Show Notes:: The Junk of a Fallacy (Pt 3) - Random Chance

So, two weeks ago I left off with my "KISS" it

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Let's look at each in a bit more detail

First up, Random Chance

And this is a point Michael (my initial adversary) alludes to, a common trope among the ID crowd, "order and information don't just come together by randomness and chance."  Well sir, last I looked I was not slammed together like the 747 or in your case a computer code. I am the product of my parental lineage which operated according to five principles of natural selection.  Which are, [1]

[I will be hitting the idea of "no new information" in a separate segment as it is a topic unto itself.]
 
Chance does plays a part in Evolution (ie. the random mutations that can give rise to new traits), but evolution does not depend on it. Natural selection, harnesses nonrandom change by preserving "desirable" features and eliminating "undesirable" ones.  [Again the oft twisted notion of "survival of the fittest"] As long as the forces of selection stay constant, natural selection can push evolution forward. [2]

http://image.slidesharecdn.com/evolutionandnaturalselectionwhms2012-121025115835-phpapp02/95/evolution-and-natural-selection-powerpoint-13-638.jpg?cb=1382441321

The most excellent example of this is HBD Kettlewell's 1952 Peppered Moth experiment: [1,3]

The classic case study of natural selection was recorded by H. B. D. Kettlewell in 1952. In a most interesting experiment, he concluded that an environmental influence, predation by birds, affected the total number of reproducing moths depending on their color. Kettlewell was working at Oxford University at the time and discovered a shard of information from the 1840s, 100 years earlier, that noted the first appearance of a dark morph of the peppered moth. Until that time, only white or pepper-colored moths had been observed. He connected the dates with the onset of heavy industrial output in that area. He also knew that the factories at that time and in his time produced [lots of] daily clouds of black smoke heavily laden with soot. He also knew that the peppered moths were common all over England; they were nocturnal and hid on tree trunks during the day; they were preyed upon by many species of birds. He hypothesized that the birds were preying upon the moths that were less camouflaged and therefore easier to see. In so doing, they were favoring the one morph type over another, which created uneven reproductive rates that favored an increase in one type of moth over the others.

,,,Those moths best adapted to the environment survived and reproduced; the others did not. Kettlewell's experiment is an example of how environmental pressures can determine the characteristics of species.

So taking the 5 basic principles of natural selection as outlined prior and comparing to Kettlewell's experiment this is what we see:

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What is interesting to note, as pointed out in my class on Genetics and Evolution [4], this genetic melanism continued until around 1980s, when the Clear Air Acts in 1956 and 1968 began to have an impact.  Instead of the dark morph, the peppered color is again the predominant. [5]

Another classic example would be Darwin's Finches. [6]  And I know y'all are familiar with this one.

http://photos1.blogger.com/blogger/6448/1315/1600/finches.0.gif

What Darwin discovered, with the assistance of ornithologist John Gould, these birds (14 different specimens), "although nearly identical in all other ways to mainland finches, had different beaks. Their beaks had adapted to the type of food they ate in order to fill different niches on the Galapagos Islands. Their isolation on the islands over long periods of time made them undergo speciation."   What Darwin had to say: [7]

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And finally, if you want to see NS in action, one needs to look no further than your medicine cabinet and take note of what is no longer there - Penicillin. [8]

From the time of discovery through WWII, penicillin was the "miracle drug" in fighting staph bacteria.  By 1947 the first resistant strain of staph was discovered; by the 1960s, 80% of staph isolates were resistant to penicillin.  Now, well virtually all the strains out there are resistant to penicillin.

http://ccat.sas.upenn.edu/goldenage/state/images/thanks_penicillin_sm.jpg

My battle with MRSA finally ended after 18 months of hell because of this adaptation by bacteria.  Three different antibiotics and one messed up belly, I have been MRSA free almost 2 years.  I did have one minor flair but that was thankfully dispatched quickly.

[FYI::As some may be aware, I am diabetic which at times can weaken my immune system hence I am prone to what is called CA-MRSA - Community Associated MRSA.  Although not a "serious" as the newsworthy cases, as it usually is confined to localized skin infection, it can be a fairly substantial battle.  My first bout was a case in point as I have a 1" scar in my armpit where a drainage hole was inserted.  Needless to say it was gross and I felt like shit for 3 months.]

One final important note concerning "chance", natural selection is a measurement "across a population and through generations. If a creationist someone starts talking about natural selection being random and pointing out individual responses to the environment, then we might not be talking about the same evolutionary mechanism anymore. Everything that happens within evolution is happening to populations. Individuals do not evolve. So natural selection is the differential survival of individuals (or genes, depending on your perspective), but it is measured through time and within the context of a population. [9]

An overly simplified explanation using the "Blueprint Analogy":

What I hope to have provided is 3 solid refutations to the notion that Evolution by Natural Selection is just "chance". [10]

NOTES:
[1]  http://www.infoplease.com/cig/biology/natural-selection.html Excerpted from The Complete Idiot's Guide to Biology (2004), Glen E. Moulton, Ed.D. 

