One of the (many) things that drive me bats

(Beaver, thinking hard) "Chainsaw! Chainsaw! CHAINSAW!"

AT least they didn't say that humans evolved bigger brains "in order to ensure the survival of the species".

I can see why it drives you bats, but I can also see why the comment has to be as brief as possible. What would you think of "Perhaps extremely variable climates select for greater adaptability"?

Lamarck is dead!!! Long live epigenetics!!!

My two main sources for developmental biology are Rudyard Kipling and Frank Capra. This sounds like a perfectly valid just-so-story on how Clarence got his wings.

So you're arguing that humans didn't need to survive - that they could have gone on living and evolving without surviving? Interesting hypothesis. I await your evidence.

Or are you saying that the word "need" has only one interpretation?

Or are you arguing, as Dave Luckett points out, that evolutionists should ramble on in dense detail and leave it up to the sound-bite engineers to condense what they said into something truly dumb instead of using shorthand to get their point across?

I suppose they could speculate that "climatic variation may have rewarded those with larger brains." But I also agree that going into pedantic detail about how the need for larger brains doesn't cause larger brains starts getting too involved. Maybe some speculative background about how species may have gone extinct because traits needed to survive didn't happen to appear at the right time? And that most species today are descendents of "lucky" lineages, whose ancestors blundered into something appropriate for the times - and which was quickly adopted for that reason.

Dave Luckett said: I can see why it drives you bats, but I can also see why the comment has to be as brief as possible. What would you think of "Perhaps extremely variable climates select for greater adaptability"?

What I would object most to is the narrator calling it a new idea. I took physical anthro over 30 years ago and the climate change associated with brain size increase wasn't news then. It was common knowledge that the savannas were increasing in size and there was a lot of volcanic activity from time to time. The Laetoli footprints are in volcanic ash. It wasn't always a nice place to live. What place is?

Why wasn't the climate changing for chimps? It will likely be a complex mix of factors where we aren't going to pin it on one main culprit. Founder effects in genetics, upright stance, tool use, other environmental factors. I can posit some mutation or combination of mutations that would result in some synergy of upright stance and tool use that led our ancestor down (or up) a selective path to larger brain size. Our ancestors were bipedal for millions of years before the brain size started increasing dramatically.

We probably have to look into the motor differences between chimps and humans. You might call chimps clumsy when it comes to manipulating tools. When did this change in our ancestors? Chimps have great hand eye coordination when it comes to brachiating through trees, but the fine manipulation of their fingers and forearms isn't there. Once that changed I could see a rapid increase in the need for more brain power. With bipedal gait the hands are free and such mutations are more likely to be selected for. It looks like it took a while for the development of such fine motor skills.

Ian wrote:

"So you’re arguing that humans didn’t need to survive..."

Exactly. You got it. There was no preordained plan. There was no guiding force. There was no one else to even care if humans survived or not. They just happened to adapt quickly enough, that's all. It could have been otherwise. Humans could have gone the way of the dinosaurs. It is only in reptospect that humans had to survive.

One of my favorite cartoons is a picture of a dinosaur reading a book about trilobites. The point is that the fossil record shows that over 90% of al species that have ever lived have gone extinct and that the average lifespan of individual species is only about a million years. It also shows that those who do not learn from the lessons of history are idiots.

DS said: They [Humans] just happened to adapt quickly enough, that's all. It could have been otherwise.

DS said: They [Humans] just happened to adapt quickly enough, that’s all. It could have been otherwise.

eric said:

DS said: They [Humans] just happened to adapt quickly enough, that's all. It could have been otherwise.

I'm sure it was 'otherwise' for a lot of them. Some hominids happened to adapt quickly enough...the rest died. Though slightly OT I'm not entirely convinced by the environment argument itself. Wouldn't it require that the environmental variation occurred within human lifepan timescales but continued to vary for hundreds or thousands of years? Extreme variation on both time scales simultaneously seems a bit of a stretch.

Ron Okimoto said: What I would object most to is the narrator calling it a new idea. I took physical anthro over 30 years ago and the climate change associated with brain size increase wasn't news then.

So you’re arguing that humans didn’t need to survive - that they could have gone on living and evolving without surviving? Interesting hypothesis. I await your evidence.

