Dr. Jay Stephen Gould is famous for his discovery that "If a factor in the envioronment of a species changes so that it affects one in one thousdand of that population it will promote a viable mutation in that species.

Challenge!! Find me the source of that quote. I think you have it wrong.

It will promote the transmission of that mutation to future generations! It will do nothing to encourage the mutation to occur in the first place. This was Darwin's great discovery. Gould and Niles Eldridge are famous for punctuated equilibrium, the idea that species remain in relative stasis while the environment is unchanging and then have periods of relatively rapid evolution during times of change. Darwin never said anything about the rate of change. Remember though that rapid here is still gradual by human time frames, taking many generations. You can imagine this as generally millions of years of stasis and tens of thousands of years for a change. In humans, all of this has been compressed. We've had up to a million years of stasis for some hominins, but generally just a few hundred thousand years. Perhaps the change is in thousands or tens of thousands of years. The exact times are unknown.

Gould is also famous for the idea of Non-Overlapping Magisteria. I disagree with this one, personally.

Speaking of Gould, Darwin, evolution, science, objectivity, and how to think--I thought it would be valuable to track down as close as I could what Gould did say.  My first find is the linked book review.  Quite good I think but I'd have to know Gould better and as a distraction the review is really quite dense.  Dense in a good way.  I'd have to read it a few times very slowly to get all it has to offer.  I'm sure you (Obtuser) could get more out of it more quickly.  We should enjoy disagreeing with a source as much as we do in having our prejudices ((some would say biases)) confirmed?  I'm egotistical enough to think I saw a few criticisms that agreed with me.  But like I said:  dense, in a good way.

http://human-nature.com/nibbs/02/gould.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stephen_Jay_Gould

This link takes some time to read, but gives one the importance of who Dr. Gould was and what he stood for. I did not see that quote I spoke of from memory. Since I can't readily locate that Gould principle amongst his vast amount of published work, I will cite a personally observed case. When Cdn. Prairie farmers switched to raising Canola crops, the Redwing Blackbirds evolved in just a few generations to a Wellowheaded Blackbird which gave them much protection from predator birds like Redtail Hawks when Blackbirds were feeding on insects in the Canola fields in bloom. Canola in bloom looks like a field of butter not plants! Genetically these are still Redwing Blackbirds, but must be a color variant promoted by the need for camoflage. I am not aware of what these birds are like when the Canola is not in bloom. And that would raise the question, when Flax is in bloom, why are these birds not developing a Blue head? Maybe the insect population is not there to feed on, I don't know!

Obtuser--I'm not a science guy, just a casual reader.  Not so casual I don't understand how to read a chart as some would have, but still in my view:  casual.  I don't know, is it "fair" to call mere color changes an "evolution?"  Not to a new species, but no matter what anyone else says, I think it is definitional.  In this case nothing more than what I was taught YEARS ago with the coversion of white moths to black moths at the onset of the industrial revolution.  Surely Gould must be famous for something that wasn't made clear 100 years earlier?

The issue Scott raises with you I can view as one of pure ambiguity, but I'll leave that for you to parse out amount the various species of leafy vegetables.  Call if you want any help?  Nothing like a goof bag of rolling confusion as we try to focus on the very words of our discourse.

