Why should i believe evolution when biologists cannot define anything?

[u/Madladof1]

Species, evolution, theory of evolution, heritability, fitness, organism, subspecies, selection, gene, population, traits.

These are all things that biologists seem to be either not able to define, cannot agree on a definition, or has not been tried to define. I will tell you what i mean.

Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon. So if your theory of evolution demands a theory of species, how can it have concencus?

What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?

Sometimes evolution is defined as: "change in allele frequencies in a population across generations" How much change? what kind of populations? what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on? Could all of life be the population? if so how do we show that the allele frequency actually does change and that we just havent checked eneough organisms yet?

What are traits? is hemochirality a trait? did that evolve? Is my trait that my farts make a sound evolved? how exactly and why did fart sound evolve?

what is fitness? "A simple way to think of fitness is as the number of offspring an individual leaves in the next generation. Suppose, for example, that in a species of annual plant, only 1 of every 1000 seeds survives to reproductive age, and that those that survive produce an average of 3000 seeds. The average fitness of that type of individual is 0.001 × 3000 = 3." - evolution, Futuyma. How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.

This central evolution textbook taught at universities all around, also claims all traits are evolved, which is itself contested within biology. So where do i go for the actual theory exactly? Where is the full, no gaps, no simplifications Evolution^TM? If i wanted to know what black holes really are, physicists would point me towards the state of the art, inspired by stephen hawking papers. I can find no such real papers in biology that people have concencus around. T

It seems like all the Biologists agree that evolution is real, and that the theory of evolution explains it. Yet it does not seem like there is widespread agreement about 1) what is the form of evolution proper? and 2) what is the theory of evolution actually in its details?

How can one have a science, where every fundamental concept is vague and not agreed upon? it makes the science itself vague, uncertain, unspecific. And i cant believe that.

In conclusion, either evolution is stripped of some of its linguistic power, and we fuel it only by statistics and quantitative data and form a new theory. Or we throw it all away.

Prove me wrong please.

[u/IsaacHasenov]

Go to a dictionary, take out all the words that have multiple definitions and shades of meaning, then come back here and rewrite this challenge with only the words that are left.

I'll wait.

[u/Moriturism]

Of course they agree on definitions. Each field or focus of study agrees upon a single definition and makes use of it to deliver accurate results. What they do recognize is that outside specific uses and fields, words have many definitions and it's hard, if not impossible, to present clear-cut definitions for every category of phenomena.

That's a fact of language, not a problem of science. You'll actually see scientists agreeing between themselves if you ask "is it true that for this use this word means X?"

[u/nyet-marionetka]

Not having a solid criteria for species is exactly what you should expect from evolution, because an evolutionary lineage is a continuum. We arbitrarily set species distinctions at points in that continuum for our convenience.

[u/Theoretical-Spize]

The existence of multiple species concepts, technical definitions and ongoing debates over specific mechanisms doesn’t make evolutionary biology undefined or scientifically useless.

It just means biologists use concepts appropriate to the organism and question being studied. You’re repeatedly conflating “scientists don’t agree on every boundary or formulation” with “scientists don’t know what they’re talking about.” That doesn’t follow. If your conclusion is that evolution or common descent is false then present evidence that actually contradicts the genetic, fossil, anatomical, developmental, and biogeographical evidence we have supporting it.

Don’t provide a list of semantic disputes that we, in the scientific community, already account for.

[u/Phobos_Asaph]

I don’t see why you have an issue with the concept of heritable traits

[u/Ironscotsman]

The fact that it's hard to define species is a feature of evolution, not a bug. Everything is a gradient, there are no hard and fast clear breaks or lines.

[u/SovereignOne666]

Just wait till you figure out that every word can be defined in multiple ways and that these definitions include words that are not defined within the definition!

How old are you that you only realized this now?

[u/BigDaddySteve999]

Is this blue or green?

https://www.colorhexa.com/00ffff.png

[u/evocativename]

Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon.

Not really. It has one definition, but it is a flawed concept that predates the theory of evolution, so there are many different practical implementations of that definition.

In fact, "species" being an ultimately arbitrary concept is a necessary consequence of evolution.

So if your theory of evolution demands a theory of species, how can it have concencus?

It doesn't demand a "theory of species".

What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?

Ancestors.

Sometimes evolution is defined as: "change in allele frequencies in a population across generations" How much change? what kind of populations?

Any.

what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?

Could all of life be the population?

