[Todos] Clarín y la "verdad científica"

[srisau en cab.cnea.gov.ar]

Lo más preocupante del artículo es que delata la seriedad de las
intenciones de Clarín de robarle lectores a la revista Barcelona. No puedo
evitar citar una de las partes mas hilarantes: "¿quién es el Diseñador?
¿Dios? La DDI no responde y se atrinchera en su críptica respuesta." ¿En
qué quedamos, responde o no la DDI?

Pero quizás la mejor parte sea la siguiente, que me sorprende que no haya
sido comentada en ningún mensaje (al menos de las listas a las que estoy
suscripto): "Para una proteína con una secuencia de 100 componentes (una
cantidad baja), su probabilidad de formación azarosa es 1 en 1065..."
¡Buenísimo! ¡Casi la misma que sacar un boleto capicúa! (el tiempo pasa,
nos vamos poniendo tecnos...) Buscando un poco se puede encontrar que el
numero correcto es 1 en 10^65, y que hay bastante polémica al respecto. No
sería improbable que el Dr. Torres haya leído la página
http://www.leaderu.com/orgs/fte/darwinism/chapter6.html, donde aparece el
1065. Por supuesto, esto podría ser en realidad otra de las ya habituales
hazañas de los correctores de Clarín, pero yo no lo creo. Divierte pensar
en cuales serían los "los difíciles desafíos matemáticos de la DDI" a los
que se refiere el Dr. Torres...

Hablando en serio, una de las cosas que me parece realmente preocupante es
el uso del nombre de Lynn Margulis y Stuart Kauffman. La intención del
autor es obviamente usarlos como autoridades para sus argumentos, pero a
mi me preocupa más el efecto complementario: que muchos que no los conocen
se lleven la impresión de que Margulis y Kauffman (también) son chantas
que apoyan el diseño inteligente o que proponen teorías "alternativas" que
"jaquean" al darwinismo. Si bien ambos son relativamente polémicos, son
gente seria que se ha expresado claramente a favor de la teoría de la
evolución y en contra del diseño inteligente. Les copio parte de una
entrevista a Margulis (http://uab.cat/PDF/PDF_1096483417494_en.pdf )  :

"-(Is) Symbiogenesis, an evolutionary mechanism?

- As Myers said, to do anything in science you have to study it in depth.
But to study evolution you need to do more than that.
That is because evolution is something very complex, here we cannot say
one thing is more important than another. It is like a
cell, we cannot say that the membrane is more important than the nucleus,
because without one of these the system would not
exist. In this way, natural selection has a relevant weight in evolution.
Nevertheless, when I have asked for a palpable example
of accumulation by chance nobody has given me an answer. There is no
literature of this nature, there is a lot of theoretical
literature, but that has nothing to do with the biology that I know. I
have seen many examples where we can clearly see the
process of symbiogenesis and that is what I study.

- That means you do not think that chance plays a role in evolution...

- I do not consider that chance intervenes in evolution, which does not
mean that I agree with creationists or anything like
that. However, many evolutionists have not been very happy with my
proposals. That is a shame because, in fact, to carry out
science you have to be critical, and not rely on dogmas.

- Speaking of dogmas, what do you think about those who talk about
Intelligent Design?

- They are ignorant. More precisely, they are dogmatic and should admit
that they are a religious group. I have nothing against
religion, I respect it. I think they should talk about their religious
beliefs in religion class, but not in science class. Scientists try
to argue based on evidence from experiments and results, not by trickery,
and these people are either con men or naive, but
definitely ignorant."

Y parte de algo sobre Kauffman, donde se reproducen sus comentarios sobre
la DDI ( http://www.leecullum.com/articles/6/1/Intelligent-Design ):

...proponents of Intelligent Design "haven't understood the behavior of
complex systems." When they argue that the  "irreducible complexity" of
human life, with organs in which every part is indispensable, couldn't
possibly "have arrived through natural selection," they are ignoring
phenomena by which "sufficiently large numbers of molecules --
sufficiently complicated chemicals -- will catalyze each other into
complex systems without Intelligent Design," bringing natural order to
chaos. Given certain circumstances, certain species could be expected to
emerge.

Dr. Kauffman points out that they also are failing to heed Darwin's
notions of pre-adaptation. What happens is this: an organism stumbles into
an environment where an unused aspect of itself becomes useful. That
aspect, suddenly essential, is selected and mutates into something new
that is integrated over time into a changed being. Human lungs developed
in this way, he said. They once were "swim bladders in fish."

Perdón por lo largo del mail.

Saludos,
Sebastian.