Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Science/2015 August 9

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August 9

Direct observations of evolution of multi-cellular organisms

I recall an article that listed several observation of species forking in plants, but I can't find it. This is but a part of an attempt to make a comprehensible list of direct observational proofs for evolution. Can someone please lend a hand? אילן שמעוני (talk) 07:39, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The article was probably Evidence of common descent#Evidence from speciation, which mentions Arabidopsis thaliana (which is branching into two species due to the fact that the two branches have incompatible immune systems), Senecio cambrensis (a hybrid species created when an infertile hybrid (the equivalent of a mule) suddenly became fertile) and Brassicoraphanus (similarly, fertile hybrids of cabbages and radishes), as well as plenty of examples from the animal kingdom. Smurrayinchester 08:02, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

(If your goal is to have evidence to use in debate with creationists/intelligent designists, I will warn you that they will probably dismiss all of these as "microevolution", since they will argue that one type of cress turning into a different type of cress merely produces a new species within the same "baramin". Rather than using the fact that cabbages and radishes have been seen hybridizing into a new species as evidence of evolution, creationists will move the goalposts and just argue that it shows they are part of the same baramin.) Smurrayinchester 08:12, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Thanks, very much! I take it one step at a time. They usually claim no evolution was witnessed for large organisms, well that is clearly wrong. Cheers! אילן שמעוני (talk) 08:19, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Lactase persistence. Bam. Great example of human evolution. With that said, you're extremely unlikely to change any creationists' minds, so don't waste your time if that's what you're expecting. I'm quite fond of the statement, "You can't reason someone out of something they were never reasoned into in the first place." It's not like there's a shortage of information about evolution on the Internet. I will give a quick shout-out to RationalWiki, which I edit occasionally. --108.38.204.15 (talk) 09:43, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Also I should definitely mention the venerable TalkOrigins Archive. Slipped my mind. --108.38.204.15 (talk) 09:52, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The most straightforward proof of evolution is simply the discovery of fossils that can be shown by radioactive dating to have a certain age. We can measure the rate at which an isotope decays and extrapolate how long it takes to break down. The limit of this idea, of course, is that an omnipotent being could have altered the fossil record; indeed, we can't rule out last Thursdayism. Deciding what is 'real" is easy if we only consider the methods of natural science, but once one allows for the supernatural, all bets are off. And we really can't rule out such interference, either at the truly divine level or at something as trivial as some sort of simulation, Holodeck etc. Wnt (talk) 00:37, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Certainly the existence of an omnipotent, omniscient and actively-intervening being puts scientific statements about evolution in doubt...but also all other statements - without any exceptions. Are you reading what I'm writing - or are you having words implanted in your brain by an omnipotent being while you stare at a blank screen? Does the room you're in exist? Who knows? Did you have a decent lunch today or were you chewing on dried moss in a dank cave someplace? There is literally no way to know. So if people wish to take that position, then there is no way to convince them of anything whatever - and (if they are rational) they might as well give up on life since anything and everything they try to achieve or understand in the world is in doubt.

If you deny the omnipotence - or agree that any god(s) out there are not active in the world - then you can once again reason about the way the universe works - and then all of the arguments for evolution come in to play - and the argument is unassailable to people with open minds and a modicum of intelligence. SteveBaker (talk) 01:55, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

Well, you start with a reasonable statement, but I think you go off the rails. If you can't know for sure you really know the truth, does that mean that you should give up on life, or you should have faith? And the belief in the "rational" that asserts that only what you can remember is real is actually a serious logical error, since memory is not merely imperfect but fundamentally limited. A fundamental basis for moralistic decisions may be the existence of atman, which is to say, that all human sensation is actually perceived by the same being, which is merely implemented and manifested in different brains; by supposing that rational behavior is to assume that only what one remembers in one is real, one hurts oneself over and over.

The assumption that God intervenes incessantly or not at all is also difficult to defend. Is it really that implausible that an author might grant his characters but a brief peek at the notes on the cover flap, while leaving them mostly to live according to the rules of the novel?

I will note the reconciliation I prefer is one that supposes that the universe is a work in progress - from beginning to end, all past and all future is revised repeatedly, so that there are two independent dimensions of time. The sort of history quoted by the Abrahamic religions can be seen as a sort of Dreamtime, not necessarily privileged in status above other faiths or even some of one's own dreams, but offering a limited view of the parallel universes that preceded this one. Wnt (talk) 12:26, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

The "I have faith" answer is pretty weak. It generally means one of two things:

1. I have made up some guesses in my own mind about what is true - and now I have "faith" and therefore it's true.
2. I defer to a book that was written a couple of millennia ago by a bunch of fanatics and edited and generally hacked around by a hundred generations of people with their own particular axes to grind. But I have "faith" in it and this makes it true.

Neither of those perspectives on life permit any kind of reasoned discussion that might result in their minds being changed on the basis of observations and experiments. "Faith" is just a word meaning: "I've made up my mind on the basis of zero evidence and I'm never going to change it.".

Solid, comprehensible, convincing evidence for evolution/global-warming/big-bang/whatever is out there for anyone to examine - but those who have already decided on their world view on the basis of no evidence whatever, and locked themselves into that position due to "faith", are never going to so much as look at the wealth of contrary information with an open mind.

...which is why our OP is probably wasting his/her time trying to find a convincing argument. There are plenty of great arguments, mountains of evidence - but that's not the problem here.

SteveBaker (talk) 16:28, 10 August 2015 (UTC)

I think you misread my answer. The issue isn't whether "I have faith" - only that you haven't shown me evidence why someone should "give up on life" rather than having faith when faced with the reality that someone could be messing with our experimental perspective on the world. This is an open question, depending on a lot of sort of Emmanuel Kant philosophy that, I must admit, I haven't actually read, which puts me at considerable disadvantage. We can say that the world is certainly meant to look like it works a certain way, and that appears to be something meaningful and useful to learn; but we overreach when we tell people that this rules out God, or that we know there is nothing that we haven't been able to examine scientifically. Wnt (talk) 00:17, 12 August 2015 (UTC)

How does the study of evolution rule out God? That jump from "observing how life works" to "attacking the notion of a supreme being" makes absolutely no sense. 209.149.114.32 (talk) 18:16, 13 August 2015 (UTC)

Translate in italian

Sorry, i'm italian, and i don't speak english very well. Someone of you can translate this in italian, the definition about the wavelengths i intend. Thank you so much anticipatly. --95.232.155.109 (talk) 13:59, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

Have you read the Italian Wikipedia article, spettro elettromagnetico, which contains a very similar picture? Nimur (talk) 14:35, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

The pictures are similar, but not the captions. --79.51.163.197 (talk) 18:09, 9 August 2015 (UTC)

These captions explain how the energy for each wavelength is absorbed by the human body. This information is explained in Italian at: trasparenza e traslucenza: assorbimento della luce nei solidi, and penetrazione della radiazione ionizzante nella materia, and Radiobiologia: effetti delle radiazioni ionizzanti.

Nimur (talk) 01:48, 10 August 2015 (UTC)