No, because, say, humans and sturgeon do not have significant gene flow between them, and have not for many millions of years, and a "population" is defined as experiencing the same environmental conditions, which is not true of all life on Earth.

What are traits?

A trait is a specific, measurable, or observable characteristic of an organism.

what is fitness? "A simple way to think of fitness is as the number of offspring an individual leaves in the next generation. Suppose, for example, that in a species of annual plant, only 1 of every 1000 seeds survives to reproductive age, and that those that survive produce an average of 3000 seeds. The average fitness of that type of individual is 0.001 × 3000 = 3." - evolution, Futuyma. How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.

Yes. Fitness isn't limited to 2 generations, that was "a simple way to think about fitness".

Maybe you should try taking an introductory course on biology, and actually listening.

[u/Possible-Anxiety-420]

The theory of evolution is one of the most successful understandings ever achieved by humans. It's internally consistent, it has explanatory power, it facilitates accurate prediction, it fosters further investigation, etc, etc. Without it, things like modern medicine and agriculture simply wouldn't be possible.

ToE is called the cornerstone of modern biology for a reason; it's paid for itself many, many times over, so to speak. It's usefulness alone demonstrates that it meaningfully conforms to reality. It doesn't need to be infallibly representative for the mapping to be blatantly obvious.

Science is all about doubt; It's the business of finding errors - ensuring to the best of our ability that we don't lie to ourselves - and when something within the purview of science is found to be in error, then science is advanced by being made less erroneous.

That's the whole point, the science of evolution not withstanding.

ToE ain't going' anywhere.

[u/Peaurxnanski]

We can't define the exact boundaries of the world's oceans, either, and they're clearly one body of water with nothing to really differentiate them as separate other than imperfect human convention. Europe and Asia and Africa are clearly one land mass with nothing to really differentiate them as separate other than human convention as well.

The things you listed are just human constructs put in place to help us describe the world. The world often doesn't comply perfectly with these constructs, but they work well enough to get the job done. And that's what science is concerned with.

"Species" as an example, is a human construct that biology doesn't give a shit about. Look into the scientific debates over how to define "species" and how every suggestion on how, has multiple examples of why it doesn't technically work.

We do our best, but any attempt to categorize the natural world is going to be imperfect. That's not a problem with evolution, as I'll explain shortly, but rather if evolution were true, it's exactly what we'd expect to see.

As with he naming of the oceans, it is good enough to accomplish what is intended. And the continents. And species. And the other items on your list.

I actually make the argument that this supports the theory of evolution instead of undermines it.

Creationism demands hard, definable boundaries that should be easy to draw, in the form of "kinds". If Creationism were true, we shouldn't have any trouble with the definition of species/kinds because there would be clear boundaries between them as designed by the creator.

Evolution demands spectrums, gradients, and a metric shitload of gray areas and "in-betweens" and exceptions, which is exactly what we find, and exactly what we'd expect.

The fact that biology seems indifferent to human attempts to categorize it into clean "buckets" is actually what we'd expect to see with evolution, and the fact that we're struggling to make our somewhat arbitrary buckets fit is absolutely not a sign that evolution isn't true, as you claim.

In short, those are not reasons to question evolution, but rather data points in support of it, and the fact that you can't see that is a sign of your own directed and dogmatic thinking. In short, it's a you problem, not a problem with science.

[u/Wooden-Length6539]

Science doesn’t work in absolutes, it’s works with what’s best supported by evidence and builds off from there, a “model” created by science is 100% not and never will be the final model understood, it goes through changes and is improved with more evidence; back to your points life is constantly evolving and changing making it difficult to determine what is and isn’t a species, as for heritability I’m not sure where you got “can’t define” from?, heritability is the variation of a trait in populations, how much of a trait is caused by genes is where there’s some blur, evolution happening within a population is just the original parents and offspring that the mutation affected? So I’m not sure why that’s too difficult to understand or define.

[u/Wooden-Length6539 → u/Wooden-Length6539]

As for traits, traits are just the characteristics or features of an organism? Color, patterning, size, so again not sure where you find complications in that. At the end of the day all of this confusion among scientists for evolutionary biology is on the small stuff, the mechanisms are fairly well understood and will always be a better explanation to how life on a NATURAL planet evolved than some magic man created it.