Boobboo,
You cannot substitute the word EVOLUTION for the word MUTATION! I won't fall into that trap! Otherwise it is a very fair question to ask is a color change the expression of a mutation? I think it very well maybe, but that is only proven by a comparison of the DNA of both representative specimens.
Take for example the Eastern Meadowlark and the Western Meadowlark. The Westerner has a song that is about 3 times the length of the Eastern "cousin". Geneticists have discovered that both strains have identical DNA, and that the song is a learned thing from the parents.
Some geneticists claim that in Homo sap. there is not enough DNA difference to define more than one race. That is again a color difference amongst other factors such as blood type [there are 10 different type systems, by the way!].
If you read the article, it implied that Dr. Gould was famous for a lot of interesting Science some of which is still controversial. It also points out that there are often several or many schools of thought, especially in subjects like Zoology/Botany. It ranks him as the third most important researcher/publisher/educator behind Darwin.
Another problem reading and absorbing / comprehending such a treatise is difficult for anyone with less than a post graduate level vocabulary. I was struggleing with it.....and a bit bored......so I began to skim, loking for the point I know is somewhere in Gould's writings. The one thing I do trust is that I have an excellent memory for trivia, and that item was the focal point of an article that I read more than 2 decades ago! [come on, bet me I need to win some money! ha ha ]
 As for ambiguity, life is ambiguous, so learn to live with it! In some cases it is deliberate, and not just on my part!
 As for Moths, and indeed many insects, they do mutate much faster it seems than we do, primarily becasue they have so many more generations in the time frame of just weeks, not decades! Monarch butterflies, for example have maybe a dozen generations here in the North before they migrate to Mexico to Winter over. I don't know if they have several generations while in Mexico before the  return migration, but that maybe possible.
 At best the mutations we are talking about may give rise to a new strain or even a new race of a given species, but I am not aware of a new species evolving from recently documented mutations. Scott would be more in tune with that score, especially with the availability of lectures to attend in te Big Apple. There are occasionally some lectures here locally given by resident or guests of UOIT [our young University has the doubious slang of  "YOU OWE IT" ! Currently there are widespread rumblings in our Province about tuition fees and the lack of follow through on a promise to reduce them at a time when the Province is in a serious deficit position!
 I caution about over analyzing [parsing is your word not mine] when just reading a statement or treatise for what it is. I view you as always looking for some ulterior devious meaning. You have to learn to trust yourself, before you can trust others!

Obtuser--I'm not a science guy, just a casual reader of many things.  You know such readers:  we read whatever is put in front of us.  Sadly, I have no mind for trivia at all, that is why I stick to grand themes and nit pick on the definition of words.  Who doesn't have a dictionary or access to one in this day and age?  But how many take advantage of that, or having done so, thereafter take the lesson offered?

Always rewarding to let an issue/much more a reply, sit for a day then read and consider it again.  I was going to say that the subject issue is NOT mutation, but evolution?  Then I reread your alleged quote, or as Scott has challenged even an accurate paraphrasing of one of his quotes, and now I take its import differently than I had the first 5 reads I gave it.  No mutation, but an evolution?==Ha, ha.  OF COURSE a bird changing color can only happen by way of a mutation.  Did you mean to write something more profound and make instead another circular/definitional point?

I don't know what Gould would have said, but your quote isn't about a difference between mutation and evolution, but at its base, what causes either.  Thats my read anyway==trying to be direct but not spoiling the new ambiguity.  Maybe its what Scott has focused on already?

My own uninformed view:  mutations arise by chance such as cosmic rays altering dna structure, or by faulty division or combining.  Ones advantagous to survival quite often become the new normal. 

NOW==to your quote:  how do changes in the environment encourage mutations?/or whatever subtle variation of that theme you wish?  Maybe they do but certainly a change in the environment may make previously less advantageous expressions of genes now more benefiticial and so those will as stated become the new normal.

Hmmm.  I don't see a "big" difference between genetic change being favored in a static environment vs no change in the genetic makeup being resulting in one set of genes being favored over another by a changing environment.  Is one faster or more punctuated than another?  Was that Gould's point?

I don't know, I'm just a casual reader.  I dismiss all your ad hominem attacks on me and rise above them ready to make my own new round of specific charges against Chin should the door release him to make the good fight ab initio, because we haven't heard anything but shit erroneous opinion so far.

Ha, ha.  Full salad mode with just the right amount of arugula.

Gee Chin---in Reply #2 you said:  "Don't think I would accept "the facts" presented by someone who isn't impartial." 

...how would you more correctly present the fact that if co2 in parts per million doubles we are headed for...

I don't know why I'm engaging you in this discussion; I'll probably hate myself in the morning.  Did you continue to read that post, or just stop once you thought you found a good zinger (it was only two sentences long)?  The statement you quoted may seem a little clunky, and now that I look at it, it could very well be received as something other than I intended.  Nevertheless, the metaphor clearly states my meaning, and I consistently relied on it to convey my position.

