Thursday, May 31, 2012

When I Pointed Out the Evolutionary Tree Has Failed Two Professors Gave Me Pushback

Evolutionists proclaim that evolution is a fact as much as the fact that the Earth is round rather than flat, or that the planets circle the Sun rather than the Earth. Their favorite comparison is with gravity. As Joseph Le Conte explained a hundred and twenty years ago, evolution is not merely as certain as gravity, “Nay, it is far more certain.” Such claims have only escalated and today evolutionists are as certain as ever. But these claims go against everything we know from science. Indeed, evolution has failed every major test. Evolutionists do not have a scientific explanation for how life could have arisen from non life. They cannot even explain how a single protein could have first evolved. And we observe populations adapting to the environment rapidly via directed change, rather than the slow incorporation of random changes via natural selection. Furthermore the fossil record reveals bursts of diversity followed by extinctions. This hardly makes for an evolutionary tree and, indeed, when we compare the species they don’t fall into the expected tree-like pattern. Minor deviations might be expected, but the contradictions we observe are far more significant and are not explained by evolutionary mechanisms. It is precisely in situations like this, when a theory incurs repeated, independent, significant failures that scientists doubt its validity. Perhaps evolution is somehow true, or perhaps parts of the idea are true. And if not true, the theory nonetheless might be a useful model in certain problems. But when a theory incurs so many problems scientists certainly do not hold it to be a fact on par with gravity. And yet this is what evolutionists do. When I pointed this out two professors gave me pushback.

One professor argued that the problems with evolution are not so significant. Most theories have failures here and there, or at least have limited application. So what if evolution has some unanswered questions, should we therefore throw it out? Of course not:

So when Hunter points to the latest understanding of evolution, notes the failure of the tree of life, and then wants to declare that the entire theory of evolution should be declared a failure, he just looks desperate. His audience, which consists mostly of YECs, is willing to believe his nonsense. But face it, Cornelius, you aren't even trying to win any converts, you're just preaching to the choir. If you try to flaunt your stuff at a professional biology conference, people will shrug you off as a crackpot. And they will be right.

Evolutionists often use this argument. They claim evolution is a fact, and when you point out that it has significant problems and comes nowhere close to being a fact, they shift the burden of proof to you. You must demonstrate evolution to be false. Otherwise you are desperate and a crackpot.

The other professor repeated much the same argument, saying that common descent has not been falsified:

Basically, creationists who are desperate to avoid admitting common descent like to point to exceptions to a strict tree. Those exceptions are nevertheless other sorts of genealogy connecting the species. This they are at pains not to mention. Then they say that a (perfect) tree has been invalidated. That leaves their audience thinking that it has been shown that there is no common descent. Which it hasn't been. They are being disingenuous.

The professor then made the fallacious argument that common descent is demonstrated by non random relationships between the proteins species. You can read more about that here.

If you are new to the evolution debate you might wonder why evolutionists do not simply acknowledge the painfully obvious fact that evolution is not a fact. It is not as sure gravity and in fact there are significant questions and problems with evolution. Why don’t evolutionists admit to the truth of how the science bears on their theory?

The answer is that evolution is not about the science. At issue here is not merely the status of another scientific theory. Evolutionists won’t be swayed by the evidence because doing so—and confessing that evolution is not overwhelmingly supported by the evidence—would immediately expose evolutionists to all kinds of possibilities which they simply cannot accept. An evolutionist can no more change his mind than could a cultist. Evolution is underwritten by a religious worldview—it is a metaphysical theory, not at scientific theory. As such it may lose every battle, but it cannot lose the war.

187 comments:

  1. Not content with the usual dishonest equivocation between the observed fact of evolution and the theory of evolution that explains the observed fact, CH gets daring. This time he tacks on the full frontal Gish Gallop, along with the flying twisting dismount.

    The judges give it a 7.5 for entertainment value and creativity, but the usual 0 for scientific accuracy.

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    1. 'the observed fact of evolution' Thorton? Really? Please! For once I would like you to be honest with the evidence, with yourself, and with others, and point out exactly where the experimental evidence is for the 'observed fact' of evolution, for I can find none:

      Where's the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?

      Many of these researchers also raise the question (among others), why — even after inducing literally billions of induced mutations and (further) chromosome rearrangements — all the important mutation breeding programs have come to an end in the Western World instead of eliciting a revolution in plant breeding, either by successive rounds of selective “micromutations” (cumulative selection in the sense of the modern synthesis), or by “larger mutations” … and why the law of recurrent variation is endlessly corroborated by the almost infinite repetition of the spectra of mutant phenotypes in each and any new extensive mutagenesis experiment (as predicted) instead of regularly producing a range of new systematic species…
      (Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig, “Mutagenesis in Physalis pubescens L. ssp. floridana: Some Further Research on Dollo’s Law and the Law of Recurrent Variation,” Floriculture and Ornamental Biotechnology Vol. 4 (Special Issue 1): 1-21 (December 2010).)
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/peer-reviewed_research_paper_o042191.html

      Four decades worth of lab work is surveyed here:

      “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain – Michael Behe – December 2010
      Excerpt: In its most recent issue The Quarterly Review of Biology has published a review by myself of laboratory evolution experiments of microbes going back four decades.,,, The gist of the paper is that so far the overwhelming number of adaptive (that is, helpful) mutations seen in laboratory evolution experiments are either loss or modification of function. Of course we had already known that the great majority of mutations that have a visible effect on an organism are deleterious. Now, surprisingly, it seems that even the great majority of helpful mutations degrade the genome to a greater or lesser extent.,,, I dub it “The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution”: Break or blunt any functional coded element whose loss would yield a net fitness gain.
      http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/

      Delete
    2. Michael Behe talks about the preceding paper in this following podcast:

      Michael Behe: Challenging Darwin, One Peer-Reviewed Paper at a Time – December 2010
      http://intelligentdesign.podomatic.com/player/web/2010-12-23T11_53_46-08_00

      How about the oft cited example for neo-Darwinism of antibiotic resistance?

      List Of Degraded Molecular Abilities Of Antibiotic Resistant Bacteria:
      Excerpt: Resistance to antibiotics and other antimicrobials is often claimed to be a clear demonstration of “evolution in a Petri dish.” ,,, all known examples of antibiotic resistance via mutation are inconsistent with the genetic requirements of evolution. These mutations result in the loss of pre-existing cellular systems/activities, such as porins and other transport systems, regulatory systems, enzyme activity, and protein binding.
      http://www.trueorigin.org/bacteria01.asp

      That doesn't seem to be helping! How about we look really, really, close at very sensitive growth rates and see if we can catch almighty evolution in action???

      Unexpectedly small effects of mutations in bacteria bring new perspectives – November 2010
      Excerpt: Most mutations in the genes of the Salmonella bacterium have a surprisingly small negative impact on bacterial fitness. And this is the case regardless whether they lead to changes in the bacterial proteins or not.,,, using extremely sensitive growth measurements, doctoral candidate Peter Lind showed that most mutations reduced the rate of growth of bacteria by only 0.500 percent. No mutations completely disabled the function of the proteins, and very few had no impact at all. Even more surprising was the fact that mutations that do not change the protein sequence had negative effects similar to those of mutations that led to substitution of amino acids. A possible explanation is that most mutations may have their negative effect by altering mRNA structure, not proteins, as is commonly assumed.
      http://www.physorg.com/news/2010-11-unexpectedly-small-effects-mutations-bacteria.html

      Shoot that doesn't seem to be helping either! Perhaps we just got to give the almighty power of neo-Darwinism ‘room to breathe’? How about we ‘open the floodgates’ to the almighty power of Darwinian Evolution and look at Lenski’s Long Term Evolution Experiment and see what we can find after 50,000 generations, which is equivalent to somewhere around 1,000,000 years of human evolution???

