I’m a bit late to this one. Over three months late, to be precise. But I came across this this piece again by accident last week, and was reminded how bad it was, and I had to write something about it anyway. Especially as I just found the follow up post (more on that later). I’m talking about Michael Egnor’s defense of Ann Coulter: In which I take up P.Z. Myers' challenge on Ann Coulter and Evolution. The main thrust of Egnor’s post is to reduce evolution (actually just natural selection) to “stuff changes and survivors survive.” Egnor says this shows that evolution is mere tautology.
Before I start, a reminder of the definition of a straw man argument: it’s when you present a weakened, distorted, over simplified or absurd version of your opponent’s argument, and then you ridicule that weakened, distorted over simplified or absurd version of his argument and ignore the actual argument. When you refute the straw man version of an argument, you may to create the illusion of having refuted your opponent’s argument, but in fact you have only refuted your own weakened version of it. For that reason, attacking a straw man argument is fallacious.
OK, let’s look at Egnor’s post. He writes:
‘Stuff changes and survivors survive' isn't a scientific theory
Well, no it isn’t. But then that isn’t what the theory of evolution says. What Egnor appears to be describing is natural selection (which is part of the scientific theory of evolution). The critical piece he’s missing is the bit about favorable traits getting passed to descendants. That bit is essential for natural selection to work. And it isn’t tautology. Here’s a more accurate, although still simplified, description of natural selection:
- The genetic variation within a population of organisms improve the chances of some organisms to survive longer than others
- Survivors survive long enough to reproduce
- The traits that enabled an organism to survive long enough to reproduce, are passed to its descendants.
This isn’t a comprehensive definition. Point #2 should probably be something like, ‘survivors that survive longer are statistically more likely to reproduce.’ Point #3 should say something about the increased probability of passing on the survivor traits to the descendants – perhaps that relatively more of the traits get passed to descendants. Also, it is not just survivors that are more likely to reproduce. A stronger male might reproduce more than a weaker one by fighting off its weaker opponents. The weaker one might still survive, it just might not mate. But I tried to keep my definition as close to Egnor’s version of it as I could get. That way, it’s easier to see where Egnor is going wrong. I think my definition is good enough. But is it tautology?
A tautology is a formula which is true in every possible interpretation. For example, “all bachelors are unmarried.” So Egnor is right that “survivors survive” is tautology. But consider my more correct version of natural selection:
The genetic variation within a population of organisms improve the chances of some organisms to survive longer than others
Genetic variation also reduces the chances of some organisms to survive longer than others. Sometimes it has no effect. Point #1 therefore isn’t true in every possible interpretation and so is not tautology.
Survivors survive long enough to reproduce
But not all who survive long enough to reproduce, get to reproduce. They might still not find a mate, might get frightened off by stronger competitors, or might be sterile. Also, some organisms that survive for less time (without the beneficial genetic variation) still reproduce. Point #2 therefore isn’t true in every possible interpretation and so is not tautology either. Egnor’s error is to say just “survivors survive” (which is tautology) without the “long enough to reproduce” (or the “statistically more likely to reproduce”) part. The scientific theory requires “long enough to reproduce” or “statistically more likely to reproduce” because without that part, point three won’t follow.
The traits that enabled an organism to survive long enough to reproduce, are passed to its descendants
But some traits are not heritable, and so will not be passed on. Also, those that are heritable don’t always get passed on since descendants get their genes from both parents – only one parent might have the “survivor” trait. It is not tautological that any random variable traits get inherited. Point #3 therefore isn’t true in every possible interpretation and so is clearly not tautology.
None of my three points are tautological. And you need all three for natural selection.
At this point I refer you again to my definition of a straw man argument. Compare “Stuff changes and survivors survive” with my three points, and tell me if Egnor’s version isn’t a weakened, distorted over simplified or absurd version. And we know that Egnor is really impressed with this argument because he repeats it 11 times. So add argumentum ad nauseam to straw man.