Presentation is dependent on the audience, you don't present one thing to college seniors then turn around and present it to 1st graders.  While I'll agree that a line graph is the best way to show change over time, the scope of the matter is not common knowledge, and is conveniently absent from Gleik's presentation.  My short answer is: It depends on my audience and my intentions.

Since I've done nothing but repeat myself here, I'll lend some advice.  Stop spewing words all over the screen.  Stop; read; think; repeat.  I'm not convinced that you misrepresent arguments or pull thoughts out of context as a tactic, rather, a lack of consideration of what is being argued.  Your posts are peppered with unnecessary postulation and salted with insults.  You flare your verbiage to project intellect the same way an animal tries to make itself larger than it is in the face of a predator.  Sloooooow down, stop acting like prey and take part in the discussion.

Summarize the argument, identify the premise, and respond with brevity.

: Misanthropic Scott  February 01, 2012, 06:05:59 AM

Your tactic of claiming that facts are not facts but are instead biased and then giving no examples at all leaves at least as much to be desired as mine. Your tactic is to simply state that facts aren't and then walk away as if you've made some point.

Careful now Scott, I never implied Gleick presented false data, it was his presentation I took issue with.  I hope bobo’s drivel hasn’t distracted you from my premise (my mind’s eye sees him crouched in the corner stirring the pot).
For the record, I did not walk away from this discussion (did I mention my lack of time?).  I was hoping for a gentleman’s agreement to keep the discussion short and sweet before I moved forward, nevertheless….

Off the cuff, I take issue with Gleick’s first visual;

http://blogs-images.forbes.com/petergleick/files/2012/01/MaunaLoaJan2012.png

The casual reader would find this graphic alarming; the casual reader with a calculator would find that this graph only shows a .006% change in our atmosphere.  That’s not just a drop in the 100% bucket, but a particle in the 100% bucket.  The caption reads “…higher today than in a MILLION YEARS.” (Pinky to corner of mouth)  While I don’t disagree with the data, I’m not too happy with its presentation and the panic it is meant to incur.

If I was the mayor of Whereville and we had one illegal drug user in 2010.  Then in 2011 we had two drug users, a headline of “ILLEGAL DRUG USE UP BY 100% IN 2011!”  might be seen as taking the issue out of context depending on the population of Whereville.  While it is a factual statement, and I can show a trend that absolutely bisects the scale of a line graph…..the scope is lost on the casual reader.

Ah, OK. I must have missed this post a while back. Sorry for that.

It's true that CO2 is a relatively small component of our atmosphere. However, it is the primary gas responsible for preventing heat from radiating back into space. The basic facts you need to know about climate change that are truly indisputable that make this graph so scary are:

1) Due to the higher albedo (reflectivity) of Venus, despite its shorter distance to the sun, less sunlight actually gets through to the surface of Venus than gets through to the surface of Earth. Venus absorbs just 25% of the sunlight that hits it; Earth absorbs 70% of its sunlight.

2) Without the effects of greenhouse gases the average temperature of the surfaces of the two planets would be Earth: -18 Celsius Venus: -41 Celsius. With greenhouse gases, especially CO2 in the case of Venus, the average temperatures on the surface of these planets are Earth: +15 Celsius and Venus: +430 Celsius.

3) So, if CO2 is enough to cause Venus to go from -41 Celsius to +430 Celsius and Earth to go from -18 Celsius to +15 Celsius, it is incredibly obvious that increasing our CO2 by any significant amount will cause global warming.

These numbers were taken from the climate science text book ‘Is the Temperature Rising? The Uncertain Science of Global Warming’ by S. George Philander.

http://tinyurl.com/ykw4tyd

So, the graph you chose to post as evidence of bias shows CO2 going from about 315 ppm to over 390 ppm in a bit over 50 years. I'd personally go a bit farther back, at least to the industrial revolution and say that the increase is from 280 ppm rather than 315 ppm. But, let's go with 315 as the baseline.

((390 - 315) / 315) * 100 = 23.80952380952381

Truncating instead of rounding so that I can be biased in your direction instead of mine, still puts the increase at 23% for the last 50ish years.