      Richard Lenski’s Long-Term Evolution Experiments with E. coli and the Origin of New Biological Information – September 2011
      Excerpt: The results of future work aside, so far, during the course of the longest, most open-ended, and most extensive laboratory investigation of bacterial evolution, a number of adaptive mutations have been identified that endow the bacterial strain with greater fitness compared to that of the ancestral strain in the particular growth medium. The goal of Lenski’s research was not to analyze adaptive mutations in terms of gain or loss of function, as is the focus here, but rather to address other longstanding evolutionary questions. Nonetheless, all of the mutations identified to date can readily be classified as either modification-of-function or loss-of-FCT.
      (Michael J. Behe, “Experimental Evolution, Loss-of-Function Mutations and ‘The First Rule of Adaptive Evolution’,” Quarterly Review of Biology, Vol. 85(4) (December, 2010).)
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/09/richard_lenskis_long_term_evol051051.html

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    3. Now that just can’t be right!! Man we should really start to be seeing some neo-Darwinian fireworks by 50,000 generations!?! Hey I know what we can do! How about we see what happened when the ‘top five’ mutations from Lenski’s experiment were combined??? Surely now the Darwinian magic will start flowing!!!

      Mutations : when benefits level off – June 2011 – (Lenski’s e-coli after 50,000 generations)
      Excerpt: After having identified the first five beneficial mutations combined successively and spontaneously in the bacterial population, the scientists generated, from the ancestral bacterial strain, 32 mutant strains exhibiting all of the possible combinations of each of these five mutations. They then noted that the benefit linked to the simultaneous presence of five mutations was less than the sum of the individual benefits conferred by each mutation individually.
      http://www2.cnrs.fr/en/1867.htm?theme1=7

      Now something is going terribly wrong here!!! Tell you what, let’s just forget trying to observe evolution in the lab, I mean it really is kind of cramped in the lab you know, and now let’s REALLY open the floodgates and let’s see what the almighty power of neo-Darwinian evolution can do with the ENTIRE WORLD at its disposal??? Surely now almighty neo-Darwinian evolution will flex its awesomely powerful muscles and forever make those IDiots, who believe in Intelligent Design, cower in terror!!!

      A review of The Edge of Evolution: The Search for the Limits of Darwinism
      The numbers of Plasmodium and HIV in the last 50 years greatly exceeds the total number of mammals since their supposed evolutionary origin (several hundred million years ago), yet little has been achieved by evolution. This suggests that mammals could have “invented” little in their time frame. Behe: ‘Our experience with HIV gives good reason to think that Darwinism doesn’t do much—even with billions of years and all the cells in that world at its disposal’ (p. 155).
      http://creation.com/review-michael-behe-edge-of-evolution

      Michael Behe, The Edge of Evolution, pg. 162 Swine Flu, Viruses, and the Edge of Evolution
      “Indeed, the work on malaria and AIDS demonstrates that after all possible unintelligent processes in the cell–both ones we’ve discovered so far and ones we haven’t–at best extremely limited benefit, since no such process was able to do much of anything. It’s critical to notice that no artificial limitations were placed on the kinds of mutations or processes the microorganisms could undergo in nature. Nothing–neither point mutation, deletion, insertion, gene duplication, transposition, genome duplication, self-organization nor any other process yet undiscovered–was of much use.”
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/05/swine_flu_viruses_and_the_edge020071.html

      Now, there is something terribly wrong here! After looking high and low and everywhere in between, we can’t seem to find the almighty power of neo-Darwinism anywhere!! Shoot we can’t even find ANY power of neo-Darwinism whatsoever!!! It is as if the whole neo-Darwinian theory, relentlessly sold to the general public as it was the gospel truth, is nothing but a big fat lie!!!

      Delete
    4. Despite the purposeful deviousness of neo-Darwinists to what the evidence is actually saying, the fact of the matter is that genetic entropy, a principle that agrees with the second law of thermodynamics and conservation of information, is the true rule governing all biological adaptations:

      A. L. Hughes's New Non-Darwinian Mechanism of Adaption Was Discovered and Published in Detail by an ID Geneticist 25 Years Ago - Wolf-Ekkehard Lönnig - December 2011
      Excerpt: The original species had a greater genetic potential to adapt to all possible environments. In the course of time this broad capacity for adaptation has been steadily reduced in the respective habitats by the accumulation of slightly deleterious alleles (as well as total losses of genetic functions redundant for a habitat), with the exception, of course, of that part which was necessary for coping with a species' particular environment....By mutative reduction of the genetic potential, modifications became "heritable". -- As strange as it may at first sound, however, this has nothing to do with the inheritance of acquired characteristics. For the characteristics were not acquired evolutionarily, but existed from the very beginning due to the greater adaptability. In many species only the genetic functions necessary for coping with the corresponding environment have been preserved from this adaptability potential. The "remainder" has been lost by mutations (accumulation of slightly disadvantageous alleles) -- in the formation of secondary species.
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2011/12/a_l_hughess_new053881.html

      Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality - video (Notes in description)
      http://vimeo.com/35088933

      It is also extremely interesting to note, the principle of Genetic Entropy, which stands into direct opposition to the primary claim of neo-Darwinian evolution, lends itself quite well to mathematical analysis by computer simulation:

      Using Computer Simulation to Understand Mutation Accumulation Dynamics and Genetic Load:
      Excerpt: We apply a biologically realistic forward-time population genetics program to study human mutation accumulation under a wide-range of circumstances.,, Our numerical simulations consistently show that deleterious mutations accumulate linearly across a large portion of the relevant parameter space.
      http://bioinformatics.cau.edu.cn/lecture/chinaproof.pdf
      MENDEL’S ACCOUNTANT: J. SANFORD†, J. BAUMGARDNER‡, W. BREWER§, P. GIBSON¶, AND W. REMINE
      http://mendelsaccount.sourceforge.net

      Whereas, neo-Darwinian evolution has no rigorous mathematical foundation with which we can rigorously analyze it in any computer simulation; in any supposed 'Evolutionary Algorithm':

      "Darwin or Design" with Dr. Tom Woodward with guest Dr. Robert J. Marks II - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yoj9xo0YsOQ

      further note:

      DNA Degeneration: Top Population Geneticists agree neo-Darwinism is not supported by the data – John Sanford
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYEkqwOXE5U

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  2. Thorton:

    Not content with the usual dishonest equivocation between the observed fact of evolution and the theory of evolution that explains the observed fact, CH gets daring.

    I doubt that Hunter is arguing against all forms of evolution. The fossil and genomic data certainly show evidence of a progression. What is there to deny?

    Hunter frequently takes pains to point out that he's arguing against the claim that Darwinian evolution is a fact. What is Darwinian evolution? It is the theory that posits that the species came about solely as a result of natural selection acting on random mutations. Anybody with two neurons between their ears can see that this is a bogus theory, let alone a fact.

    It is much more plausible that the progression of the species is the result of intelligent design and genetic engineering. The intelligent design hypothesis predicts a non-nested tree of life, which is what is observed.

    This time he tacks on the full frontal Gish Gallop, along with the flying twisting dismount.

    ahahaha... Funny. At least you got some sense of humor.