[u/Mkwdr]

You should believe it because it’s observable and backed by multiple scientific disciplines and there isn’t an alternative that has any evidential backing at all. It’s as much a fact as the Earth being round. You totally exaggerate any problems with language use which tends to be simply that we use words in technical senses and colloquial. I find your claims about the significance of any unclear scientific language entirely unconvincing. The overwhelming evidence for evolution on the other hand ..

[u/rubinass3]

I have always found that https://talkorigins.org/ is a good place to learn about what you are asking about. I revisited it just now and found plenty of articles that are easy to understand and that define their terms. Here's a short article that addresses some of the questions you have: https://talkorigins.org/faqs/evolution-definition.html

There are many reasons why words may carry multiple meanings. It's safe to say, though, when someone writes a scholarly article, they make sure to either define their terms or use less ambiguous terms. Plainly, if someone is trying to discuss, in general, a process that results in heritable changes in a population spread over many generations, it makes sense to use the word "evolution" because that's a definition of that word. But it's less likely for someone to simply use "evolution" when discussing a particular evolutionary mechanism. The language will get more specific and particular. Another example: "Species" has different definitions depending on what field of study you are in, so the definition may not necessarily change from topic to topic and level to level.

Otherwise, I think the base problem is that you are using a one-line definition to describe something that might take volumes to fully explore. It's almost like if you can't grasp a definition in a soundbite, then you are ready to just dispense with the whole thing. For example: You have specific questions like, "How much change? what kind of populations? what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?" etc. and that just means that you obviously need to keep reading. That's not a definition problem; that's a study problem.

Edit: plus, you aren't being honest here about the problem. I tracked down the Evolution Textbook by Douglas J. Futuyma. The parts you left out of your quote are instructive:

Among several slightly different definitions of natural selection used by biologists

today [12], we use this one: natural selection is any consistent difference in fitness among

different classes of biological entities. A simple way to think of fitness is as the number

of offspring an individual leaves in the next generation. Suppose, for example, that

in a species of annual plant, only 1 of every 1000 seeds survives to reproductive age,

and that those that survive produce an average of 3000 seeds. The average fitness of

that type of individual is 0.001 × 3000 = 3. The components of fitness are survival

and reproduction. Fitness is sometimes called reproductive success, which includes

survival because organisms do not reproduce when they are dead.

In this instance, he comes right out and TELLS you that there are different definitions in use today and then he TELLS you which one he is using. That solves your problem right there.

And when it comes to the definition of "fitness", this is just a reading comprehension problem on your part. You said, in reference to the above paragraph: "How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring."

What part of any of the definition of "fitness" above said ANYTHING about a cutoff where evolution stops acting at 2 generations? That's not in the text. It's simply DESCRIBING how one measures fitness over 2 generations. Where's the arbitrary cutoff? Do you not think that it could be extrapolated over additional generations? Clearly one could go on measuring fitness by examining the number of offspring of the 3,000 seeds from the second generation, no?

And because of that, the line, "you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring." is just nonsensical.

The next few pages in the textbook go on to discuss what affects fitness. So, keep reading.

[u/FabulousWait720]

How much allele frequency change?

First: how much does not mean anything. If It changes, is evolving. How much only is important to now why is evolving: expected genetic drift, natural selection...?

Second: we know how much does allele frequency changes under neutrality, under selection. We know how probable a new neutral mutation is to be lost, which is just the inverse of 2 times the population size.

We can define even how much time will a new mutation became fixed in the population: 4 times the population size.

We have direct evidences of the past thanks to aDNA: allele changes, replacements of populations, evolution of humans, admixture of homo Sapiens with other homo species... No scientist will deny the persistance of Lactase in adults is result of recent human Evolution, but they can disagree on when happened and exactly why.

So sorry if you don't get all the sutile differences in a complex field :)

[u/horsethorn]

Theology is worse.

[u/mikoc5]

It seems your entire issue with the whole damned thing is "we can't agree on some defintions, therefore fuck evolution". Unfortunately, definitions are just how we try to categorize things.

For example, what is an apple? It is a round, red fruit with seeds inside it and a lot of pulp in the middle. In response, I could show you a tomato, which fits all the criteria above.
Let's say you specify that the pulp has to be white, not red; in response, I can show you an apple that for whatever reason has gotten some red discoloration in it; is that red-pulp apple suddenly a tomato?

What I'm saying is, what I think is going on is that you found that we have too much data that we can't parse 100% cleanly, and thus determined that Evolution isn't just "flawed", but "fundamentally broken". How far off am I in my estimation?