But (as the infomercial presenters say), that’s not all. PZ replied to Egnor. He ends with:
Every study of evolution is built around specific hypotheses about mechanisms, not dumb blind counts of nothing but the living and the dead, but measures of differential reproductive success against some detailed parameter of their genetics. All those terms Egnor cluelessly throws around — "natural selection, sexual selection, kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, disruptive selection, diversifying selection, selective sweeps, background selection, adaptive radiation, punctuated equilibrium" — have specific, different meanings, and do not reduce to merely "survival".
PZ doesn’t actually use the term “straw man,” but that’s what he means. But here’s the really funny bit: Egnor replies to PZ in My reply to P.Z.Myers: atheism is a small cup. In this post Egnor really surpasses himself. He has an almost brilliant response to the straw man claim, one I’ve never seen before: he renames it as a colloquialism:
"Differential reproductive success of variants in populations", which means precisely that "relatively more successful replicators relatively more successfully replicate". Colloquially, 'survivors survive'.
It wasn’t a straw man, oh no, it was a colloquialism. Brilliant.
Except, when you think about it, not so brilliant. A colloquialism is a word or phrase that is common in everyday conversation rather than in formal speech. For example, “it’s raining cats and dogs.” The difference between this and Egnor’s “survivors survive” should be obvious. First, I don’t think many people (other than professional creationists like Egnor) use the phrase “survivors survive” to describe evolution. Second, and more importantly, a colloquial expression is not meant to be taken literally. So if “survivors survive” is colloquial then Egnor can’t use it to say that evolution is tautological. It’s as though someone looked out the window, saw it wasn’t literally raining cats and dogs, and concluded that it wasn’t raining. Of course, Egnor wants it both ways. When a biologist points out that “survivors survive” is not what evolution says, Egnor says, well it’s just colloquial. But when he wants to refute evolution, he uses it literally. Egnor needs to make his mind up.
What else does Egnor have? Well, in a masterpiece of cherry picking he refers us to Galton and eugenics (presumably an attempt to link evolution to the Nazis, although who can be sure what he is really getting at?), Haeckel’s faked embryos (irrelevant - early embryos do show many similarities) and Piltdown Man (a known fake from 100 years ago that was uncovered by scientists, not by creationists like Egnor). Egnor just ignores all the evidence collected in the last 100 years or more. I guess on Egnor’s planet, nothing must have been discovered since Piltdown Man in 1908.
Both of these pieces by Egnor are extraordinarily bad – even for him. Usually with Egnor’s posts, you do at least get the impression that there is an intelligent person trying to make an intelligent, even scholarly point. He fails quite often, relying on logical fallacies and ignoring points raised by his opponent (see especially the series of posts by Steven Novella dueling with Egnor on what causes the mind). But you do at least get the sense of an intellect at work, a measured, professional tone, someone who is trying to grasp an argument. But here you get none of that. Instead we have just the juvenile repetition of an infantile misrepresentation of natural selection, as though repetition and assertion were valid arguments if delivered with enough sarcasm. Perhaps that’s understandable when you consider what we now know to be Egnor’s prime source for his knowledge on evolution, namely Ann Coulter:
Well, nobody insults Ann Coulter without a reply from me. I love Ann Coulter (Platonically, of course). Love, love, love. She's basically right about everything, and the only thing I don't like about her books and T.V. appearances is that when she attacks atheists/Darwinists/liberals she's so clever that my sides ache from laughing. I still can't look at a picture of John Edwards without thinking of her name for him: 'Silky Pony'.
I have all of Coulter's books, paper and electronic (so I can always have her insights close). Coulter has more wisdom in one of her neurons than P.Z. Myers and his Pharyngula inmates have collectively in their telencephalons and diencephalons (I know, I know, that implies a materialist reduction of the mind. It's a metaphor).
Read that and consider the caliber of a person who actually believes anything like that. Rational Wiki quotes Scopie’s Law as “In any discussion involving science or medicine, citing Whale.to as a credible source loses you the argument immediately ...and gets you laughed out of the room.” I’d like to propose a new law – call it Skeptico’s Law, or Argumentum ad Coultarium if you prefer: “In any discussion, citing Ann Coulter as a credible source loses you the argument immediately ...and gets you laughed out of the room.” It would certainly save you a lot of time.