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    1. Louis:

      "Gish Gallop" is it self a double personal attack, (i) against Dr Gish [whom it accuses of utterly cynical dishonesty, behind his back], and (ii) the one being compared to the strawman scapegoat.

      The radical Darwin zealots cannot ever forgive Dr Gish for repeatedly defeating them in public debates with particular reference to how the fossils do not support the gradual, branching tree of life model from microbes to man that they like to pretend is as warranted as the OBSERVATION of a heliocentric solar system.

      But, in fact we cannot and so did not observe the actual past, we are disucssing an explanatory model of it, which is inherently provisional and subject to a lesser degree of test than say Newtonian Gravitation.

      I choose this, because this theory was in fact shown to be a limiting case for a broader view, by Einstein.

      KF

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    2. Louis,
      Why does the intelligent design predict a non nested hierarchy? Design is capable of producing a nested hierarchy, as well as a non nested one? In fact design, especially produced by an unlimited designer, is unlimited in its options.

      Delete
    3. Why does the intelligent design predict a non nested hierarchy? Design is capable of producing a nested hierarchy, as well as a non nested one?

      Sure, but only non-intelligent design would result in a purely nested hierarchy or no hierarchy at all. Why? Because the number one principle of intelligent design is to reuse as many existing designs as possible including designs that belong to distant branches. Widespread reuse is what gives intelligent design its awesome power. After all, reinventing the wheel is not particular intelligent, is it? But that does not mean it cannot happen. Maybe there were multiple intelligent designers and they did not properly communicate to one another. Maybe they did not see eye to eye. Who knows? However, given the sophistication of living organisms, it is obvious the designers were very intelligent indeed.

      In fact design, especially produced by an unlimited designer, is unlimited in its options.

      I don't get this. Why must the designer or designers be unlimited? I am a Christian and don't see that at all. The idea of an omnipotent and omniscient designer is not just illogical, it's evil, in my opinion.

      Delete
  3. So horizontal transfer of genetic material invalidates evolutionary theory?

    Precisely why, Cornelius?

    The tree was an explanandum, not a prediction. It turns out that what needs to be explained is more complex than a tree.

    Biologists have risen to the challenge. Where is the problem?

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    1. Lizzie, according to Zachriel, "you can't reasonably argue that the nested hierarchy doesn't exist or that it isn't predicted as a consequent of largely uncrossed, branching descent."

      So you say that it isn't a prediction and other evolutionists (Theobald included) say it is a prediction.

      Delete
    2. Neal Tedford: Lizzie, according to Zachriel, "you can't reasonably argue that the nested hierarchy doesn't exist or that it isn't predicted as a consequent of largely uncrossed, branching descent."

      There are two statements there:

      1. That there is a discernible nested hierarchy pattern evident across many tax.
      2. The mathematical claim that a nested hierarchy is a consequence of uncrossed, branching descent.

      Delete
    3. Ignorant Creationist

      Lizzie, according to Zachriel, "you can't reasonably argue that the nested hierarchy doesn't exist or that it isn't predicted as a consequent of largely uncrossed, branching descent."

      So you say that it isn't a prediction and other evolutionists (Theobald included) say it is a prediction.


      The discovery of the nested branching pattern of life came first. Evolution through common descent was offered as an explanation for the empirically observed pattern.

      Any process of branching descent will leave a nested hierarchical pattern. The prediction is that IF evolution is true THEN we should see a nested hierarchical pattern, which indeed we do.

      Dr. Liddle and Zachriel are both correct, and as usual you're too ignorant to grasp the concept.

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    4. Thorton said
      "The prediction is that IF evolution is true THEN we should see a nested hierarchical pattern, which indeed we do."

      No we do not do. We have different trees with statistically significative probability to be true trees.
      What should be contrasted with the probabilities that the life could evolve according with the tree in the assumed timelines.

      Delete
    5. First was the observation of a nested hierarchical pattern (by Linnaeus).

      Then there was the postulated explanation: common descent from an ancestral population of simpler organisms.

      Which demanded a mechanism by which different lineages from that simpler ancestral population could change (evolve) over time to become the diversity of species we observe today, each well-adapted to its environmental niche.

      Darwin posited descent with modification and natural selection.

      Note that Darwin's mechanism would apply whether we are talking about several ancestral populations or one (and indeed he specified "few [ancestral] forms or one").

      So Common Descent with modification and natural selection is one theory of evolution. If true, it makes several predictions:

      We will continue to find that organisms show a pattern of phenotypic features that are distributed as a nested hierarchy (yes)

      We will find that over time, populations will evolve to be optimally adapted to their current environment (yes, observed in real time)

      We will find mechanisms of inheritance (yes, DNA)

      We will find mechanisms of heritable phenotypic variance (yes, many mechanisms that generate DNA sequence novelty)

      However, interestingly, we also found that not all DNA sequences are inherited vertically.

      This does not falsify the theory so far, but it adds another dimension to the picture, literally - a horizontal dimension. This demands an explanation.

      Explanations are proposed (e.g. viral transfer), and these in turn make predictions. The predictions are confirmed.

      And so the theory is extended.

      Why do you, or anyone, think this is some kind of "gotcha!" for evolutionary theory?

      I find it quite bizarre, especially from Cornelius who is trained in biological science.

      Delete
  4. Genesis 1:27

    So God created mankind in his own image,

    in the image of God he created them;

    male and female he created them.

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  5. (I am Professor #2. Cornelius anonymized me, for some reason).

    The commenters defending Cornelius's post here have twisted themselves in knots. Yes, folks, Cornelius is arguing that there is no evidnce for evolution. He always puts it that way. Not "Darwinism", not "really really impressive and pretty big changes that impress even me". Evolution.

    He is rejecting the idea that there is substantial evidence for common descent. For organisms being descended from common ancestors. The evidence for which began to impress biologists even before Dawin's Origin of Species, Even guys like Cuvier and Richard Owen.

    We have been this route here before. Pressed as to whether he accepts common descent of members of any group, he has said yes, diatoms. Pressed as to how the evidence for common ancestry of (say) chordates differs from that, he does not answer but tries to argue that to defend common descent of (say) chordates you need to have an adaptive scenario and get into mechanisms.

    In Cornelius's posts it is always "evolution" that he is attacking. Not just "Darwinism", Twist and turn though he may, he will never accept that chordates have a common ancestor.

    If people want to see Cornelus's acceptance of common ancestry, but only for diatoms and not for chordates, see his post in this blog of July, 2010 on "Evolution is a Scientific Fact: Day 74". In particular his comments in that thread by me on July 18 10:54pm, Cornelius's agreement with common descent on July 18 11:22pm, and our further exchange July 19 1pm and 2:57pm, July 20 2:36pm, July 22 10:05am, and July 29 6:17am). Also there is rehash of the topic here in September 2010.