[2]  http://www.scientificamerican.com/article/15-answers-to-creationist/

[3]  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kettlewell%27s_experiment

[4]  Class notes: Introduction to Genetics and Evolution w/ Dr. Mohamed Noor, Lecture 1.1:  What is Evolution? https://www.coursera.org/learn/genetics-evolution/home/welcome

[5]  According to AIG, Ken Ham's racket, there is some "controversy" surrounding Kettlewell's experiment.  We may explore that a we bit next week.  https://answersingenesis.org/natural-selection/peppered-moth-again/

[6]  http://evolution.about.com/od/Darwin/a/Charles-Darwins-Finches.htm

[7]  Darwin's Journal of researches into the natural history and geology of the countries visited during the voyage of H.M.S. Beagle round the world, under the Command of Capt. Fitz Roy, now known as Voyage of the Beagle, 379-380  http://darwin-online.org.uk/content/frameset?viewtype=text&itemID=F14&pageseq=392

How Darwin describes the findings,

The remaining land-birds form a most singular group of finches, related to each other in the structure of their beaks, short tails, form of body and plumage: there are thirteen species, which Mr. Gould has divided into four subgroups. All these species are peculiar to this archipelago; and so is the whole group, with the exception of one species of the sub-group Cactornis, lately brought from Bow Island, in the Low Archipelago. Of Cactornis, the two species may be often seen climbing about the flowers of the great cactus-trees; but all the other species of this group of finches, mingled together in flocks, feed on the dry and sterile ground of the lower districts. The males of all, or certainly of the greater number, are jet black; and the females (with perhaps one or two exceptions) are brown. The most curious fact is the perfect gradation in the size of the beaks in the different species of Geospiza, from one as large as that of a hawfinch to that of a chaffinch, and (if Mr. Gould is right in including his sub-group, Certhidea, in the main group) even to that of a warbler. The largest beak in the genus Geospiza is shown in Fig. 1, and the smallest in Fig. 3; but instead of there being only one intermediate species, with a beak of the size shown in Fig. 2, there are no less than six species with insensibly graduated beaks. The beak of the sub-group Certhidea, is shown in Fig. 4. The beak of Cactornis is somewhat like that of a starling, and that of the fourth subgroup, Camarhynchus, is slightly parrot-shaped. Seeing this gradation and diversity of structure in one small, intimately related group of birds, one might really fancy that from an original paucity of birds in this archipelago, one species had been taken and modified for different ends. In a like manner it might be fancied that a bird originally a buzzard, had been induced here to undertake the office of the carrion-feeding Polybori of the American continent.

For a more modern take on Darwin's finches, ie science never stops seeking answers

Darwin's finches are a classic example of species diversification by natural selection. Their impressive variation in beak morphology is associated with the exploitation of a variety of ecological niches, but its developmental basis is unknown. We performed a comparative analysis of expression patterns of various growth factors in species comprising the genus Geospiza. http://science.sciencemag.org/content/305/5689/1462.abstract

Researchers at Harvard Medical School have taken the story one step further. Using modern genetic analyses, they found a molecule that regulates genes involved in shaping the beaks of Darwin finches. "Calmodulin is a protein that binds and activates certain enzymes, which triggers a signal that eventually turns specific genes on or off," explains Arkhat Abzhanov, an evolutionary biologist at Harvard. These signals alter the behavior of cells responsible for beak sculpturing.  http://news.harvard.edu/gazette/2006/08.24/31-finches.html and http://www.nature.com/nature/journal/v442/n7102/abs/nature04843.html

[8]  Class notes: Introduction to Genetics and Evolution w/ Dr. Mohamed Noor, Lecture 1.3:  Acceptance of Evolution  https://www.coursera.org/learn/genetics-evolution/home/welcome

[9]  http://forthesakeofscience.com/2011/02/20/is-natural-selection-random/

[10] Adam Lee has a very nice explanation as to why the JA of chance is such bunk.  What I really like is his summation:  http://www.patheos.com/blogs/daylightatheism/essays/why-evolution-isnt-chance/

But evolution itself is a science, and like all sciences, it tells us only what is, not what should be. It is a description of one particular aspect of reality, and that is all it is. It would be foolish to use it in an attempt to derive a moral code, a purpose for our lives, a meaning to life, or any such thing. Those things do not fall within the realm of science, and science will not give us answers to them; it is up to us as individuals to decide that for ourselves. Some people seek answers to these questions through religion, while others find them through other paths.

When creationists say that one who accepts evolution must believe that life is nothing but the result of random chance, they are abusing the theory. In the scientific sense, this conclusion leaves out the most important part of the entire theory, and in the metaphysical sense, this is a deceptive attempt to derive from the theory an explanation of something it was never meant to explain. Evolution does not tell us that our life is the purposeless result of chance; it does not say anything on the topic at all. Either way, the creationists’ conclusion is flatly inaccurate. Their strategy is to tar evolution with offensive-sounding implications and turn people away from it regardless of the evidence, but this fallacious attack will always wither before the truth.

Other Images Used:
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http://images.dailytech.com/nimage/Charles_Darwin_Wide.jpg
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Biston.betularia.f.carbonaria.7209.jpg
http://plaidcircuitry.com/computational_thinking/images/pepper-moth-line-graph.png
http://www.topsecretwriters.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/penicillin.jpg
https://jonarnefoss.files.wordpress.com/2010/12/penicillin-vk-500mg.jpg