I had to point this out
""""He fails quite often, relying on logical fallacies and ignoring points raised by his opponent .......” I’d like to propose a new law – call it Skeptico’s Law, or Argumentum ad Coultarium if you prefer: “In any discussion, citing Ann Coulter as a credible source loses you the argument immediately """
---------------
Having mastered logic I find many of the so called Logical internet crowd to be some of the most illogical thinkers on the planet.
How can you belittling someone for defying logical principles and in the next breath spew out one of the paramount fallacies taught in Logic 101--Ad hominem?
Since you have regard for the very thing you espouse...2+2=4 even if Hitler himself says it. The truth is the truth regardless of source or character.
..and this is just the joke part of the article. Maybe Stalin can be used next from the other side.
The serious exposition is just an embarrassing and amateurish attempt at Logic. You wield accusations of Strawman while you select just about the weakest argument in the whole genre. Do you go in special class and refute them as well?
This simply smacks as masturbation. It touches on nothing the leaders of both competing philosophies debate and is content to muddle around in an argument that completely avoids all the areas where you'd be schooled into "name calling" as fast as you could say "something from nothing"
Posted by: Jason | May 01, 2012 at 12:45 AM
Grow a sense of humor, Jason. It's not a serious argument that if it came from Ann Coulter, it must be wrong. Like Scopie's law, this is a joke law based on the observation that Ann Coulter is very frequently wrong and reliant on logical fallacies. We know this from her history.
Of course, choosing not to believe an argument presented by someone who has a long history of being blatantly wrong isn't completely irrational, like you seem to suggest.
It's kind of like a reverse of a non-fallacious argument from authority: In a time crunch, it's reasonable to accept the word of an expert. Similarly, in a time crunch, it's reasonable to assume Ann Coulter is wrong about science.
Posted by: Bronze Dog | May 01, 2012 at 03:09 PM
@Jason:
We have a Master Of Logic now taking me to task. We know he is a Master Of Logic because he says so. Look, in his own words, “Having mastered logic…” It must be true then, he couldn’t just be blustering with a preemptive appeal to authority. Oh no, this guy really has mastered logic.
OK, well first off, technically he is correct that “Argumentum ad Coultarium” as I described it, would be an ad hominem. But most people would have realized that I wasn’t being 100% serious with this – it was just a bit of humor at the end of the post. And anyone reading the entire post would see that it wasn’t the main part of my argument (or any part, in reality, but I’ll be generous for the sake of discussion). Most of the post was taken up explaining Egnor’s errors in how he described evolution, my describing what evolution actually is, and explaining the detail behind Egnor’s fallacies. And yet Jason comes along, ignores the majority of my 1,600 plus word post and focuses solely on the last three sentences. At best this seems intellectually dishonest. What fallacy would it be, Jason who has mastered logic? I’m thinking “cherry picking.” Well, at least we know that Jason couldn’t find fault with the rest of my post – ie the real arguments I presented – or I’m sure he would have said what the faults were. Thanks for confirming the rest of it was good. Not that we really needed it, but still.
Jason ends with:
I have read that paragraph several times, but I have been unable to ascertain the meaning. I get the first sentence. But the other one is such a muddle of half thought out and uncompleted ideas mashed together without thought of structure or grammar, that it really makes no sense. Except that I think he is saying that I’m guilty of name calling. Except I didn’t. Yes, Jason, the Master Of Logic, appears to think that ad hominem is “name calling.”
To summarize, Jason opens with an appeal to authority, follows with a major exercise in cherry picking, then blunders around trying for a killer closing paragraph, but is incapable of expressing whatever the hell he was trying to say and so fails miserably. Thanks for playing though.
Posted by: Skeptico | May 01, 2012 at 08:26 PM
Evolution doesn't say "survivors survive?" How do you draw that conclusion? I don't see really how you ever could draw that conclusion, seeing as how you can't even understand the idea of colloquialisms.
You looked up colloquialisms in wikipedia, saw the first example of one-"it's raining cats and dogs" which also happens to be a metaphor, and suddenly you thought all colloquialisms are also metaphors! That you can't even understand this subtle difference tells me that you really shouldn't go too much further in trying to debunk complex ideas.