“Perhaps extremely variable climates select for greater adaptability”?

I'm with you on this Richard; it's one of my pet peeves too. The way the narrator's question is phrased begs the question in my mind, "Umm...didn't all species, those that lived and those that died off during that time span, have a [i]need[/i] to survive violent swings of climate? If so, why isn't such being used as a explanation for ALL traits across all organisms?" Just seems like the writer didn't quite understand what he or she was implying with the question.

I recognize the danger of talking teleologically, but isn't it just a shorthand way of expressing something? The discussion reminds me of the time a pedantic philosopher caught me saying that a pendulum obeys a certain equation. Well, of course it does no such thing; that is a shorthand way of saying that the equation accurately describes the motion of the pendulum. Using teleological language in biology is a more serious error, but it is not all that serious.

Matt Young said: I recognize the danger of talking teleologically, but isn't it just a shorthand way of expressing something? The discussion reminds me of the time a pedantic philosopher caught me saying that a pendulum obeys a certain equation. Well, of course it does no such thing; that is a shorthand way of saying that the equation accurately describes the motion of the pendulum. Using teleological language in biology is a more serious error, but it is not all that serious.

Some good points are being raised here; you should share them with the NOVA producers. They are squarely on the side of science.

"That locution, that phraseology, that notion that a “need” somehow drives evolution, drives me bats. “Needs” don’t make populations evolve anything. "

It's interesting that it makes knowledgeable evolutionists like you peeved, and it makes creationists snicker. Perhaps realizing that the creationists get this one thing right over some of our fellow evolutionists, and they relish in rubbing our noses in it, is a key factor that drives you bats.

Meanwhile, I need some more money, so I'm going to evolve a stuffed wallet.

RBH said:

Matt Young said: I recognize the danger of talking teleologically, but isn't it just a shorthand way of expressing something? The discussion reminds me of the time a pedantic philosopher caught me saying that a pendulum obeys a certain equation. Well, of course it does no such thing; that is a shorthand way of saying that the equation accurately describes the motion of the pendulum. Using teleological language in biology is a more serious error, but it is not all that serious.

Matt, I do think it's a serious error in a show aimed at the general public to segue from a paleontologist offering a tentative adaptationist hypothesis (which isn't all that new, as noted above) to a teleological statement like that in the quotation. It reinforces a widespread misconception about evolution when with a little investment of thought (see Dave Luckett's suggestion) it could have been avoided.

Whatever you think of the show, part 2 is on tomorrow. (It's a 3-part series.)

Just wanted to add my comments from a Christian point of view: It is critically important to get the language correct on this subject. Sorry, but there is a difference between this show and a show about pendulums obeying an equation. I was yelling at the TV as these sentences where being broadcast. Is it more expensive to get the verbiage right, or could it be that the writers don't actually grasp evolution?

As a real world example of how this plays out: If the show would have done a better job on this point, I would have used it next summer at a camp for Christian kids to learn about evolution. As it is, I'll keep looking.

Richard Hudson said: Is it more expensive to get the verbiage right, or could it be that the writers don't actually grasp evolution?

ormally when speaking to colleagues, all the background knowledge is in place and such brevity doesn’t get in the way of communication.

At least they didn't blame it on an asteroid. I know these things probably happened but me thinks the tool box may be getting short of anything but hammers.

Robert Gotschall said: At least they didn't blame it on an asteroid. I know these things probably happened but me thinks the tool box may be getting short of anything but hammers.

Wheels said: Would that make them hammeroids?

Mike Elzinga said:

Wheels said: Would that make them hammeroids?

Thor had hammeroids? Now Atlas I could understand.

Dave Luckett said:

Mike Elzinga said:

Wheels said: Would that make them hammeroids?

Thor had hammeroids? Now Atlas I could understand.

Of course. There's piles of evidence.

Frank said: "That locution, that phraseology, that notion that a “need” somehow drives evolution, drives me bats. “Needs” don’t make populations evolve anything. " It's interesting that it makes knowledgeable evolutionists like you peeved, and it makes creationists snicker. Perhaps realizing that the creationists get this one thing right over some of our fellow evolutionists, and they relish in rubbing our noses in it, is a key factor that drives you bats.