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    1. 'how the evidence for common ancestry of (say) chordates differs from that"

      and yet:

      Pikaia Fossils Explode the Evolutionary Paradigm - Fazale Rana - May 2012
      Excerpt: Yet, in the Chengjian site—which corresponds to the beginning of the Cambrian—researchers have recovered a number of urochordate, hemichordate, cephalochordate, and agnathan specimens, all organisms that would be Pikaia’s evolutionary descendents. Instead of observing the sequential appearance of primitive chordates first, followed by more advanced chordates, the fossil record actually shows the simultaneous appearance of primitive and advanced chordates.
      http://www.reasons.org/articles/pikaia-fossils-explode-the-evolutionary-paradigm

      further notes:

      All skeletalised metazoan phyla appeared in the Cambrian - David Tyler - 2010
      Excerpt: This means that Cambrian strata can be said to record examples of all the skeletalized metazoan phyla.,,, Subsequent periods of Earth history may have had more dramatic radiations at the Order, Class or Family level, but there were no further bauplan innovations affecting skeletalized metazoan organisms.
      http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2010/12/09/all_skeletalised_metazoan_phyla_appeared

      Challenging Fossil of a Little Fish
      "In Chen’s view, his evidence supports a history of life that runs opposite to the standard evolutionary tree diagrams, a progression he calls top-down evolution." Jun-Yuan Chen is professor at the Nanjing Institute of Paleontology and Geology
      http://www.fredheeren.com/boston.htm

      In Explaining the Cambrian Explosion, Has the TalkOrigins Archive Resolved Darwin's Dilemma? - JonathanM - May 2012
      Excerpt: it is the pattern of morphological disparity preceding diversity that is fundamentally at odds with the neo-Darwinian scenario of gradualism. All of the major differences (i.e. the higher taxonomic categories such as phyla) appear first in the fossil record and then the lesser taxonomic categories such as classes, orders, families, genera and species appear later. On the Darwinian view, one would expect to see all of the major differences in body plan appear only after numerous small-scale speciation events. But this is not what we observe.
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/05/has_the_talk-or059171.html

      Origin of Phyla - The Fossil Evidence - Timeline Graph
      http://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=0AYmaSrBPNEmGZGM4ejY3d3pfMzNobjlobjNncQ&hl=en

      The unscientific hegemony of uniformitarianism - David Tyler - May 2011
      Excerpt: The pervasive pattern of natural history: disparity precedes diversity,,,, The summary of results for phyla is as follows. The pattern reinforces earlier research that concluded the Explosion is not an artefact of sampling. Much the same finding applies to the appearance of classes. These data are presented in Figures 1 and 2 in the paper.
      http://www.arn.org/blogs/index.php/literature/2011/05/16/the_unscientific_hegemony_of_uniformitar

      etc.. etc.. etc..

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    2. as to 'diatoms'

      Please feel free to present your empirical evidence as to how these marvels of life arose in a bottom up neo-Darwinian fashion instead of just your belief that that is how it happened:

      Diatoms - photos
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1gfH7WuD87e863tx-ICudApYGCWK9gvj0cd2ldmpYpyQ/edit

      The Cell As Revealed By The Electron-Microscope – Chris Ashcraft – video http://www.metacafe.com/watch/5766297/

      Delete
  6. Joe, the evidence for common descent is cherry picked. You should know that any hypothesis can be supported by cherry picking data.

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    1. Ignorant Creationist

      Joe, the evidence for common descent is cherry picked. You should know that any hypothesis can be supported by cherry picking data.


      How would you know? The only time you've come anywhere near a science class or lab is on the way to the donut shop.

      Your willful ignorance on the topic of evolutionary biology is the stuff of legend. You've avoided and ignored dozens of scientific papers and studies that have been presented here. You're too lazy to look at the hundreds of thousands of others that can be found on places like PubMed or Google Scholar. But you'll flap those flabby jowls all day about finch beaks and peppered moths as if those were the only examples on the planet.

      There's no cure for willful ignorance.

      Delete
    2. Neal: Joe, the evidence for common descent is cherry picked. You should know that any hypothesis can be supported by cherry picking data.

      No, it isn't.

      Or, at least, if you think it is, please provide support for your assertion.

      Delete
    3. Or, at least, if you think it is, please provide support for your assertion.

      A Primer on the Tree of Life - Casey Luskin - 2009
      Excerpt: The truth is that common ancestry is merely an assumption that governs interpretation of the data, not an undeniable conclusion, and whenever data contradicts expectations of common descent, evolutionists resort to a variety of different ad hoc rationalizations to save common descent from being falsified.
      http://www.discovery.org/a/10651

      Pattern pluralism and the Tree of Life hypothesis - 2006
      Excerpt: Hierarchical structure can always be imposed on or extracted from such data sets by algorithms designed to do so, but at its base the universal TOL rests on an unproven assumption about pattern that, given what we know about process, is unlikely to be broadly true.
      http://www.pnas.org/content/104/7/2043.abstract

      case in point:

      Douglas Theobald's Test Of Common Ancestry Ignores Common Design - November 2010
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/douglas_theobalds_test_of_comm041071.html

      further note:

      A New Model for Evolution: A Rhizome - Didier Raoult - May 2010
      Excerpt: Thus we cannot currently identify a single common ancestor for the gene repertoire of any organism.,,, Overall, it is now thought that there are no two genes that have a similar history along the phylogenic tree.,,,Therefore the representation of the evolutionary pathway as a tree leading to a single common ancestor on the basis of the analysis of one or more genes provides an incorrect representation of the stability and hierarchy of evolution. Finally, genome analyses have revealed that a very high proportion of genes are likely to be newly created,,, and that some genes are only found in one organism (named ORFans). These genes do not belong to any phylogenic tree and represent new genetic creations.
      http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2010/05/new-model-for-evolution-rhizome.html

      “That molecular evidence typically squares with morphological patterns is a view held by many biologists, but interestingly, by relatively few systematists. Most of the latter know that the two lines of evidence may often be incongruent."
      (Masami Hasegawa, Jun Adachi, Michel C. Milinkovitch, "Novel Phylogeny of Whales Supported by Total Molecular Evidence," Journal of Molecular Evolution, Vol. 44, pgs. S117-S120)

      Darwinists are certainly not forthright with empirical evidence from the fossils either!

      Whale Evolution vs. The Actual Evidence – video - fraudulent fossils revealed
      http://vimeo.com/30921402

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    4. Lizzie, BA77 has some helpful links.

      Where to start, because an objective look at the data does not support evolution. Nothing in biology or the fossil record makes sense in light of evolution. Every cherry picked piece of data can certainly be spun into some kind of evolutionary tale, but an objective look at the data shows that it very easily is screaming at the top of its proverbal lungs a completely different story.

      Delete
    5. From one of BA's links:

      This is not to say that similarities and differences between organisms are not to be accounted for by evolutionary mechanisms, but descent with modification is only one of these mechanisms, and a single tree-like pattern is not the necessary (or expected) result of their collective operation. Pattern pluralism (the recognition that different evolutionary models and representations of relationships will be appropriate, and true, for different taxa or at different scales or for different purposes) is an attractive alternative to the quixotic pursuit of a single true TOL.

      Certainly the data we know have support a more complex tree than that delineated by Linneas and which common ancestry was postulated to explain (and descent with modification to explain the variance); but Cornelius's case appears to be that evolution is not supported - as is yours.

      As BA's link indicates, this is not the case.

      Your own words "screaming at the top of its proverbial lungs a completely different story" is sheer hyperbole. What the data are indicating (not "screaming") is that longitudinal inheritance is not the only mechanism of genetic transfer.

      That is not "a completely different story" - it is merely a more complicated one. But that's what scientific research is all about - every more detailed models with ever-improving fit to the data.

      Delete
  7. Zachriel said in a previous article- "Something is statistically significant if it is unlikely to have occurred by chance. In this case, the observed nested hierarchy is more than just an artifact of happenstance, but very strongly supported. You might argue about the cause of the nested hierarchy, but you can't reasonably argue that the nested hierarchy doesn't exist or that it isn't predicted as a consequent of largely uncrossed, branching descent. "

    Like Theobald you are arguing against chance, not design. The whole test is basically flawed in this glaring error. That designers often utilize common design platforms, standards, and codes is a fact.

