

"They still cite Karl Popper's early suggestion that evolutionary theory is untestable because it cannot be used to make predictions, despite the fact that this view has been rejected by philosophers of science and that Popper himself unequivocally reversed this opinion."

The article also features the eusociality of the naked mole rat which was predicted by American biologist, Richard Alexander, in the 1970s.

Another excerpt:

"Richard D Alexander has made a similarly striking prediction based on first principles of the evolution of social behavior. Although common in social insects, eusociality—the social system with a queen and sterile workers—was unknown in any other taxa. Under the appropriate set of conditions, Alexander predicted, evolution ought to produce a eusocial vertebrate, even though eusociality in the naked mole-rat (or any other vertebrate) was unknown at the time."

http://ncse.com/rncse/17/4/predictive-p ... usociality

Also, here's a summary of the work by Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson which makes simple, testable predictions (mathematically) related to the diversity of species on islands of different sizes and distances from mainland.

http://www.biogeography.org/html/fb/FBv ... iantis.pdf

Interesting stuff to be sure!

is this what you're talking about?

[Evolution] is descriptive more than it is predictive. Good theories are predictive and based on mathematics.

Good god, man. Seriously, guys? Most of what's being reacted to here is what I said above.

Good theories are predictive and mathematically precise.
It doesn't follow that because I highlighted strong characteristics of good scientific theories TOE must be completely bad.
And I've clarified that already.

As I said before; one thing about TOE is that it is very descriptive and good at retrodiction.
What distinguishes it from QM and physics is that it's not dominantly mathematically based, or as predictive.


I suspect why all this hyper sensitivity is because of the unconscious emotional forces at work:
TOE is the silver bullet that killed God.

TOE was never meant to "kill God"
Darwin certainly didn't feel that way. Read about it.

But that's what conversations like this always fall back too (WIZARD was right): evolution proves a metaphysical hypothesis is false (my words, not his).


that is dumb-dumb thinking.

I wanted to clarify the above first because I felt it was important.

You might be surprised, but I actually enjoy all your comments about topics like this.
They are challenging and informative.
I don't necessarily agree with everything that's opined here, but that should not be surprising.

Gosh, man. Let's get to the meat of the discussion. Stop with all the "you said it was a bad theory!"

But you can hardly argue with the fact that animal species on islands tend to evolve to be larger (or smaller) than their mainland counterparts., and that this is predictable. I wouldn't think that leaving out dwarfism really changes my basic point.

Just really quick:

Is that actually a prediction or an unfalsifiable "just so" story?

Example:

John: I said species X would get smaller in that particular isolated environment.

Bobby: But species x actually increased in size!

Response:

John (smirking) Yeah, but before that I said a species in an isolated environment can either increase or decrease in size.
So, I was right after all.


That doesn't seem like a great prediction.


sorry: quick edits

ant wrote:Good theories are predictive and mathematically precise.

Then no theory concerning contingent phenomena can ever be good?

contingent phenomena

Define that

ant wrote:

But you can hardly argue with the fact that animal species on islands tend to evolve to be larger (or smaller) than their mainland counterparts., and that this is predictable. I wouldn't think that leaving out dwarfism really changes my basic point.

Just really quick:

Is that actually a prediction or an unfalsifiable "just so" story?

Example:

John: I said species X would get smaller in that particular isolated environment.

Bobby: But species x actually increased in size!

Response:

John (smirking) Yeah, but before that I said a species in an isolated environment can either increase or decrease in size.
So, I was right after all.


That doesn't seem like a great prediction.


sorry: quick edits

This kind of prediction—what will species X look like in x number of years—is ultimately pointless and obviously not illustrative of actual testable hypotheses in the field of evolution. I only made it up to make a point. You are putting arbitrary obstacles in front of yourself because you are uncomfortable with evolution. In truth your mind is already made up.

The article I linked to earlier discusses direct and indirect methods of testing across multiple scientific disciplines. Your general argument is that evolution is limited by lack of predictive power, but the article goes far to contradict that point. Richard Alexander's prediction of eusociality is compared to a prediction by astronomers in 1845 of another planet in our solar system, which turned out to be Neptune. I really recommend reading the article.

Also, you had criticized my omission of dwarfism which really seemed beside the point. But island populations make fantastic laboratories for evolutionary scientists and offer opportunities to predict patterns. So the work by MacArthur and Wilson seems relevant (if not rather complex).

Here's an overview:

http://www.biogeography.org/html/fb/FBv ... iantis.pdf

In other words, the information is out there if you truly wanted to learn more.