Wheels said:

Robert Gotschall said: At least they didn't blame it on an asteroid. I know these things probably happened but me thinks the tool box may be getting short of anything but hammers.

Would that make them hammeroids?

Matt G said: Do you really think that creationists get this subtlety? Words like "need" in this context, or Matt Young's pendulum "obeying" laws of physics are just a shorthand. In a presentation of this sort (especially from NOVA), accuracy is a must, even though we are going to slip up in our casual conversations. If we are too vigilant, our point gets lost in tortured sentences.

It is unfortunate that teleological thinking seems to be ingrained, even in humans without preconceived biases.

When material for lay people references evolution, it seems, in my observation, to very frequently, if not almost invariably, contain this type of teleological thinking.

In fact, I remember the "light bulb" effect I experienced when I first realized that, of course, the genetic variability that underlies evolution is unplanned, and does not need to be planned for adaptation to result from subsequent selection acting on phenotypes.

Of course, teleology encourages magical thinking, since the incorrect phrasing creates a new, unnecessary question - how did they "know" that they they "needed" bigger brains, how did they "know" what to do about it, and so on. It also creates extra problems. Why didn't populations that went extinct get what they "needed"?

This is a MAJOR reason why helping people to understand evolution is hard enough, even without creationist interference.

Thanks for pointing out the "needs" problem with the narrator. I have a bigger problem with the Potts and Vrba ideas that climatic change "drives" evolution. There is no doubt that it "shapes" evolution, but evolution would continue with or without climate change. And there is where I agree with the narrator that adaptability is more important than "adaptation."

harold said: It is unfortunate that teleological thinking seems to be ingrained, even in humans without preconceived biases.

Mike Elzinga said: I suspect that teleological thinking is historically engrained in the thinking processes of humans (and probably some other creatures) because of the long evolutionary experience of living among other humans. If we didn’t project our own purposes onto other humans, we are likely to misinterpret their behaviors.

RBH said:

Mike Elzinga said: I suspect that teleological thinking is historically engrained in the thinking processes of humans (and probably some other creatures) because of the long evolutionary experience of living among other humans. If we didn’t project our own purposes onto other humans, we are likely to misinterpret their behaviors.

In other words, Hyperactive Agency Detection.

Richard Hudson said: As a real world example of how this plays out: If the show would have done a better job on this point, I would have used it next summer at a camp for Christian kids to learn about evolution. As it is, I'll keep looking.

I am a biblical creationist but love so many of the NOVA programs.
Yet they have picked sides and are putting their audience to a desperate propaganda exercise here.
There is no way around it.
These programs are to deal with the successful criticisms being loudly by many species of creationists.
They show the power of our success.
if they really though creationism is no intellectual threat then they would do a NOVA show on the best arguments that are made by different creationist entities.
Not pretending we don't exist but obviously responding because we do.
Their viewing audience is not stupid.

Richard,

If the word 'need' drives you bats, why doesn't the word 'select' make you lose it altogether???

The most glaring argument for ID is an inability to discuss anything without reference to design and purpose.

I haven't come across one single post from a supporter of Darwinian biological development concepts that could avoid teleology in discussions on biology. It can't be done.

The question remains, why in hell do humans have this pain in the ass habit of teleological slip-a-de-tongues? Other animals don't have it and they do just fine without it. Yeah, just what made us so special? Why do we haveta lug around this 100kg teleological boulder everywhere we go?

Beats the heck outta me.

[Breaking on through to the other side.]

This developmental process involves being able to objectify one’s own existence within a larger conceptual framework as well as to recognize that patterns in Nature are not necessarily attributable to intelligence analogous to ours, or to any intelligence at all. People are habitually quite self-centered.

Robert Byers said: I am a biblical creationist but love so many of the NOVA programs. Yet they have picked sides and are putting their audience to a desperate propaganda exercise here.

if they really though creationism is no intellectual threat then they would do a NOVA show on the best arguments that are made by different creationist entities.

Steve P. said: How do we objectively study nature using natural means? How do we 'know' what we see with the eyes in our head is what is? If we are simply a wheel in nature's ever-emergent biological gadgetry, we have no hope of objectifying any experience.

Robert Byers said: I am a biblical creationist but love so many of the NOVA programs. Yet they have picked sides and are putting their audience to a desperate propaganda exercise here.