That is huge!!

But, you say 315 vs. 390 when we're talking about parts per million is a small number. Well, first we would need to find out how many millions of molecules there are in the atmosphere. Then we can see that unlike your hypothetical town of Whereville, there is indeed a statistical universe here. In fact, the amount of CO2 we dump into the atmosphere annually is measured in gigatons, that's billions of metric tons, per year. The ocean alone has already absorbed over 575 gigatons; that's about the mass of 285 million full sized cars. This is not your one drug addict last year and two this year analogy.

It's more like prison population in the U.S., steadily and depressingly increasing at an alarming rate.

Chin--just more meaningless dribble and diversion from the point of this thread.  It starts with "....JUST THE FACTS.."  But now with 4-5 chances to do so you fail to respond with any facts at all.  Just a claim of bias which is irrelevant even if true, and disagreement composed of pure ignorance alone.

Given your audience, I agree you should do a better job.

Given my audience, the insults are completely appropriate.

We all post for different reasons with different pleasures.  Why encourage the nonsense you purport to be honest engagement?  I gave the truth a shot.  Didn't work.  But Scott provides the measured response you say you prefer.

It is your choice what you get.  Scott won't be patient forever.  Come back with Facts, or the admission and apology for having none?

Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else. And root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!
      — Charles Dickens, Hard Times, (1854)

2012 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens (born 7 Feb 2012)

Now, what I want is, Facts. Teach these boys and girls nothing but Facts. Facts alone are wanted in life. Plant nothing else. And root out everything else. You can only form the minds of reasoning animals upon Facts: nothing else will ever be of any service to them. This is the principle on which I bring up my own children, and this is the principle on which I bring up these children. Stick to Facts, sir!
      — Charles Dickens, Hard Times, (1854)

2012 marks the 200th anniversary of the birth of Charles Dickens (born 7 Feb 2012)

I would go a bit further than facts, personally. Facts get you as far as the following, but miss the theories that explain them.

Fact: Today's animals descended from earlier forms with modification. (Note: Darwin eschewed the term evolution due to its prior use in astronomy to describe a highly predictable sequence while biological evolution is anything but predictable.)
Theory: Natural selection is the driving force of biological evolution.

Fact: The speed of light when measured is a constant, regardless of the direction from which the light originated, despite the movement of the earth toward some light sources and away from others.
Theory: Relativity explains the slowing of time with motion that causes the apparent relative speed of light to be constant regardless of the motion of the earth toward or away from its source.

Fact: Objects in the universe are moving apart from each other. The farther from each other they are the faster they are moving apart. (Note: There is an exception for objects so close together that their gravitational attraction is strong enough to overcome the expansion of the universe.)
Theory: The big bang theory explains that the universe began 13.75 billion years ago and has been expanding from a hot dense point ever since.

Anyway, I just wanted to point out that presenting only facts and ignoring theories that have been repeatedly tried and proven would be a mistake.

Scott--you are reading too narrowly.  There are observational facts, like apples falling, and deductive facts when finally agreed upon like the Law of Gravity.  I can make a distinction between observational, deductive, and inductive "facts."  Its only definitional to call one a fact and another a theory.  They all flow from the same core of objective reason.

Not so with opinions.  Different animal entirely.

You always have been weak with "context."

I wonder why that is?  Insert Engineer joke here:  ...  ((Maybe its not a joke---but some leg pulling?))

I don't know.  Is a faulty understanding of entropy and even trade for a faulty understanding of context?  Or is it bias all the way down?

Scott--you are reading too narrowly.  There are observational facts, like apples falling, and deductive facts when finally agreed upon like the Law of Gravity.  I can make a distinction between observational, deductive, and inductive "facts."  Its only definitional to call one a fact and another a theory.  They all flow from the same core of objective reason.

Not so with opinions.  Different animal entirely.

You always have been weak with "context."

I wonder why that is?  Insert Engineer joke here:  ...  ((Maybe its not a joke---but some leg pulling?))

I don't know.  Is a faulty understanding of entropy and even trade for a faulty understanding of context?  Or is it bias all the way down?

