This is a good article for those who have difficulty with how genetics supports evolution.  The concept of people being "related" to one another through family lines is just a microcosm of species being related, such as humans and chimps.

LONDON (Reuters) - Police could one day predict the surname of male suspects or victims of crime from DNA alone, researchers said on Wednesday.

Scientists at Leicester University, where DNA fingerprinting was invented in 1984, said they had demonstrated that men with the same surname were highly likely to be genetically linked.

The finding could help genealogy researchers as well detectives investigating crimes using traces of DNA found in blood, hair, saliva or semen.

The technique is based on analysing DNA from the Y chromosome that imparts maleness and which, like surnames, is passed down from father to son.

Not surprisingly, the likelihood of a good genetic match depends on the rarity of the name, with the most unusual names having the strongest links.

A study of 2,500 men found that on average there was a 24 percent chance of two men with the same surname sharing a common ancestor but this increased to nearly 50 percent when the surname was rare.

Over 70 percent of men with surnames such as Attenborough and Swindlehurst shared the same or near identical Y chromosome types.

"The fact that such a strong link exists between surname and Y chromosome type has a potential use in forensic science, since it suggests that, given large databases of names and Y chromosome profiles, surname prediction from DNA alone may be feasible," said Turi King, who will present her research at a lecture on Wednesday.

(Reporting by Ben Hirschler; Editing by Matthew Jones.)

Link:  http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20081009/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_science_surnames

Do You Want to Believe? (broadcast Friday, October 3rd, 2008)

New research indicates that in situations in which a person is not in control, they're more likely to spot patterns where none exist, see illusions, and believe in conspiracy theories. In a series of experiments, researchers created situations in which people had less control over their situation, and then tested how likely the participants were to see imaginary images embedded in snowy pictures. The researchers also had participants write about either a situation in which they had control, or a situation in which they didn't, and then presented stories involving strange coincidences. People who had written about a situation in which they were not in control were more likely to draw non-existent connections between the coincidences, the researchers found.

"People see false patterns in all types of data, imagining trends in stock markets, seeing faces in static, and detecting conspiracies between acquaintances. This suggests that lacking control leads to a visceral need for order – even imaginary order," said Jennifer Whitson, one of the authors of the report. We'll talk with her about the finding and what it means. Teachers, find more information about using Science Friday as a classroom resource in the Kids' Connection.

Guests
Jennifer Whitson
Assistant Professor
Department of Management
McCombs School of Business, The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas

Related Links
Segment produced by:Charles Bergquist


http://www.sciencefriday.com/program/archives/200810037

No problem.  Not rushing you.  I just didn't want to lose the thoughts I had collected, so I posted them for safe keeping.  You can address them when you can, either individually or in totality.  But each one could result in a lengthy battle.  I'm already less inclined to engage you on this , not because I lack confidence in my position; I don't.  I sort of dread it because I still think you just look at the whole concept of Science from a very different and in my opinion, a very odd angle.  I don't understand your perspective and I don't see how it applies to practical science.  There seems little point in my trying to convince you how misguided you are, but I can't resist pointing out how poor these arguments are.  They hold less water than a pasta strainer, yet for some strange reason you seem to believe they actually make sense.  To me this is just confounding.  I just don't get how you can add 2 + 2 and come up with 83.

This actually goes back to something I posted on another forum, under similar circunstances.  I and becoming more convinced that theists just have difference brain chemistry.  I'm actually thinking it's time for some research on this concept.  I'm hypothesizing that whether or not one will find value and comfort in religion has more to do with your brain and genetics than anything else.  I think there is a real physiological difference here.

Again, sorry for the delay JD but with this move I have been unusually busy. Tell you what, I should have some time on Tuesday afternoon and I hope to post something then. Be patient though, I am still getting the internet turned on in the new house (having a hard time finding a service that is actually high speed and decently priced, living in Raleigh spoiled me) and so I'll be on and off with my connection until I get everything squared away.

And finally, point #4:

Drat says:


I find it amazing that you would use this as an argument to refute the basis of Science.  Are you seriously telling me that you don’t recognize a rhetorical (and even patronizing) argument when you hear one?  When an evolutionist makes this kind of statement, he is appealing to what he hopes is a small degree of intelligence in a Creationism opponent, who claims that “god” created all of the earth to perfection.  To the biologist, biology doesn’t look at all perfect, and if “god” really did create things, then why do we observe all these design problems?  This is nothing but a rhetorical argument, usually wasted on a True Believer.