Steve P. said: Mike, I am curious as to how one could possibly objectify a natural experience?

Steve P. said: How do we objectively study nature using natural means? How do we ‘know’ what we see with the eyes in our head is what is?

if they really though creationism is no intellectual threat then they would do a NOVA show on the best arguments that are made by different creationist entities

Steve,

Well, we seem to have done pretty good in the last couple of hundred years. Tther is this new thing called science. It has experimentation, complete with controls and hypothesis testing. It isn't perfect and it never gives anything but provisional answers, but it is the best we've got. It sure beats the old GODDIDIT routine, that didn't work so well if you recall.

Now Steve, do you really think we should abandon science just because it doesn't measure up to some arbitrary standard of objective truth? Do you apply the same criteria to your religious beliefs? Do you really think that things would be better if we abandoned science? Do you really think that we even have that option anymore in a global, technological society?

Of course if you do believe that, you are perfectly free to reject science and technology whenever you want to. There are people like that, they are called Amish. Of course they don't use the internet to post nonsensical condemnations of the the technology that they have come to depend on. That would be hypocritical.

Steve P. said: Richard, If the word 'need' drives you bats, why doesn't the word 'select' make you lose it altogether???

The most glaring argument for ID is an inability to discuss anything without reference to design and purpose.

Steve P. said: This is obviously not possible from a material perspective. How do we objectively study nature using natural means? How do we 'know' what we see with the eyes in our head is what is? If we are simply a wheel in nature's ever-emergent biological gadgetry, we have no hope of objectifying any experience. Only by stepping outside of ourselves could an objective experience of reality be realized.

DS writes... Of course if you do believe that, you are perfectly free to reject science and technology whenever you want to. There are people like that, they are called Amish.

When I worked at a radio station we used to get these public service announcements from the Mormons, or The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints as they prefer to be known. The message was basically "Don't kill yourself at your job to get stuff for your family; go home and love them."

Kinda hard to argue with that sentiment.

Mike Elzinga said: Here is a little experiment anyone can do.

Mike Elzinga said: Here is a little experiment anyone can do. Equipment needed: Your bare foot, solid floor (concrete preferred), bowling ball or cue ball, tape measure, accurate stop watch. Procedure: Place bare foot flat on floor. Step1: Place bowling ball on toes. Step 2: Raise bowling ball about 6 inches above toes and drop. [SNIP]

I suspect that the first time that ball makes a strike on the guy's foot, he's gonna split, so as to spare himself any more of that.

Henry J said: I suspect that the first time that ball makes a strike on the guy's foot, he's gonna split, so as to spare himself any more of that.

Mike, thanks for the bowling lesson.

You misunderstand. I am not against science in the least. I'm in the textile business. I NEED science.

Moreso, science increases my understanding of God, not lessens it. Why do you think the scientists of past were believers? For the very same reasons. Atheism in science is a very recent phenomenon.

Science is not about disproving God. Actually, science is silent on the issue. What gets believers is science text writers and science teachers taking advantage of separation of Church and State by deftly inserting language in science texts and promoting an atheistic spin of scientific knowledge,implying we don't need to rely on God to explain how we got here. Again, science is not interested in the question either way so why the obviously skewed texbok language and teaching method?

I am all for keeping God out of science class so long as we also keep Buddhism, witchcraft, Hinduism, atheism, humanism, Taoism or any other philosophy/worldview out of the science classroom as well.

But if texbook writers insist on inserting a particular philosophical spin into textbooks, and teachers agree to promote that spin in the science classroom, then Christianity wants to be represented in equal part. Not a difficult issue, really.

If you are honestly not seeking to promote your atheistic worldview in the science classroom, you will not have a problem with 'equal time or no time'.

Steve P, if empiricism and methodological naturalism are considered to be philosophies, I do not agree. They underlie science, and science cannot be studied or furthered without at least nonce acceptance of them.

If no privilege be given to facts discovered by empirical investigation and demonstrated by repeated observation and measurement of nature over ideas taken on faith or thought philosophically logical, desirable or possible, then there is no science, no science classrooms, and no point in any debate on what should be taught therein.

stevaroni said:

Robert Byers said: I am a biblical creationist but love so many of the NOVA programs. Yet they have picked sides and are putting their audience to a desperate propaganda exercise here.