I don't think I'm having trouble with context. We're on a science thread, regarding climate science. I think it's important to distinguish the scientific distinction between fact and theory. One reason I like to do so is that people erroneously think of evolution as "just a theory". There are two problems with such a statement. One, which most scientifically minded folks are familiar with, is that theory means something very different in a context of science. The other is that evolution is a fact and natural selection is the theory that describes how it works.

So, sorry bobbo, I think that on a science thread, I have the context correct this time. Usually, I am just being overly anal-retentive, not this time though.

OK Scotty==conjure me this:  without either one of us defining the terms, how close to a fact is the "theory" of evolution?  What is the essential difference between your "scientific" understanding of a well established theory and a fact?  Is gravity not a fact?  What is a fact?  Something that can be established?  Gravity/evolution/global warming==all facts.  Seems to me you distinguish between a layperson's use of "theory" but go ahead and use that very definition to distinguish scientific theory from fact.

Facts by and large don't miss theory.

and thats the context you are missing.

Is that a fact or a theory?

FUN WITH FACTS.  It is all definitional.  Cutting to the chase.  I think there is a theory of gravity, and a fact of gravity with more and more overlap as the theory becomes more and more accepted.  When it becomes a "law" its also a fact.  Language/theory/reality/understanding grows that way.  The Venn Circle of fact is totally within the Circle of the Theory.  What is outside the fact circle is dithering.

Course, I'm biased.

OK Scotty==conjure me this:  without either one of us defining the terms, how close to a fact is the "theory" of evolution?  What is the essential difference between your "scientific" understanding of a well established theory and a fact?  Is gravity not a fact?  What is a fact?  Something that can be established?  Gravity/evolution/global warming==all facts.  Seems to me you distinguish between a layperson's use of "theory" but go ahead and use that very definition to distinguish scientific theory from fact.

Facts by and large don't miss theory.

and thats the context you are missing.

Is that a fact or a theory?

FUN WITH FACTS.  It is all definitional.  Cutting to the chase.  I think there is a theory of gravity, and a fact of gravity with more and more overlap as the theory becomes more and more accepted.  When it becomes a "law" its also a fact.  Language/theory/reality/understanding grows that way.  The Venn Circle of fact is totally within the Circle of the Theory.  What is outside the fact circle is dithering.

Course, I'm biased.

Facts are the observed phenomena. They need no explanation. They simply exist.

Theories explain the reasons behind the facts.

Fact: The expansion of the universe is accelerating. This has been observed using telescopes and redshifts and standard candles.
Theory: Dark energy. Well, this isn't so much a theory yet as a place holder. Current hypothesis states that the vacuum of empty space isn't truly empty but is instead sparsely populated with virtual particles popping in and out of existence. This hypothesis seems likely to hold up and become a theory. Scientists may already be considering it to be one. I'm not sure.

Fact: Stars orbit around galaxies faster than should be the case for the observed quantity of matter.
Theory: Dark Matter. This one is truly just a hypothesis and a place holder for a theory yet to come. No dark matter has thus far been observed other than by its gravitational effect. We have no clue what it is. It is even possible that there is a glitch with General Relativity at certain scales. WIMPs (weakly interacting massive particles), MACHOs (massive compact halo objects), and baseballs (literally baseball sized objects) have all been proposed as candidate hypotheses for what the dark matter may be. WIMPs seem the most promising.

The point is though that whether we can understand the facts and formulate a theory to explain them or not, the facts stand on their own.

Evolution is an observed phenomenon. We've got tons of evidence in the fossil record. We've seen it directly in the wild. This is not news. Erasmus Darwin, Chuck's grandfather, knew of evolution. So did Lamarck. Darwin explained it with the theory of natural selection. That's what makes theory different from fact.

Scotty==you are talking past me on purpose right?  An observed phenomenon.  Repeat===aren't all fact Venn Circles entirely within the theory that represents them?

Dark Energy would be a theory circle with only overlap on the observed phenomenon circle.  Once the fact circle is entirely within the theory circle, then they have merged.

Yeap=====its "context."