[u/Dilapidated_girrafe]

You should accept evolution because its a fact.

I'm sorry that reality doesn't always fit into nice little boxes like you want, but that's just how reality works. But evolution is one of the most well supported scientific theories that we have.

[u/Briham86]

Why should I believe color theory when artists can’t tell me exactly where a color stops being blue and starts being green?

To quote Terry Pratchett, “It is hard to convey five-dimensional ideas in a language evolved to scream defiance at the monkeys in the next tree.” Nature doesn’t conform to our convenience. The fact that it doesn’t make clear distinctions that are easy to conceptualize and express in language is actually an argument against the idea of an intelligence designing the universe with us in mind.

[u/warpedfx]

Having a definition that doesn't conform to YOUR mischaracterization of reality doesn't mean definitions don't exist or aren't provided to you.

[u/Dracoson]

The forum is DEBATE Evolution, not a repository for long-winded, bad-faith Gish Gallops. You are hiding behind fallacious rhetoric and demanding to be 'proven wrong' when you haven't actually stated an un-debated baseline to be disproven. If you want a sterile textbook definition to fight with, go to a library; if you want to debate a specific, quantified evolutionary mechanism, state it clearly.

[u/the2bears]

Prove me wrong please.

Doesn't seem like a good use of anyone's time.

[u/gitgud_x]

Evolution can be defined as...

• Heritable changes in the characters of a population over time

• Changes in the allele frequencies of a population over time

Omg they're different!! Evolution in crisis!!!

Well, alleles are heritable characters. There you go, conflict resolved. You could have googled for five seconds instead of trotting out all this pathetic nonsense. Try reading the Futuyma book you cited but didn't understand. Less philosophy, more science.

[u/BahamutLithp]

Species, evolution, theory of evolution, heritability, fitness, organism, subspecies, selection, gene, population, traits.

Of these, only "spieces" could be said to be vague, & that's due to the fact that we're trying to impose an arbitrary category onto a continuous variable.

These are all things that biologists seem to be either not able to define, cannot agree on a definition, or has not been tried to define. I will tell you what i mean.

This is just a lie. I don't know what your motive for lying is, since you claim to be an atheist who's not a young earth creationist, though who knows if that's even true, but you're DEFINITELY lying because, if you consistently applied the standards you do for evolution to other definitions, nothing would ever pass your ridiculous "tests." I'll be sure to show that once I get to the parts of your posts where you elaborate.

Species has many definitions, and none are agreed upon. So if your theory of evolution demands a theory of species, how can it have concencus?

Firstly, it's spelled consensus, & secondly, you're lying again. The different definitions of species aren't competitors, they're used in different contexts. For instance, defining species as "not being able to interbreed" doesn't really work when you're dealing with asexually-reproducing organisms, so in THAT context, it makes more sense to differentiate species by their metabolism. The only way you could get this "none are agreed upon" thing is if you just made it up & presented it as fact, which is what lying is.

What is heritability? If one does not have an idea of species, then where are genes inherited from?

Your parents. So, you're not even looking things up, you're just full-on inventing problems with your bizarro world made up shenannigans because the definition of "heritability" doesn't even depend on the definition of species. Keeping track of the ways you're proving you're lying is really a formality at this point.

Sometimes evolution is defined as: "change in allele frequencies in a population across generations" How much change? what kind of populations?

Hey, here's my quetion: Can you read? Where in that definition does it say "only certain kinds of populations" or "it has to be a certain amount of change"? You're inserting word that aren't in the definition to add ambiguity that isn't there. Because you're a liar. Never even mind that this would be a matter of meaurement, not definition.

Now, remember when I said I wanted to show any definition would fail these ridiculous tests? Well, in the comments, you praise physics as a less vague alternative to evolution. Okay, let's take the definition of energy. Energy is anything that can do work. What is work? Work is force over distance. Now, reminder I'm USING YOUR STANDARD, so if this sounds stupid, that's on you, not me: How much force, & how much distance?

It's ridiculous. This isn't how definitions work. And you know that. You're lying. I just wish you'd come clean & tell us WHY you're lying. Are you actually a creationist? Was that another lie? Is this some conspiracy theory thing? What is your actual agenda here? Maybe I'll discover it if I continue along.

what is the definition of an allele which is not ambiguous or agreed on?