    What is problematic for you and what betrays your objective nested hiearchy evolutionary prediction is all the mixing and matching throughout the mosaic of life. The incongruence between trees with selection criteria based on morphology verses DNA is also a known fact.

    This inconguence extends throughout the mosiac of life, including mammals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Neal Tedford: Like Theobald you are arguing against chance, not design. The whole test is basically flawed in this glaring error. That designers often utilize common design platforms, standards, and codes is a fact.

      Divine design is untestable and yields no specific predictions distinct from evolution involving natural selection. However, human designers don't include broken fragments of a hard roof when they roll out a convertible version of a new car, and computers don't arrive with the viruses pre-installed.

      Delete
    2. anaxyrus, it would be refreshing if evolutionists actually made predictions that were specific and measurable and held themselves accountable to the results. An example right here is that they can't decide if the nested hierarchy was a prediction, even though on Theobald's website it's prediction 2.1 in big and bold font.


      "Broken fragments"? If you are referring to DNA then your analogy is invalid. Do you suppose some of the information stored within a computer in an automobile has multiple uses and some code is commented out in some versions? Ouch.

      Regarding viruses, you are making a big assumption that viruses were preinstalled and did not arrive later (like they do in computers). My position is that creation occured long ago and I don't know of anyone who believes that any specific living organism currently on earth is the result of a current creation event. So you have a strawman argument.

      Evolutionists have no way of discerning or accepting design, no matter what the data shows. They have no metric. It's science by default and nothing can even hypothetically fall outside evolution. They pay lip service to a few hypotheticals, but they can and do easily backpedal away from them when falsification is looming.

      Intelligent design procedures exist to manually manipulate DNA to produce profound change within organisms. Evolutionists have not demonstrated any such capability with natural selection and mutation.

      Delete
    3. paragraph 1: Elizabeth Liddle is correct and Theobald wrong. Not the first time (cusped teeth on Pacu), but still Theobald's list is a useful resource.

      paragraph 2: I was obviously referring to pseudogenes. Code that is commented out doesn't continue to get meaningless edits as it propagates.

      paragraph 3: Viruses are pre-installed in each new human born. Yes, those are passed down from distant ancestors who were infected. Because chimps are infected by so many of the same viruses in the same places on the same chromosomes sharing so much synteny, and it is observed that retroviruses have no stereotypy during insertion, it is strong evidence for infection of a common ancestor.

      Paragraph 4: Design is accepted for stone tools based on our familiarity with the tool makers, their objective existence, and our knowledge of how such tools are produced.

      Paragraph 5: Great Dane and Chihuahua show how rapidly change can accrue through the mechanisms of evolution (not just natural selection and mutation, but mutation, selection, drift, recombination, and gene flow). Yes artificial selection produces faster change than natural selection. Speciation is a process, involving time scales on the order of tens of thousands of years. Serious scientific scrutiny of populations has been going on for less than 200 years, with most observations during the last 60 or so. But there are no permanent bounds on change, so it's up to creation "scientists" to prove that the mechanisms we see acting today have fixed, impenetrable barriers that can't be broken unless their anthropomorphic deity picks them up and drops them over the fence.

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    4. anaxyrus said

      "Paragraph 4: Design is accepted for stone tools based on our familiarity with the tool makers, their objective existence, and our knowledge of how such tools are produced."

      Well, we do not know how Stonhedge, the Pyramid of Cheops, the pyramids of Yucatan and the Nazca draws were made. We are not sure who did them. But nobody think they were made by natural process no matter natural process made the Monumental Valley.

      Delete
    5. It is both a monumental valley and Monument Valley.

      Delete
    6. anaxyrus,

      P1- "Theobald is wrong". Glad you see that!

      Zachriel, do you agree with anazyrus that Theobald is wrong?

      P2 - meaningless edits? As in junk-dna? Is that a prediction? Can we hold you to it as a potential falsification of evolution? Do you realize that they may not produce proteins, but they do get transcribed and important functions for these are being found?

      P3 - "We report the existence of 51,197 ERV-derived promoter sequences that initiate transcription within the human genome, including 1743 cases where transcription is initiated from ERV sequences that are located in gene proximal promoter or 5' untranslated regions (UTRs)...These data suggest that ERVs may regulate human transcription on a large scale." Andrew B. Conley, Jittima Piriyapongsa and I. King Jordan, "Retroviral promoters in the human genome," Bioinformatics, Vol. 24(14):1563--1567 (2008).)

      P4 - Design is also accepted for the ability to produce profound biological change by manually manipulating DNA. Lenski's evolutionary experiments are trivial in comparison. Compared to Lenski's E.Coli experiments it's the difference between swapping a different engine into a VW and breaking the mirror off in order to fit it through the garage door. Design is like an arrowhead in DNA manipulation and evolution is like a sharp rock breaking of a cliff. Our tools hunt better than yours.

      P5 - Dogs are still dogs, but its up to the creationists to prove that variation is unbounded??? Genuine animal speciation has never been observed in the history of science. How does the observation that Great Danes and Chihuahua's are both dogs scientifically show there are "no permanent bounds on change"? What's actually observed is bounded. What's unbounded is your speculation.

      Evolutionists strike out every time. It's like coach pitch little league. Even when their coaches pitch slow balls, these guys still strike out.

      Delete
    7. velikovskys said
      It is both a monumental valley and Monument Valley.

      Thanks.

      Delete
    8. P1: To repeat others on this thread, Linnaeus found a nested hierarchy of animal species. Darwin proposed that branching descent from common ancestry would yield the Linnaean hierarchy. Darwin knew that hybridization occurred but thought that the tree model was useful enough. We still find it useful enough as a model of animal evolution. It is less useful for bacteria. Zach is not wrong when he says that a nested hierarchy attains from branching with no hybridization.

      P2: NT: meaningless edits? As in junk-dna?
      Plagiarized errors shared by chimp and human in psi-GULO is what I was specifically referring to. But junk DNA in general is a big problem for design. Only a very tiny fraction of the noncoding genome has any demonstrated function. It might sound from news reports that it's just time before we find function in all of it, but that's not the case. Most functional noncoding DNA has been known for a long time (centromeres, telomeres, promoters. operators, miRNAs, etc). If indeed it is all transcribed, it may well simply be spurious transcription. And over a million base pairs were excised from a mouse with no observable effect. Junk DNA is not a prediction that arises directly from common descent, but of the neutral theory of evolution. Extreme adaptationist views of evolution would be confirmed if none of it were junk (don't hold your breath). But the presence of all this junk DNA has led Jonathan Wells to write his most recent book pretending it doesn't exist.

      P3: This is what Thorton would call an own goal for your team. Coopting dead viruses as promoters is the kind of thing we expect out of a brain dead process like evolution. It's not at all surprising given the huge proportion of DNA outside exons that is retroviral in origin and the fact that DNA is a 4 letter alphabet and that promoters are short strings in this 4 letter alphabet. Hosting viruses that can insert themselves into exons leading to fatal errors is really dumb. But those fatal errors get culled, so we end up with exons largely free from viruses and introns and other regions full of them in survivors.

