# Museum exhibit to show dinosaurs and man co-existing **URL:** \ **Category:** The BBQ Pit\ **Created:** [January 3, 2005, 12:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756 "2005-01-03T00:02:59Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 11
**Author:** ![Skywatcher](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/skywatcher/32/254_2.png) [@Skywatcher](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Skywatcher)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/201 "2005-01-05T19:37:58Z")
> [@gobear](#): > > Still Mr. Ham and the AIG are johnny-come-latelys to the creationist museums biz; Kent “Dr. Dino” Hovind has one in his back [yard](http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1127748/posts) That article spawned two [pit](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=254020&highlight=kent+hovind) [threads](http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=254069&highlight=kent+hovind) about said yard. ---
**Author:** ![Boldface\_Type](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@Boldface\_Type](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boldface_Type)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 7:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/202 "2005-01-05T19:38:57Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Sorry, but natural selection doesn’t shape anything either. It isn’t something that does something. It simply is. Sigh. You are attempting to piss on a semantic tree. Unfortunately, the tree is dead. Natural selection shapes (ha! literally!) the creatures (and plants) on this planet. I.e., selection determines what aspects of a (population) of creatures tend to be passed on to future generations. It is your own ‘special’ definition that says natural selection ‘just is’. You seem to be defining natural selection as ‘things reproduce’ whereas the conventional definition is something like ‘things reproduce and the Good Shit tends to be passed on to the progeny, the Bad Shit tends not to be’. > [@](#): > > Well, pigs fly in a sense, I suppose, if you define fly to mean “wallow in mud”. I think your pig just drowned. Let me try in shorter sentences: Selection for strongly maternal behaviour is generally advantageous. Nevertheless, strongly maternal characteristics can sometimes lead to deleterious behaviours. Selection is not a way one street - overspecialisation can occur. > [@](#): > > For natural selection to fail, it would be necessary that those who are the best adapted to their environment be not the best adapted to their environment. Nope - Again, you are back to pissing up the semantic tree, deceased, using your own unique definition of natural selection. For natural selection to ‘fail’, it would be necessary for the nominally ‘best’ characteristics to not be passed on over successive generations. I.e., you would need to demonstrate that successive populations were not becoming better adapted to their environment. (There are complications in that the adaptation is only passed on if it has a genuine effect on reproductive success). > [@](#): > > Those are not the same. Being well suited and adapting are not the same. Man is not well suited to live in Minnesota, but he adapts anyway. Man adapts to life in Minnesota by wearing clothes. Natural selection adapts man to life in Minnesota by tending to select fluffy people, or whatever. I’ve described a real experiment one could do to try to disprove the universality of natural selection. Natural selection is testable, and indeed well tested. The Great Magic Pixie that Makes People is not so well tested, or testable, although he does have a very fetching hat. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [January 5, 2005, 8:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/203 "2005-01-05T20:06:48Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > No, they aren’t. Natural selection is the mechanism by which individuals who are best adapted to their environment survive, and therefore progenerate. I have to believe that you are being deliberately obtuse here. Natural selection is the mechanism by which adaptation arises in the first place. It is not a statement that those who are best adapted are best adapted; it is a statement that given a particular environment, there will be a set of trait variations which allow the best chance of survival for a given population. The environment establishes the parameters, and NS is the process whereby a population’s traits come to match those parameters. > [@](#): > > Then why are you picking at my definition of natural selection? Mine is the same as yours. No, it isn’t. My definition is not tautological. > [@](#): > > For every individuated entity that survives, it is impossible — metaphysically impossible — to deny that the entity was best suited for its environment. It, after all, _survived_. As noted, NS has squat to do with _individuals_. It is a statistical, population-level phenomenon. Those individuals who possess certaing variations are _more likely_ to pass on those traits, but there is no guarantee for any individual implicit in the workings of NS. Further, simply surviving doesn’t accomplish anything. It must reproduce, and at least some of those offspring must reproduce, etc. An individual who survives everything nature throws at it, but never reproduces is an evolutionary failure. Even if he does reproduce, but all of his offpsring die, he’ still a failure. Again, it is not the individual that matters; it is the trend of the population that does. > [@](#): > > And if my grandmother had balls, she’d be my grandfather. It is impossible for natural selection to fail because dead things don’t reproduce, but alive things do. Which has what to do with anything? Mere survival is insufficient to claim that NS is at work. Not even survival + reproduction is sufficient. Natural selection can fail if it is as I said: if it shown that allele frequencies within any given population vary independently of any external factors (that is, are unaffected by anything in the environment), then natural selection most certainly fails. How does that render NS unfalsifiable? ---
**Author:** ![Apos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/838e76/32.png) [@Apos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Apos)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/204 "2005-01-06T23:42:34Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Only if we carefully did not inadvertently select for something - in which case we would be practicing artifcial selection with inheritence by cloning rather than sexual or asexual reproduction. My example, of course is simply that the dead would not be reproductively penalized for dying before they could reproduce. Obviously it’s more of an ideal situation than a realistic one. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 6, 2005, 11:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/205 "2005-01-06T23:59:48Z")
**Liberal** : What a mess. I’ve seen religious folk purposefully twist the definition of natural selection so that they can have something to argue against… that, or make mistakes and claim that _their_ mistakes somehow invalidate evolution/natural selection. Populations evolve. Allelic frequency changes in gene pools. If you doubt this, invest in a colony of fruit flies, or some E coli and ampicilin laced agar cultures, etc … Moreover, natural selection is not the only mechanism which shapes population dynamics. Sexual selection, the founder effect, etc, all play a role. I mean, damn, look at dogs and the effect that selective breeding has had. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 2:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/206 "2005-01-07T14:46:43Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > It IS possible, and I explained how. Being stubborn is not making an argument, Liberal. You’ve resorted to covering your ears and going “nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah.” I made an argument as well. Your argument was merely epistemic. Mine was metaphysical. > [@](#): > > [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticism](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falsifiability#Criticism) Oh, good lord. You have appealed to the three most famous hacks in science philosophy’s history — Kuhn, Lakatos, and Feyerabend. David Stove (less famous but far more erudite) has roundly debunked them all. Even Popper himself did not escape Stove’s razor. Although giving Popper far more creedence than the others, Stove decimated Popper’s insistence that induction is irrational. It was an unnecessary entity for the principle of falsification. Here’s Stove’s book: [Scientific Irrationalism: Origins of a Postmodern Cult](http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0765800632/qid=1105109167/sr=2-2/ref=pd_ka_b_2_2/103-5922439-4358267) ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 2:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/207 "2005-01-07T14:48:54Z")
> [@Boldface Type](#): > > Sigh… Let me try in shorter sentences. If you think I’m stupid, then you’re an idiot for debating me. I don’t pay attention to posts like that. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/208 "2005-01-07T14:54:33Z")
Liberal, I know you aren’t stupid, but you ARE stubborn. Metaphysical or not, I did not see you refute the FACT that natural selection (as a mechanim for evolution) is falsifiable. Several of us have explained it. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 3:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/209 "2005-01-07T15:04:24Z")
> [@Darwin's Finch](#): > > I have to believe that you are being deliberately obtuse here. You know better than that. > [@](#): > > Natural selection is the mechanism by which adaptation arises in the first place. It is not a statement that those who are best adapted are best adapted; it is a statement that given a particular environment, there will be a set of trait variations which allow the best chance of survival for a given population. The environment establishes the parameters, and NS is the process whereby a population’s traits come to match those parameters. It sounds to me like you’re describing a symbiosis in which things depend on each other for existence. Inasmuch as the living things are merely a part of the environment, how is it metaphysically possible that they NOT be a part of the environment. There is no place else from which trait variations may arise. > [@](#): > > No, it isn’t. My definition is not tautological. Sure, it is. No matter how carefully you continue to reword it, natural selection is an absolutely inescapable natural process. It cannot NOT occur. > [@](#): > > As noted, NS has squat to do with _individuals_. It is a statistical, population-level phenomenon. Those individuals who possess certaing variations are _more likely_ to pass on those traits, but there is no guarantee for any individual implicit in the workings of NS. I understand that. As your friends at Talk Orgins explain, the disposition of individual traits comprise a statistical property of populations of _genes_, not of organisms. Using their example, given identical twins, there is no guarantee that each will equally survive. Sometimes survival depends not on genes but on such things as sheer blind luck. A rock doesn’t fall on a man’s head due to his genetic code. But sets are composed of their elements, and populations are composed of individuals. Everyone posting here is descended from Lucy. > [@](#): > > Further, simply surviving doesn’t accomplish anything. It must reproduce, and at least some of those offspring must reproduce, etc. An individual who survives everything nature throws at it, but never reproduces is an evolutionary failure. Even if he does reproduce, but all of his offpsring die, he’ still a failure. Again, it is not the individual that matters; it is the trend of the population that does. Yes, but you are tilting at windmills. What does any of that have to do with whether or not natural selection cannot possibly be false? > [@](#): > > Which has what to do with anything? Mere survival is insufficient to claim that NS is at work. Not even survival + reproduction is sufficient. Natural selection can fail if it is as I said: if it shown that allele frequencies within any given population vary independently of any external factors (that is, are unaffected by anything in the environment), then natural selection most certainly fails. How does that render NS unfalsifiable? Because it cannot happen. The allele frequencies THEMSELVES are a part of the environment. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 3:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/210 "2005-01-07T15:05:31Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > Liberal, I know you aren’t stupid, but you ARE stubborn. Metaphysical or not, I did not see you refute the FACT that natural selection (as a mechanim for evolution) is falsifiable. Several of us have explained it. A pile-on does not constitute a refutation. I too have made arguments. Perhaps I am not the only stubborn one. ---
**Author:** ![tnetennba](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/7993a0/32.png) [@tnetennba](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tnetennba)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 3:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/211 "2005-01-07T15:08:44Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > A pile-on does not constitute a refutation. I too have made arguments. Perhaps I am not the only stubborn one. The pile on came AFTER the endless explanations and cites. And yes, I will stubbornly stick to the facts, especially after researching the question, talking to a college professor who teaches evolution, and making a decision based on the facts. ---
**Author:** ![Liberal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/848f3c/32.png) [@Liberal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Liberal)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/212 "2005-01-07T15:17:03Z")
> [@cricetus](#): > > The pile on came AFTER the endless explanations and cites. And yes, I will stubbornly stick to the facts, especially after researching the question, talking to a college professor who teaches evolution, and making a decision based on the facts. Endless? 😃 You mean Wikipedia? I too have given cites, including one by a man who might have taught your college professor. I am of the opinion that people can disagree about the interpretations of the same facts. Merely because two men disagree does not mean that only one has tucked the facts under his wing. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/213 "2005-01-07T19:37:51Z")
This is beyond ridiculous. If you want a quick and easy way to falsify selection pressures (and natural selection is just one of them) take a population of dogs. Breed them selectively for ten generations with a specific selection pressure. If there is not an allelic shift in frequency for the population, then selection pressures did not work. Simple, easy. It hasn’t been falsified because it’s pretty much true, there’s just some debate over what the actual mechanics and mathamatics are. Can you admit you’re wrong now? ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 7:56pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/214 "2005-01-07T19:56:20Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > Everyone posting here is descended from Lucy. \ the genetic Eve. We don’t know that Lucy ever reproduced, after all. \ > [@](#): > > Yes, but you are tilting at windmills. What does any of that have to do with whether or not natural selection cannot possibly be false? I’ve always thought the tautology argument is the best one I’ve ever heard against evolution. Not that it is all that great unless you’re hung up on falsifiability, since evolution as whole could be falsified even if NS couldn’t. I actually think the individual versus population argument deals with the tautology issue to my satisfaction - something I learned here. But how about this scenario: say a species has variation decoupled from genetics, kind of like how the sex of alligators is chosed based on temperature. In this case, reproductive success would depend on the perhaps random environment in which the embryo finds itself. However, this will not affect the allele distribution - so this will tend to drift randomly over time, and you would not be able to distinguish the allele distribution of the subpop having reproductive success from those who do not. I admit that this would be an unstable situation, since a mutation that causes a mother to provide a prenatal environment which would provide characteristics that encourage reproductive success would be selected for. Therefore you’d only be likely to see this situation for any reasonable period if the mutation rate were very low. But if we did see this situation for any length of time, (I don’t know how ) it would falsify NS as a mechanism of evolution. [/QUOTE] ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/215 "2005-01-07T20:03:45Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > This is beyond ridiculous. > > If you want a quick and easy way to falsify selection pressures (and natural selection is just one of them) take a population of dogs. Breed them selectively for ten generations with a specific selection pressure. If there is not an allelic shift in frequency for the population, then selection pressures did not work. Nah, that just falsifies artificial selection. 🙂 Just like the creationists, who say life is some mystical thing, are ready to say, if life is made in a test tube some time, that it just shows it can’t happen on its own. I’ve seen this - they’d only be happy if you dump stuff in a test tube and wait ten million years. :rolleyes: I am NOT implying that Lib thinks this, just be make myself clear. ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/216 "2005-01-07T20:14:30Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Nah, that just falsifies artificial selection. No, it falsifies selection. We can quibble and cut it up into ‘natural’ and ‘artificial’ but the actions of another species in the ecosystem are still natural enough, for me at least. In any case, if the mechanism is not sound, it won’t work in controlled conditions or the wild. But it does work. In the case of evolution/NS, if we enforced the same selection pressures as an enviornment or population, we would replicate their effect. That is, if artifical selection works, repeatably, verifiably, falsifiably, then it is reasonable to conclude that by using the same exact mechanisims, other selection pressures would have the same effects. Or, to use a rough n’ ready analogy: If there is a set of gears which can be turned, Pete can turn the gears just as well as Sam. ---
**Author:** ![Voyager](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/voyager/32/133_2.png) [@Voyager](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Voyager)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:30pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/217 "2005-01-07T20:30:05Z")
> [@FinnAgain](#): > > No, it falsifies selection. Damn. I **knew** I should have put a smilie on that. But I have seen the preemptive dismissal of the human creation of life that I mentioned. ---
**Author:** ![Darwins\_Finch](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/darwins_finch/32/20304_2.png) [@Darwins\_Finch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Darwins_Finch)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/218 "2005-01-07T20:40:35Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > It sounds to me like you’re describing a symbiosis in which things depend on each other for existence. Inasmuch as the living things are merely a part of the environment, how is it metaphysically possible that they NOT be a part of the environment. There is no place else from which trait variations may arise. The point is that variations are _selected_ - for or against - and that selection process determines the frequencies in the next generation. If there were no selection, if variation alone drove evolution, the outcome would look quite different from what we see. > [@](#): > > Sure, it is. No matter how carefully you continue to reword it, natural selection is an absolutely inescapable natural process. It cannot NOT occur. Whether or not it cannot not occur is different from it being unfalsifiable. Or, to put it another way, if something is True, then that does not preclude one from coming up with a test to show that it might not be true. Any such test will necessarily fail, however. > [@](#): > > Yes, but you are tilting at windmills. What does any of that have to do with whether or not natural selection cannot possibly be false? I am arguing, here, against your simplistic characterization of natural selection, not its falsifiability. > [@](#): > > Because it cannot happen. The allele frequencies THEMSELVES are a part of the environment. No, they are not. Allele frequencies are nothing more than a measure of prevalence. Unless the alleles are _expressed_, and that expression has a direct effect on the organisms in which it is expressed - an effect which determines the relative likelihood of survival and reproduction - then the number of a given allele in a population cannot possibly be part of the environment. “The environment” is external to an organism. It is the sum of all influences on that organism. Expression of alleles in other organisms will, of course, be part of the environment; the frequency of a given allele, in and of itself, within a population, is not. And I again state that if the ebb and flow of allele frequencies within a population from generation to generation is stochastic in nature, then natural selection is not at work. Easy to test (especially since there are, indeed, instances of such - surely you’ve heard of genetic drift?), therefore falsifiable. Since it has, indeed, been shown that there are, in fact, genes within populations for which the allele frequencies of those genes vary essentially randomly, that would be a pretty good indication that it can be determined whether or not natural selection is at work upon those genes. Clearly, it would not be possible to identify such genes were it the case that NS were unfalsifiable (or, in your words, that “it cannot NOT occur”). ---
**Author:** ![FinnAgain](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/finnagain/32/12500_2.png) [@FinnAgain](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FinnAgain)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 8:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/219 "2005-01-07T20:40:41Z")
> [@Voyager](#): > > Damn. I **knew** I should have put a smilie on that. Ahhhhhh. Sometimes, I hate text. Or: Wooooooooosh! ---
**Author:** ![Boldface\_Type](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/b5e925/32.png) [@Boldface\_Type](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Boldface_Type)\ **Post date:** [January 7, 2005, 11:19pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756/220 "2005-01-07T23:19:35Z")
> [@Liberal](#): > > If you think I’m stupid, It’s something I find hard to falsify. > [@](#): > > then you’re an idiot for debating me. Oh, think of it in running terms: you’re like an easy recovery day. > [@](#): > > I don’t pay attention to posts like that. Your inability to address any substantive points is noted. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756.md?page=10) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/museum-exhibit-to-show-dinosaurs-and-man-co-existing/282756.md?page=12)