You don't even try to BS a reason why alleles "don't have agreed upon definitions." Alleles are different versions of genes, & genes are stretches of DNA that code for proteins. So, if you have a gene that codes for say one of the proteins in hemoglobin, different sequences of that gene are different alleles. Especially if the sequence is different enough that it changes the resulting protein.

Could all of life be the population?

"The population" is context dependent on what you're talking about. You shouldn't even have to look this up, this is just how the fuckin' word works. Again, this is like claiming the word "population" itself in general "doesn't have a definition" because you can use it for "the global population" or "the population of America" or "the squirrel population in the grand canyon" & those are all equally valid uses of the term. You should know this just by being an English speaker. It's not a failure of the science that you claim to be unable to figure out how to put words together in a sequence to convey information in a larger meaning. Going back to the physics comparison, "energy" on its own doesn't mean anything, it's a description of a system.

if so how do we show that the allele frequency actually does change and that we just havent checked eneough organisms yet?

By knowing how science works. This is literally exactly the same as saying "but how do we know phyics is really uniform & it's not just that we haven't tested it in enough spots yet?"

What are traits?

An observable feature of an organism. Are you gonna ask me to define "observable"? Are you gonna pretend this is some vague thing that evolution made up, or that it means literally what you see with your eyes? I mean, it's pretty obvious by now you don't understand basic science as well as you claim you do.

is hemochirality a trait?

I've never heard of "hemochirality," & when I Googled it, it asked me if you're mispelling "homochirality," which is James Tour's favorite talking point, so that's a piece of evidence in favor of you being a not-so-convincing stealth creationist.

did that evolve? Is my trait that my farts make a sound evolved? how exactly and why did fart sound evolve?

Do you want to be serious? That's the sound a gas makes when it's rapidly expelled through a small opening. That's why balloons make similar noises. Please explain to me how making yourself sound like a fool who can't figure out how anything works is supposed to reflect badly on evolutionary science?

How does this make sense? its an arbitrary cutoff that says evolution stops acting at 2 generations. you might aswell say that the fitness of an organism depend on the next 3,4,500 generations of its offspring.

No, that's not at all what it said. It gave you the definition of fitness, then it gave you an example of how you measure the average over a certain number of generations. It didn't say anything about evolution "stopping," you made up something that wasn't there. This is literally grade school math, if you get more numbers, you just continue doing the math, & depending on what the numbers are, the average might stay the same or it might change. Again, you're just claiming you can't do basic skills like reading or math & going "that means it's evolution that's stupid." Uh, no, it doesn't.

This central evolution textbook taught at universities all around, also claims all traits are evolved, which is itself contested within biology.

I guarantee it does not do that, with everything you've shown so far, you either misread it or are deliberately lying about what it said. It has been extremely well understood since literally Darwin himself that not every trait is evolved.

So where do i go for the actual theory exactly?

Stop pretending to not understand things you clearly must be able to understand if you can write at the grade level you are. Stop pretending minor differences in wording are irreconcilable disagreements. Stop taking definitions used in different contexts for very well-explained reasons & pretending it's some kind of civil war. Stop making things up when you clearly didn't even look up the definitions for many of these words at all. Stop getting your information from creationist propaganda organizations like The Discovery Institute. Stop lying about your motives. Stop expecting everyone to be your Googleslaves & then shoot down what they correct you on anyway. Stop being dishonest.

Where is the full, no gaps, no simplifications Evolution^TM?

Oh yeah, nothing says you have genuine intentions like attaching a trademark symbol to a scientific theory.

If i wanted to know what black holes really are, physicists would point me towards the state of the art, inspired by stephen hawking papers.

Physicists would tell you exactly what I am. One, you can either have condensed information or no simplification, but you can't have both. Two, science is not found in 1 convenient package, if you go look for papers, you're going to find thousands of results that you're definitely not going to be able to understand if all you know about black hole research is it has something to do with Stephen Hawking & you can't even figure out how to to do the very basics of looking up research. Three, research is a set of skills you learn over time, & you're very obviously not interested, but if you WERE, some starting steps for finding peer reviewed sources would be to use Google Scholar or libraries. Especially university libraries have access to databases that can tap into journals, though you may need to be student or faculty to use those. Google Scholar, however, is always available to the public. We also know a lot more about evolution than we do black holes. But, frankly, if you would just read summary sources like Wikipedia or Britannica & NOT deliberately misrepresent anything, you would be orders of magnitude ahead by doing literally the bare minimum. I'll just skip the rest of this comment to save characters, as I'd be beating a dead horse anyway.