      Delete
    9. P4: NT: Design is also accepted for the ability to produce profound biological change by manually manipulating DNA. Um, no. We only accept design when we have a plausible (animal with a brain) designer and means of construction. I'm not sure what you are so impressed with in genetic engineering. Yes, it can produce fast change. But many results have been lackluster. Flavr Savr tomatoes, anyone? Roundup ready soybeans? Producing weeds that are developing Roundup resistance because evolution is much more powerful than many give it credit for? Our most impressive genetic modification has been through selection, letting evolution do the job while we play matchmaker and tilt the fitness landscape for our own ends. Lenski's experiments show that evolution in bacteria can solve chemical problems to achieve greater fitness. Evolution often takes the path of least resistance. After 3.5 billion years, so much has been built up, that it's no wonder the quickest route to adaptation is to break something, tweak something, or coopt something.

      P5: NT: Dogs are still dogs Vertebrates are still vertebrates. No matter how much morphological distance we put between dog breeds, you could still say "they're just dogs" because we have pulled them out of domestic dog ancestry. Are they still wolves? Is a pug a wolf? Do you deny so much history that you won't accept the lupine origins of dogs?
      NT: but its up to the creationists to prove that variation is unbounded???
      Mutations are observed that in combination could change any genotype into any other.
      NT: Genuine animal speciation has never been observed in the history of science.
      Strawman: what part of tens of thousands of years do you not understand? And "genuine" adds a touch of No True Scotsman. I could mention any number of examples, but you could object "it was in a lab" or "none one witnessed the whole process" or "sterility barriers weren't established" or "there wasn't large morphological change".
      NT: How does the observation that Great Danes and Chihuahua's are both dogs scientifically show there are "no permanent bounds on change"?
      The shape of the skull in domestic dogs has evolved to a broader range than is seen in wild carnivorans. (Drake and Klingenberg 2010). Kill off all other dog breeds, and you could say the Great Dane and Chihuahua are "still dogs" but you could not correctly say that they belong to the same species.

      Delete
    10. Blas, we know that humans constructed all of the structures you mentioned. People were living in all of the areas you mentioned. In the case of Egpyt, we see the quarries where the limestone was cut by the Egyptians. However, we have no objective evidence of the tooth fairy is supposedly responsible for "designing" DNA.

      Delete
    11. Neal Tedford: Zachriel, do you agree with anazyrus that Theobald is wrong?

      1) Did you actually read the article, or just the title?

      "since common descent is a genealogical process, common descent should produce organisms that can be organized into objective nested hierarchies. Equivalently, we predict that, in general, cladistic analyses of organisms should produce phylogenies that have large, statistically significant values of hierarchical structure (in standard scientific practice, a result with "high statistical significance" is a result that has a 1% probability or less of occurring by chance [P < 0.01]). As a representation of universal common descent, the universal tree of life should have very high, very significant hierarchical structure and phylogenetic signal."

      2) Do you understand the relationship between theory and evidence? A theory is an explanatory framework that includes a number of related claims. Some of these claims may be strongly supported, while others are still under investigation. A hypothesis is proposed for the purposes of testing its entailed predictions. As such, aspects of a theory may be in flux, depending on the state of research, without undermining the entire framework.

      3) Do you understand the role of prediction in science? If a prediction is falsified, it can due to a number of factors. It could result in discarding or modifying the hypothesis. It could mean that the original prediction was based on faulty predicates. Or it could be due to some factor yet to be determined, such as an observational artifact.

      Theobald's is *positing* that genealogical processes predominate at least to the time of the last universal common ancestor. As a genealogical process, we expect (deduce) a strong phylogenetic signal. That doesn't mean there will be no horizontal movement, such as endogenous retroviruses or hybridizations. However, even at the root of the tree, there are strong phylogenetic signals within genes families. None of this means that you will have a perfect nested hierarchy, and that was never claimed. Indeed, Darwin suggested there may be more than a single root to the tree of life, which would contradict Theobald's hypothesis.

      Whatever the case, a theory has to bend to the evidence. So if a theory suggests simple bifurcating evolution at the root of the tree of life, based on current evidence, that theory would probably have to be modified or discarded. If Theobald is incorrect on genealogical processes predominating in the early history of life, then the prediction would presumably fail, and that theory would be falsified. However, it would still leave most of the ensuing history of evolution intact. It is still a matter of debate whether the "Darwinian Age" traces back to the last universal common ancestor.

      Delete
    12. Blas,

      Have you been to Monument Valley?

      Delete
    13. velikovskys no, unfortuntly I only could visit the Great Canyon.

      anaxyrus

      "Blas, we know that humans constructed all of the structures you mentioned."

      Sure, Why do you know? Only because human were present? How do you know are not a result of ntural process? How they constructed that?

      Delete
    14. Blas, maybe you think "Ancient Aliens" is good science. Not many scientists would agree. The ancients had more science, mathematics, and technology than we generally give them credit for. Let's take Egypt as an example, because we know more about it. The pyramids served as mausoleums for Egyptian rulers. We have evidence that they cut the local Eocene nummulitic limestone into blocks. We have even found the tombs of those who built the pyramids. (Maybe you missed this - http://on.msnbc.com/M8O883) The Egyptians used massive amounts of manpower and mechanical advantage and perhaps other means. But we don't need to know every precise detail, because we have objective evidence that humans were on the scene and are more likely to have built this than an aardvark, earthquake, or alien. Although we think of human efforts as "manmade / artificial," in the context of this discussion, human construction is a natural cause rather than a supernatural cause. Supernatural causes have never been useful explanations for anything in the natural world.

      Delete
    15. Discussing unique events in the past with darwinists is always difficult so let´s try with this.
      anaxyrus if the SETI lab found a structure similar to the Cheops pyramid in one of that rocky planets that were found outside the solar system you are going to search for life in that planet or in others? why?

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    16. My answer is yes, because if I found a Cheops-style structure I would consider it highly likely that it was designed by a living being, given that it would seem to be extremely ordered and complex, and yet not a living being itself.

      Delete
    17. Elizabeth Liddle said:

      "My answer is yes"

      Then you accept design without familiarity of the makers, their objective existance and our knowledge of how it was produced. That seems were the anaxyrus conditions for accepting design.

      "because if I found a Cheops-style structure I would consider it highly likely that it was designed by a living being, given that it would seem to be extremely ordered and complex, and yet not a living being itself."

      So according to you extremely ordered and complex entities are designed unless are living beings.
      May I ask why?

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    18. Blas, here are some problems with your current line of argument.

      1. SETI can't possibly detect such a structure on an extrasolar planet.

      2. If we could get pictures of a Cheops pyramid-like structure on such a planet, all by itself it would not be sufficient evidence of life. http://www.panoramio.com/photo/32554879
      There's a human face-like structure seen in some pictures on Mars, and we all know how crawling with life Mars is.

      If planet A had blocky rock in the shape of a pyramid, and planet B had liquid water oceans and an oxygen-enriched atmosphere, I would search planet B for life.

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    19. anaxyrus said

      "If planet A had blocky rock in the shape of a pyramid, and planet B had liquid water oceans and an oxygen-enriched atmosphere, I would search planet B for life."

      That is a coherent position, you find as plausible the formation of pyramid of Cheops by natural laws as the origin of life by natural laws. Then you go to the planet with more chances fr the arising of life. I have no argument against that beleive, that is why I`m not an ID supporter. But if I have to put my money, I will follow the incoherent position of Elizabeth and look for life in the planet with the structure like Cheop`s pyramid.

      Delete
  8. Neal Tedford: Like Theobald you are arguing against chance, not design.

    The first question is whether there is a discernible nested hierarchy. Let's start there.

    ReplyDelete
  9. Zachriel

    "The first question is whether there is a discernible nested hierarchy. Let's start there."