If you insist on holding Darwin or other biologists to such statements as an appeal to “god”, then you are insisting that they couch all their ideas in non-metaphorical statements.  You are basically asking them to refrain from imaginative or colorful language.  It's this kind of demand that perpetuates the absurd notion that scientists are unimaginative, dry, stuffy old men in white lab coats that have lots of book sense but no common sense.

At this point, you have driven far off course from my original question.  It’s really an attempt to redefine Science in such a way that makes it vulnerable to your argument.  But Science does not need this redefinition; I already understand how it works from both a philosophical and a practical perspective.  You have not shown me how supernaturalism or “gods” can be incorporated into the Scientific Method in a way that can produce reliable, verifiable results.  You need to come down off your philosophical high horse and discuss this in terms of practicality, from the viewpoint of a researcher looking into a legitimate and important problem.  So far I would characterize your efforts a classic Christian apologetics.  Just meaningless diversions that have little to do with the real world of Science.



I’m not sure my question is a legitimate one for someone like you, drat.  So far you have merely proposed assertions that suggest that Science is not so different from other endeavors that seek to improve mankind or illuminate our world.  Is that what you are asserting, or am I totally misreading this?  If I’m right and you are, then once again we find ourselves on opposite sides of a chasm.  Realistically and philosophically, I see Science as very different from pseudo-science and religions.  They are as different as night and day, and I don’t think any scientist would disagree with this.  Of course, theists might disagree, but so long as this is based on their philosophical assertions, I don’t see any validity to such arguments.  I believe it’s good to understand how others think, especially those who disagree.  But at the end of the day, if there is work to be done, it must be done by those who agree on methods.  Science works for scientists just as I’ve explained it here.  If theists seriously wish to change the way Science works, it’s up to them to provide the mechanism for such change.  And until they do, Science will continue to work as it has for hundreds of years.  My biggest grief in this is that theists continue to reap the same benefits from Science as non-theists, despite their continued attacks against it.

Here's my refutation of point #3:

Drat says:


Ok, let me get this straight.  You are saying that SETI “appeals to actions, motives, beliefs, and intentions of an intelligent agent”?  To begin with, SETI is an acronym for Search for Extra-Terrestrial Intelligence.  It IS the search for intelligent beings.  But that is not congruent to an appeal to an intelligence.  In SETI, the “intelligence” we are searching for does not influence our methodologies for searching in any way, nor does it influence the conclusions.  We don’t even assume that this intelligence exists.  What we have done is hypothesize that IF an intelligence exists, then it is likely that they will have produced observable signals that propogate into space.  SETI is a search for these signals which, if they exist, suggest that another intelligence produced them.  The only thing that makes this different from searching for water on Mars is that the water is not intelligent.  So, you have completley mischaracterized the meaning of SETI and what it says about how science works.

Consider this analogy; the Ivory Billed Woodpecker (IBW).  Many birders spend significant time and money searching for this bird, which is commonly believed to be extinct.  They listen for it’s calls, look for evidence of its nesting and probably even look for feathers or carcasses.  So, is this serach for the IBW also an appeal to an “intelligent agent”?  What you seem to be confusing here is the methodology and the objective.  The objective doesn’t define what is and is not Science; the methodology is what defines Science.  In fact, even though paranormal phemonenon such as ESP are patently pseudo-science, many real scientists have used very real methods to evaluate supposed ESP practictioners.  This is why people like John Edwards and Sylvia Browne avoid the likes of James Randi like the plague.  They KNOW how Randi works; that he uses methodological naturalism (Science) and they know that what they do won’t stand up to such scrutiny.  So, applying the Scientific Method to supposed supernatural phenomena does not in any way change what Science is.  What it does do is expose such people as Edwards as frauds

Actually, this is an ideal field for you to explain how the supernatural should be incorporated into science.  Edwards swears that he really does speak to the dead.  Well, if he does, this should be very easy to verify, right?  I can think of lots of ways to test this idea.  Why not put it to the test, right?  But Edwards insists that if put under Scientific scrutiny, his powers would be elusive and impossible to verify.  Whoa!  What’s that?  They can’t be verified?  They can’t  be objectively observed?  So, what he’s saying is that his powers cannot are immune to Science?  So, if Science is of no use, then how are we to determine if Edwards is for real or just a very good con artist?  Are you seeing my point yet?  Do YOU believe Edwards is for real?