Don't go challenging Dr. Egnor to a debate anytime soon is my advice to you.
Posted by: phooey | May 11, 2012 at 05:50 AM
It’s explained in the post.Did you read it? Can you explain why it is wrong? Because you haven’t done so yet.
Posted by: Skeptico | May 11, 2012 at 06:23 AM
Maybe somewhere in there you tried using a colloquialisms to explain how the concept of evolution via natural selection is not simply "survivors survive" but maybe your colloquialisms were to colloquial, so no one can see it.
Nonetheless, survivors survive is still a very succinct explanation of what the theory says. Of course one could also argue that the theory of evolution actually says almost nothing, and also wouldn't be too far wrong.
You have not shown Egnor's point to be incorrect in any language; but I hope this exercise has at least helped you to learn more about the word colloquialisms.
Posted by: phooey | May 11, 2012 at 09:08 PM
So you admit you don’t understand the post. And yet, you still say it was wrong. What an ignorant and arrogant fool you are.
Except I explained in detail what the theory of evolution actually says, and then I explained how it is different from “survivors survive .” (Did you bother to even read that part?) You’re so sure of yourself, and yet you haven’t managed to show even one thing that you think I got wrong – how embarrassing for you. All you have is contradiction, while ignoring the actual evidence presented. Maybe this form of argument works for you somewhere else, but it isn’t good enough here.
Well, you haven’t “argued” that, you are merely asserting again. Either way, you would be totally wrong, again. As I demonstrated in the post.
You haven’t shown that I was wrong in my arguments that show Egnor was incorrect.
Grow up.
If you are going to post here again, you will need to deal with the actual arguments I presented. Explain in detail what you think is wrong with my arguments. I am not going to waste any more time with your childish prattle – life is too short. One more post consisting of nothing more than ‘blah blah you’re wrong’ and it will be deleted and you will be banned. Present some actual arguments pertinent to what I actually wrote or piss off.
Posted by: Skeptico | May 11, 2012 at 10:08 PM
What is natural selection? Is it a mechanisms, a process? a set of rules? an organization? Tell me how it works, what are its rules?
In fact, natural selection is not an entity. It doesn't have rules, it doesn't construct things, it is not a catalyst for anything. Natural selection is the notion that while some organisms survive long enough to pass on their genetic material, some others don't survive that long. You want to quibble on the point that "survivors survive", doesn't contain the phrase "long enough to reproduce?" Can't we just assume that anyone older than an infant gets that?
You use the term "favorable traits." What is such a thing? In evolution, the only thing favorable about a trait is that is survives. Oh sorry, sorry, for the young infants reading this-and REPRODUCE!
Egnors piece makes perfect sense, but you seem to have a problem with the fact that he doesn't repeat, 'and REPRODUCE' each time he says 'survivors survive'. But the weirdest part of your argument is that HE IN FACT DOES say precisely that in his article, when he writes: 'Survivors survive', 'reproducers reproduce', 'more effective reproducers more effectively reproduce'
There, you got the word reproduce that you wanted! he goes on to say that terms like kin selection, group selection, reciprocal altruism, etc are really just terms used to confirm the fact that one kind survived, and one kind didn't. (And reproduced!, can we save some ink, please!)
Your main complaint is that he just isn't wordy enough. he condenses the phrase too effectively for simple minds to understand.
Now, its your site, you are free to delete me if you wish, but alas, that is just your silent admission of losing the battle-for which I suffer nothing.
Posted by: phooey | May 12, 2012 at 12:53 AM
I'm pretty sure your deletion would just be a sign of your failure to provide any kind of valid argument again, for which Skeptico would suffer nothing.
Posted by: Q | May 12, 2012 at 04:38 AM
phooey:
Thank you for at last apparently reading and trying to understand at least part of my post, and responding to some of the arguments. Unfortunately you demonstrate you have not understood the arguments: you ignore most of them, and have still not understood where Egnor is going wrong. I’m going to repeat my main arguments for you, trying to keep it as to the point as possible.