    If you have to invoque LGT and amazing paralel convergent evolution the hierarchy is nested but not so much.

    ReplyDelete
  10. Neal Tedford: What is problematic for you and what betrays your objective nested hiearchy evolutionary prediction is all the mixing and matching throughout the mosaic of life.

    Theobold's paper largely resolves that question. The nested hierarchy points to a single hierarchical structure.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Douglas Theobald's Test Of Common Ancestry Ignores Common Design - November 2010
      Excerpt: This experiment demonstrates that the phenomenon observed by Theobald [4] is, indeed, entirely a product of "our ability to accurately predict the sequence of a... related protein relative to an unrelated protein" regardless of the actual history of the corresponding sequences. Alignments of statistically similar but phylogenetically unrelated sequences successfully mimic the purported effect of common origin. Thus, the nature and origin of the similarity between the aligned sequences are irrelevant for the prediction of "common ancestry" of proteins under Theobald's approach. Accordingly, common ancestry (or homology, in the modern, post-Darwinian sense) of the compared proteins remains an inference from sequence similarity rather than an independent property demonstrated by the likelihood analysis.
      (Eugene V Koonin and Yuri I Wolf, "The common ancestry of life," Biology Direct, Vol. 5:64 (2010).)
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/douglas_theobalds_test_of_comm041071.html

      But Isn't There a Consilience of Data That Corroborates Common Descent? - Casey Luskin - December 2010
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/but_isnt_there_lots_of_other_d041111.html

      Delete
    2. bornagain77: This experiment demonstrates that the phenomenon observed by Theobald [4] is, indeed, entirely a product of "our ability to accurately predict the sequence of a... related protein relative to an unrelated protein" regardless of the actual history of the corresponding sequences.

      At this point, we are only concerned with the correlation, not the explanation. According to your own citation, the correlation is not in question.

      Delete
  11. "The wealth of competing morphological, as well as molecular proposals [of] the prevailing phylogenies of the mammalian orders would reduce [the mammalian tree] to an unresolved bush, the only consistent clade probably being the grouping of elephants and sea cows."

    W. W. De Jong, "Molecules remodel the mammalian tree," Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Vol 13(7), pgs. 270-274 (July 7, 1998).

    "the only consistent clade probably being the grouping of elephants and sea cows."...

    "the only", "probably"... and Zachriel would like us to believe that he has something statistically significant. If there were ten mammal species on earth and you had elephants and sea cows among them, would 20% be considered satistically significant? How about 100 mammals... is 2% statistically significant? How about a 1000 mammal species... is 02% significant? Who knows, because you have no metric.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Ignorant Creationist

      "the only", "probably"... and Zachriel would like us to believe that he has something statistically significant. If there were ten mammal species on earth and you had elephants and sea cows among them, would 20% be considered satistically significant? How about 100 mammals... is 2% statistically significant? How about a 1000 mammal species... is 02% significant? Who knows, because you have no metric.


      Meaning of Statistical Significance

      Damn but you're a willfully ignorant blowhard.

      Delete
    2. Tedford, that article was from the infancy of molecular phylogeny, and the 1998 tree shown has low resolution. Things have stabilized quite a bit with better evidence, and some of the things in the morphological tree described as incorrect in the 1998 review have been confirmed. Marsupialia is the sister of placentals, not monotremes (that was a poor use of mitochondrial DNA for such an ancient speciation). Lagomorphs really are the sisters of Rodentia. Primates, scandentians, and colugos really are a clade. There are actually only a few rearrangements of the morphological tree that need to be made,and two of them were known to be uncertain.

      Delete
  12. Of related note: Here are some informative videos I just found on the subject:

    Creation/Evolution: Natural Limits to Biological Change 1/2 - Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin - video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Dk9wmQP7SdM

    Creation/Evolution: Natural Limits to Biological Change 2/2 - Dr. Raymond G. Bohlin - video
    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vo3OKSGeFRQ

    ReplyDelete
  13. From CH's previous article on the putative "tree of life," we read:

    Dr Rose said: "The tree of life is being politely buried – we all know that. What's less accepted is our whole fundamental view of biology needs to change."

    And we have Allan MacNeil at Cornell telling everyone that the "neo-Darwinism" is dead. So now what? What's left of the theory?

    Neo-Darwinism was the attempt to reconcile Mendelian genetics with Darwinian mechanisms. A kind of "modern synthesis" was eventually achieved that could 'overcome' the stasis implicit in Mendelian genetics. But this has unraveled. Where does this leave us?

    If one tries to overcome this with the Neutral Theory, then we are left with the fact that there is no such thing as NS in the "neutral theory."

    So, NS has failed to show any significant ability to modify species. And the evolutionary "tree" is post hoc. Lamarckian mechanisms using siRNA are popping up everywhere, further calling into question just exactly what NS is supposed to do. Face it: there's hardly a theory there anymore. So, indeed, just what is left of the theory?

    An irreligious world-view? That seems to be the best answer.

    ReplyDelete
  14. CH: the Evolutionary Tree Has Failed

    Failed at what, exactly? Wouldn't that depend on the specific role predictions play in science?

    For example, If one drives a car off a cliff and it "fails" to fly, does that mean it's failed as a car?

    In other words, it's unclear how this isn't yet another example equivocation and misrepresentation of science?

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  15. Re the the issue of whether nested hierarchies are a prediction or an explanandum:

    The way science generally works is that we start with observations (aka "data" - literally "what is given") and try to figure out an explanation. If we find an explanation that fits the data, we then derive hypotheses that will, if true, predict new data, but, if false, will (probably) not.

    In the case of nested hierarchies, Linneas discovered them, famously, but did not explain them. They were objectively there, but had no explanation.

    Darwin proposed that they represented a family tree (which is also a nested hierarchy), with heritable variation. He also proposed a mechanism for how adaptation to different niches down different lineages might occur.

    So now we have two interlocking theories:

    1. Common ancestry: that all living things are descended from "a few forms or one".

    2. Descent with modification and natural selection: variants that prove reproductivly successful are selectively retained down a lineage.

    However, he proposed no mechanism for variance generation, and no mechanism for inheritance.

    Later, DNA was discovered, and proposed as the carrier of heritable traits, a hypothesis that also suggested a variance generation mechanism: less than 100% fidelity in copying between generations. This discovery made clear predictions - different DNA sequences should confer different phenotypic traits. And they do, often.

    I don't think anyone here doubts it.

    So now back to Darwin's two theories: If common descent is true (that all living things descended from a single, or a few, ancestors by means of branching lines of longitudinal descent, as indicated by morphological characters, as Linneaus noted), and if DNA variants provide phenotypic variance as well as being DNA being the vector of inheritance, then those phylogenies derived from morphological characters should be mirrored in those derived from DNA.

    And to a vast extent they are, which is why paternity testing works, and forensic DNA testing. However, the prediction was in part confounded - the nice simple longitudinal Tree of Life proposed by Darwin proved to be much bushier at the molecular level, suggesting horizontal, as well as longitudinal, genetic vectors.

    continued below:

    ReplyDelete
  16. So simple Common Descent, in the sense that our entire genome consists of what we inherited from our parents plus de novo mutations, turned out to be wrong. Some of our genetic material turns out to come from quite different organisms, notably viruses. And in our distant ancestry, symbiosis - more wholesale exchange of genetic material between lineages, is a strong current hypothesis.

    These hypotheses in turn make predictions - those predictions are what enable scientists to conclude that some horizontal genetic transfer is via viruses. Likewise, the symbiotic theory leads to testable hypotheses.