Archaeology?  I don’t see how this appeals to an “intelligent agent”.

Forensic Science?  Again, I fail to see how forensics appeals to an “intelligent agent”.

Historical sciences?  Same thing, don’t see how this applies.

The problem with the appeal assertion is that once you’ve introduced some unknown “intelligence” as the source of a cause, you are done.  There’s no more you can do because you can’t observe or measure this “intelligence”.  You MAY be able to observe strange phenomena that you can’t explain with the known laws of the universe, but if you attribute this to some supernatural force, then where do you go from there?  How do you observe?  How do you measure?  How do you verify?  Your work is done.  You know virtually nothing about this “force”.  You can postulate a model for how it works or what it does, but such attempts will ultimately fail because claiments can always argue that their’s is a special case.  And how can you argue with them? (think of John Edwards)  What you come down to is a conclusion such as this: “My theory just works....except when it doesn’t”.

OK, it appears that drat has taken an extended leave of this forum.  So, I will go ahead and post my refutations of points 2 - 4 regarding science and supernaturalism.  This is just so I don't forget them myself and also I want others to be able to see why these assertions are poor.  Drat can respond to them when he has the time.

As for point #2:

Drat says:


I did a little research on Ruse; had not heard of him before.  It seems that his major involvement here is a court case in Arkansas regarding the teaching of Creationism in public schools.  Now, I have a problem with using this as a yardstick for the definition of science because he was focused on defining what qualifies as science education, but what we’re talking about is a little different.  I’m asking how one can conduct scientific work and incorporate supernaturalism, or gods, into that work in a meaningful way that does not invalidate the results.  However, I do agree with Ruse’s set of criteria.  I mean, what’s wrong with it?  Can you list which criteria you disagree with and why, and list other criteria that you feel he left out?

Next you express concern that “some” segments of science cannot follow these criteria.  On the surface this seems like nit picking, so I think you should flesh out what you mean by listing some specific areas of science that you believe do not conform to these criteria.  And please try to stick with core Sciences if you can.  It would be very easy to spiral into tanget arguments over what is and is not pure science, and that’s not at all what I’m talking about.  The application of Science is prone to all manner of human frailties.  I’m sure that a nimble mind could manufacture an almost infinite number of niche components of Science that can’t be adequately described by these criteria.  But we’re not talking about these niches; we’re talking about the core Sciences and how they could incorporate supernaturalism in a meaningful way.

You also mention that non-scientific fields of inquiry incorporate some of the same criteria as science.  Well, sure this is true, but how is it relevant?  Any given criteria may apply to any field without influencing one another.  It is the specific combination of criteria that makes Science, “Science”.  You could just as easily say that car sales are quantifiable; therefore we can’t use “quantifiable” as a measure of science.  NONSENSE!  That’s very poor logic and isn’t far off from the same silly reasoning that paranormal proponents use.  If Astrology utilizes the quantification of star positions, does that make it a Science?  Of course not!  But neither does it disqualify the valuable data of star positions which is applicable to Astronomy, which is a real science.  In fact, the two fields could be using the very same data, but for very different purposes, one scientific, the other distinctly un-scientific.

You are just so hard headed about evolution, I just don’t understand it.  Why can’t you agree that evaluating something from various methods is a valid form of falsification?  It works in just about every other aspect of life, so why not science?  We can’t re-run the whole of biological evolution in a lab, but that does not disqualify it from falsification.  Every single piece of the theory has been tested and verified in various ways.  There are no absolutely held “beliefs” of evolution that have not been verified in some way. 