But seriously, Robert, what makes this Nova different from the other Nova's, aside from the fact that you don't like the conclusion drawn from the facts presented? Do you feel that they somehow overlooked a viable creationist interpretation of the evidence? Sort of ICR's "same evidence, different interpretations" argument? If so, please explain how a Biblical Creationist perspective explains the presence of a long line of very ancient walking apes in the African dirt. Bodies that become increasingly more human-ish as they get younger, and progressive more ape-like as they get older. How can Nova possibly be "fair" to the Creationist argument when, far from trying to explain the known fossils, creationism pretty much refuses to admit that the bones even exist? You seem fairly reasonable, Robert, please explain exactly what nova should have said and how creationism explains very ancient, carefully sorted fossils. But please, don't just go off and bash evolution. That's just avoiding the question. Evolution offers an actual explanation, and it explains the known evidence in a coherent manner. That's the standard. If you think creationism offers an actual competing explanation, then explain how creationism explains the known evidence, explain how it accounts for the long series of actual bodies of weird half-man, half-ape creatures found in the ancient strata of the Rift Valley.

by the way since evolution teaches our bodies are pretty apelike

Steve P. said: But if texbook writers insist on inserting a particular philosophical spin into textbooks, and teachers agree to promote that spin in the science classroom, then Christianity wants to be represented in equal part. Not a difficult issue, really. If you are honestly not seeking to promote your atheistic worldview in the science classroom, you will not have a problem with 'equal time or no time'.

Steve P., the only takeaway I can find in your post in that you've never read a science textbook.

Ever.

No science text promotes any particular philosophy or religion (methodological naturalism, I must note is not a religion - it's merely a pragmatic requirement that science provides testable explanations of things that can be tested).

So don't worry - nobody is teaching your kids atheism. Fortunately, they're not teaching them Christianity, either.

The irony of this is that the implication of "need" is representative of something that must occur, or is required for one reason or another. How do you reconcile this with a process that has no cause or motive?

Supposed evolution from a single celled organism into a multi-trillion celled human being would have had to overcome insurmountable odds just to make a single increase in overall genetic information.

It's not just the fact that it is highly improbable though; without a "need" for evolution to occur, overcoming the odds necessary to blindly stumble from 0 to 3 billion base pairs of genetic information in the genome is subsequent to half the world's population spontaneously winning the lottery, without ever having played.

Your faith in the ability of a magical process to achieve unparalleled success in bio-engineering feats, without even requiring a "need" or cause to sustain or propel it, is evidence only of your desire to remain willingly ignorant.

anonymouse said: The irony of this is that the implication of "need" is representative of something that must occur, or is required for one reason or another. How do you reconcile this with a process that has no cause or motive?

Supposed evolution from a single celled organism into a multi-trillion celled human being would have had to overcome insurmountable odds just to make a single increase in overall genetic information.

It's not just the fact that it is highly improbable though;

without a "need" for evolution to occur, overcoming the odds necessary to blindly stumble from 0 to 3 billion base pairs of genetic information in the genome is subsequent to half the world's population spontaneously winning the lottery, without ever having played.

Your faith in the ability of a magical process to achieve unparalleled success in bio-engineering feats, without even requiring a "need" or cause to sustain or propel it, is evidence only of your desire to remain willingly ignorant.

The irony of this is that the implication of “need” is representative of something that must occur, or is required for one reason or another.

Supposed evolution from a single celled organism into a multi-trillion celled human being would have had to overcome insurmountable odds just to make a single increase in overall genetic information.

Henry J said: If that "need" is satisfied by the genome of some small subset of the species, the traits that do that would tend to spread through the species. If there's not a subset of the species with such a trait, the species is in trouble.

Steve P. said: Mike, I am curious as to how one could possibly objectify a natural experience? We are on the inside looking in. We would have to disassociate ourselves from what it is we are investigating. This is obviously not possible from a material perspective. How do we objectively study nature using natural means? How do we 'know' what we see with the eyes in our head is what is? If we are simply a wheel in nature's ever-emergent biological gadgetry, we have no hope of objectifying any experience.