Egnor makes two main mistakes. He:
I’ll now expand on the above points. You need to read and understand the following:
Tautology
I started by describing the straw man fallacy: it’s when you present a weakened, distorted, over simplified or absurd version of your opponent’s argument, and then you ridicule that weakened, distorted over simplified or absurd version of his argument and ignore the actual argument. Of course “survivors survive” is tautology. So it’s important to note that evolution requires the phrase ‘long enough to reproduce’ before it even begins to describe evolution. You may think that anyone older than an infant gets that it also means ‘long enough to reproduce,’ but so what? Once you add ‘long enough to reproduce’ it isn’t tautology any more. This is the bit that you fail to understand. Egnor reduces the phrase to just “survivors survive” because that is the only way he can make it a tautology. He presents a straw man version – so he has refuted the straw man version of evolution, but he hasn’t refuted the real version.
It actually goes further than that. Another point I made (one you still ignored), is that evolution also says that the traits that enabled an organism to survive long enough to reproduce, are passed to its descendants (actually, relatively more of the traits get passed to descendants). That isn’t tautology. There is no way that you can claim that this happens in all cases (it doesn’t). It is only by ignoring these essential parts of evolution, that Egnor can present a version that is tautological.
You make a big deal of the fact that Egnor writes: 'Survivors survive', 'reproducers reproduce', 'more effective reproducers more effectively reproduce.' Of course, he is being sarcastic here. (You ignored the bit immediately following where he writes, ‘You know the drill. Keep the thesaurus handy.’) But regardless, 'Survivors survive', 'reproducers reproduce', 'more effective reproducers more effectively reproduce' is still not:
It’s a weakened, straw man version of what evolution actually says. Quote-mining out of context phrases where Egnor uses words like “reproduce” will not rescue your argument.
Colloquialism
Egnor claims that 'survivors survive' is colloquial. I challenge you to find examples outside of creationist websites (where they are just trying to ridicule evolution) where 'survivors survive' is a colloquial expression used to describe evolution. The only colloquial phrase I’ve heard to describe evolution would be “survival of the fittest.” Now that would be a colloquial expression, although still not quite accurate. But even if it is colloquial, so what? A colloquial expression isn’t meant to be taken literally, and only by taking the expression literally can you criticize it for being tautological. So which is it? Is it colloquial? In which case it’s not meant to be taken literally. (So Egnor has just refuted his own argument.) Or it’s not colloquial, in which case it’s a dodge to cover up his use of straw man argumentation techniques. Either way, Egnor is using fallacious logic.
Responding to some of you other misconceptions:
That is still a straw man version. Your problem is that you still don’t understand what you are criticizing. Read my points above and try to understand the essential pieces that you are missing.
Oh boy – flat out wrong. The “only thing” favorable about a trait is that it survives? No – that’s not what makes it favorable. What makes a trait favorable is that it helps the organism survive and therefore reproduce. The favorable trait might survive (get passed to descendants) or it might not. You demonstrate again that you really don’t understand evolution. If you just understood this one thing, you might begin to realize why evolution is not tautological and why Egnor’s version is a straw man.
Wrong. I didn’t complain that he isn’t “wordy enough.” I complained that he distorted the explanation of evolution and then refuted the distorted version.
btw, your argument that my “main complaint” was that he wasn’t wordy enough, was itself a straw man argument. You just made up an argument you said I used and ridiculed that made up argument.
In your dreams.
I only delete posts and ban people when they just keep repeating arguments that I have already refuted, and ignore the refutations. They get a few goes before I do that, but there are only so many times I will repeat myself before I decide the other person isn’t listening. If you are going to respond again you will need to show either:
(1) “Survivors survive” is a complete description of evolution: ie that the ‘long enough to reproduce’ and ‘favorable traits get passed to descendants’ etc are not necessary. (You will also need to use the actual definition of ‘favorable traits’ not your incorrect version.)
Or
(2) My more complete explanation (including the ‘long enough to reproduce’ and ‘favorable traits get passed to descendants’ etc) is tautological.
And
(3) Colloquial expressions should taken literally.
Posted by: Skeptico | May 12, 2012 at 11:15 AM