Here’s an analogy of your philosophy:  I say the Giants won the 2008 Superbowl.  You say this is not falsifiable.  I check various sources on the Internet; they all agree.  I check out papers in the library; they agree.  I take a poll of 1000 people who attended the game; 98% of them agree.  I check with the NFL, the Giants organization and the Patriots organization, and all three of them agree.  Every member of the Giant’s organization is observed wearing a Superbowl Championship ring, but none of the Patriots were.  I say I have significant evidence that the Giants won and you say, “But you can’t go back in time and replay the game.”  Now, the question is not are we 100% certain who won the game.  The question is whether I used a reliable, verifiable, repeatable, quantifiable method for coming to this conclusion.  And I did.  Virtually any human being can repeat every evaluation; that makes it repeatable, verifiable and objective.  I carefully quantified all of my observations.  Of course there may be a few hard core Patriot fans who insist that the game was a farce or that the officials were on the take, and therefore the game was invalid, or that the score was misreported.  But taken as a whole, all the data available, these kinds of anomalies can reasonably be considered noise and it would be patently retarded to conclude that the Patriots actually won the game. 

How does this relate to Evolution?  Simple.  Evolutionary Theory is a very well supported theory.  There is documented, verified, objective evidence in a great number of fields--and growing!  There is no evidence that directly refutes the theory and the overwhelming consensus of scientists around the world is that the theory is sound and extremely convincing, given the preponderance of the evidence.  Not a single evolutionary biologist claims that this is absolute knowledge or that they made up their mind on it regardless of the evidence.  Their decision to support it comes from objective analysis of the evidence.  If someone has an issue with Evolutionary Theory, what they have to do is to find a weak link and exploit it.  They have to find a component of the theory that can be demonstrated to be wrong and go to work.  That means finding evidence that refutes it, and it must be evidence that can be objectively evalutated and verified.  Repeat this with enough of the evidence of Evolution and the whole theory will eventually collapse.  So far, creationists just haven't done this, and aren't likely to because they don't don't do Science.  They typically just pick a position and claim that Evolution cannot be true because (whatever fallacy).  No science to back it up, just opinion and theology.

How Randomness Rules Our World and Why We Cannot See It
Part two of a series of articles on the neuroscience of chance
By Michael Shermer


Imagine that you are a contestant on the classic television game show Let’s Make a Deal. Behind one of three doors is a brand-new automobile. Behind the other two are goats. You choose door number one. Host Monty Hall, who knows what is behind all three doors, shows you that a goat is behind number two, then inquires: Would you like to keep the door you chose or switch? Our folk numeracy—our natural tendency to think anecdotally and to focus on small-number runs—tells us that it is 50–50, so it doesn’t matter, right?

Wrong. You had a one in three chance to start, but now that Monty has shown you one of the losing doors, you have a two-thirds chance of winning by switching. Here is why. There are three possible three-doors configurations: (1) good, bad, bad; (2) bad, good, bad; (3) bad, bad, good. In (1) you lose by switching, but in (2) and (3) you can win by switching. If your folk numeracy is still overriding your rational brain, let’s say that there are 10 doors: you choose door number one, and Monty shows you door numbers two through nine, all goats. Now do you switch? Of course, because your chances of win­­ning increase from one in 10 to nine in 10. This type of counterintuitive problem drives people to innumeracy, including mathematicians and statisticians, who famously upbraided Marilyn vos Savant when she first presented this puzzle in her Parade magazine column in 1990.

The “Monty Hall Problem” is just one of many probability puzzles physicist Leonard Mlodinow of the California Institute of Technology pre­sents in his delightfully entertaining new book The Drunkard’s Walk (Pantheon, 2008). His title employs the metaphor (sometimes called the “random walk”) to draw an analogy between “the paths molecules follow as they fly through space, incessantly bumping, and being bumped by, their sister molecules,” and “our lives, our paths from college to career, from single life to family life, from first hole of golf to eighteenth.” Although countless random collisions tend to cancel one another out because of the law of large numbers—where improbable events will probably happen given enough time and opportunity—every once in a great while, “when pure luck occasionally leads to a lopsided preponderance of hits from some particular direction ... a noticeable jiggle occurs.” We notice the improbable directional jiggle but ignore the zillions of meaningless and counteracting collisions.

In the Middle Land of our ancient evolutionary environment, which I introduced in Part 1 of this column last month, our brains never evolved a probability network, and thus our folk intuitions are ill equipped to deal with many aspects of the modern world. Although our intuitions can be useful in dealing with other people and social relationships (which evolved as common and important for a social primate species such as ours when we were struggling to survive in the harsh environs of the Paleolithic), they are misleading when it comes to such probabilistic problems as gambling.

Let’s say you are playing the roulette wheel and you hit five reds in a row. Should you stay with red because you are on a “hot streak,” or should you switch because black is “due”? It doesn’t matter, because the roulette wheel has no memory, yet gamblers notoriously employ both the “hot streak fallacy” and the “dueness fallacy,” much to the delight of casino owners.

Additional random processes and our folk numeracy about them abound. The “law of small numbers,” for example, causes Hollywood studio executives to fire successful producers after a short run of box-office bombs, only to discover that the subsequent films under production during the producer’s reign became blockbusters after the firing. Athletes who appear on Sports Illustrated’s cover typically experience career downturns, not because of a jinx but because of the “regression to the mean,” where the exemplary performance that landed them on the cover is itself a low-probability event that is difficult to repeat.

Extraordinary events do not always require extraordinary causes. Given enough time, they can happen by chance. Knowing this, Mlodinow says, “we can improve our skill at decision making and tame some of the biases that lead us to make poor judgments and poor choices ... and we can learn to judge decisions by the spectrum of potential outcomes they might have produced rather than by the particular result that actually occurred.” Embrace the random. Find the pattern. Know the difference.

When we feel like we don't have command of our own fate, our brains often invent patterns that offer a sense of self-control. Some folks knock on wood or step over cracks in the sidewalk. Scientists call this illusory pattern perception. Work published in the October 3rd issue of the journal Science offers a look inside our heads as they try to make us feel less helpless.

Researchers from the University of Texas at Austin devised six experiments to test students' reactions to different situations of uncertainty. One experiment mimicked the stock market, while another asked students to search for images in television static. Time and again, students saw images where there were none and found stock patterns that didn't exist. The authors then asked students to perform self-affirmation exercises instead of looking for external design. These exercises calmed them and increased their capacity to see, well, reality. But if you're not changing your socks or shaving because it clearly helps your favorite team, go right ahead. Some unkempt fan in Tampa Bay has to be the reason behind the Rays winning the American League East.

—Adam Hinterthuer

I decided to revisit this particular post because it shows a true lack of understanding of the empirical model.



The problem here is that it is hopelssly simplistic, maybe to make a point, I don't know.  But if that is so, then the point is lost because the observance of an apple falling to the ground and the development of a theory of gravity is not the whole enchelada.  It might be enough to inspire one to think about the question, but eventually one has to find other applications of his theory and must test his theory against those other applications.  In the case of gravity, the most obvious applications are the planetary motions.  And Newton's ideas explained them very, very well.  Not only that, but it allows plenty of opportunity for testing one's theory.  I'm not sure if Aristotle could have applied his ideas to planetary motion given his lack of the tools of astronomy and empirical data, so Newton had a distinct advantage.  But in any case, the telos idea most likely lacked sufficient detail to account for things like distance, mass and motion, all of which are considered in Newtonian physics.  So, ultimately this is just a poor comparison.  One is sort of the beginning of understanding a natural phenomenon, the other is the (almost) full explanation.  And, of course, we learn later that even Newton's theory wasn't complete or perfect.  And again, it was planetary motion (empirical evidence) that was used to test the new modifications of the theory.

But it seems odd that you would say that either theory appealed to something "beyond" the empirical evidence.  That isn't so.  Observation is what inspired Newton, and probably Aristotle as well.  Sure, Newton postulated that an invisible "force" was the cause of these observations, but it was because of the empirical data, most notably the planetary motions.  Why didn't planets just whiz around willy, nilly?  Why did they orbit the sun?  Why was their motion so predictible?  Because of an unseen force.  Could this force be described and characterized?  Yes, Newton found that it could and that it acted in a very predictible manner with the only variables being mass, distance and velocity.  Newton put a face on his invisible force, and it wasn't anything intelligent.  It was just a dumb force acting predictibly.  Thinking about this more, if Aristotle had continued his work and had the tools later available to Astronomers, he would likely have ended up in the same place.  And ultimately it doesn't matter what you call this "force", gravity or telos or even Fred, it works in ways that are predictible and can be easily represented by mathematical equations.  The more I think about it, the more I see that it only makes sense that someone would postulate that something "inside" two bodies is actually pulling them together (as Aristotle believed).  He was right!  The mass of each body, combined with their distance, dictates this attractive force.

Drat, it seems to me that the more you try to cast doubt on empiricism and the scientific method, the more you genuinely confirm that those things are dead on the money.