    But while this means that simple longitidinal common descent was too simple a hypothesis, HGT has merely added vines to the tree - vines moreover that probably share the same root as the tree - and the tree itself still dominates the pattern. Not surprisingly, as we know that the vast majority of offspring closely resemble their parents, as does their DNA.

    So, to oversimplify still, evolutionary theory as it now stands says:

    1. All living things are probably descended from much simpler living things, which, in those earlier times, probably exchanged genetic material in much more various ways than we do now, although even now, viral genetic material still makes its way into the DNA of non-viral organisms.

    2. Descent with modification and natural selection: variants that prove reproductivly successful are selectively retained down a lineage (unchanged).

    3. Genetic variance comes about in various ways, including less than 100% faithful DNA replication; HGT; symbiosis; and is probably itself shaped by natural selection.

    4. Drift (unbiased sampling of the population's genetic material in each generation) is probably at least as important as "natural selection" (sampling biased in favour of what promotes reproductive success in the current environment) in generating diversity.

    5. There are vectors of longitudinal phenotypic inheritance other than DNA, including epigenetic effects and cultural transmission; these in turn feed back into the genetic sampling process.


    In other words 1 is still broadly supported, but has been modified and extended; 2 (Darwin's stroke of genius) remains supported; 3, 4 and 5 are additions to the picture, and result from hypotheses that made predictions that were supported by data.

    The theory of evolution is alive and well, the emphasis being on "alive" - all good theories continue to be extended and modified.

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    Replies
    1. Lizzie, but the bottom line is you haven't been able to name one example in the history of science of an observed animal genuine speciation.

      Delete
    2. Ignorant Creationist

      Lizzie, but the bottom line is you haven't been able to name one example in the history of science of an observed animal genuine speciation.


      There goes the dirt ignorant Creationist again, demanding that science show him in a few weeks what takes thousands to tens of thousands of years to happen naturally.

      No one person has observed a mature redwood grow from a sapling, so I guess all we know about tree growth is wrong.

      No one has ever seen Africa and South America touching, so I guess the theory of plate tectonics is all wrong.

      Can someone explain how a human being like the Creationist here can stay so scientifically ignorant?

      Delete
    3. There goes thumpin' thorton again with another dumbass analogy.

      If all plants and trees were Redwoods we could only depend on historical record to tell us what it was like when they went from seed to sapling.

      But of course, we can and do observe plants and trees sprouting from seedling and can watch them grow in real time.

      Don't you have dishes to wash, Thorton?

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    4. Liddle,

      Darwin's stroke on genius is only supported at the ends, neither at the beginning or in the middle. Darwin proposed that it happened from the get-go. So it would be incorrect for you to asset otherwise.

      3, 4 and 5 are supporting evidence that confirms Darwin's mechanism is a maintenance program and not a building contractor.

      Delete
    5. Steve

      But of course, we can and do observe plants and trees sprouting from seedling and can watch them grow in real time.


      We have numerous well documented examples of the speciation process (like ring species) that can be observed in real time too.

      How about plate tectonic Steve? We can measure plate movement in real time using GPS, but have you ever seen Africa and South America touching?

      Looks like we've got another ignorant Creationist boob who thinks science can never know anything unless a scientist with a clipboard stands right next to the event and witnesses the whole thing first hand.

      How do guys as clueless as you make it out of grade school? Or maybe you don't.

      Delete
    6. Neal:Lizzie, but the bottom line is you haven't been able to name one example in the history of science of an observed animal genuine speciation.

      Neal, I've named several, but you've dismissed them all.

      However, given that speciation is a slow process (hybridisation remains possible for many generations) nobody is going to witness complete separation of two lineages within a lifetime, or even document it over several, at least not for a while.

      But speciation (non-interbreeding populations from a common ancestral population) has been observed, both in the lab and in the field.

      I'm not quite sure why you keep asserting that it hasn't.

      Delete
    7. Lizzie, I recall you mentioning incipient (speculated) speciation and mating preferences based on color and songs. Surely one clear example of genuine animal speciation (as opposed to speculation)should not be too difficult for evolutionists given that there are millions of species. Saying that we can't observe it in one lifetime is not evidence, but a defensive argument. So, I'm simply requesting a clear example of an observed animal speciation. Not the incipient kind. Of course, I don't mean that the observation is at one moment of time. Out of all the thousands of animal species that have been identified it seems strange that evolution has occured in the past if we can't find one clear example over the last 250 years since modern taxonomy started.

      Delete
    8. Lizzie, I recall you mentioning incipient (speculated) speciation and mating preferences based on color and songs.

      "incipient" does not mean "speculated", Neal. It simply means that we do not, and cannot, know whether the two populations may rejoin in the future. We can't know that until far more generations have elapsed than any human population can observe.

      Surely one clear example of genuine animal speciation (as opposed to speculation)should not be too difficult for evolutionists given that there are millions of species. Saying that we can't observe it in one lifetime is not evidence, but a defensive argument.

      It's simply a logical corollary, Neal. If it takes many generations for two divergin sub-populations to reach the stage where there is no possibility of them re-merging, then, clearly, we cannot observe that happening in real time. What we can observe is populations diverging and reaching a stage when they no longer regularly interbreed, and where any hybrid offspring tend to be infertile.

      Which is exactly what speciation is. Sometimes it won't be permanent; sometimes one branch will go extinct; sometimes the two lineages will continue separately in perpetuity.

      You are setting an unreachable bar, like insisting that unless we actually observe a mountain range forming in real time, plate tectonics is "speculation".


      So, I'm simply requesting a clear example of an observed animal speciation. Not the incipient kind. Of course, I don't mean that the observation is at one moment of time. Out of all the thousands of animal species that have been identified it seems strange that evolution has occured in the past if we can't find one clear example over the last 250 years since modern taxonomy started.


      Because for most species, 250 years is not very many generations. For fruitflies it is, and, indeed, fruitfly speciation has been observed; so has mouse speciation from introduced mice.

      However, I'm not going to pretend that this speciation is absolute (that the diverging populations cannot hybridise) because we don't yet know whether this is the case. That's why, in honesty, I expressed it as "incipient" speciation, and pointed out that even lions and tigers, widely agreed to be different species, can still produce fertile hybrid offspring.

      Delete
  17. Elizabeth said

    "All living things are probably descended from much simpler living things"

    That maybe probably true, the point is if all living things descende from the same simpler living thing. And as the base of the tree is not trunk but a net you cannot discard the multiple origine of life.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, I don't, and I don't think anyone does (Darwin himself didn't).

      We know very little about the very root of the tree, and probably always will, although OOL research is getting interesting.

      Delete
    2. Then may be there is no tree.

      Delete
    3. There is plenty of evidence for a tree. It's just that the root of the tree is probably bushy, and there are are connections between branches as well as along branches. But the between-branch connections account for far less material than along-branch connections, and have a quite different mechanism. You owe far more of your genetic makeup to your parents than to any viruses you have acquired personally.

      However, in the very early epochs of life, genetic transfer may have been much more varied. So the root of the tree maybe bushier than the crown.

      Delete
    4. You accepted that is impossible to rule out multiple origins of life, then not necessary you have a tree, you call tree what can be many parallel branchs of the bush.

      Delete
    5. Liddle, genetic transfer cannot be described as a tree under any circumstances.

      In early life, there was no bush but a web. And when sexual reproduction was introduced, many web connections were broken that now give you the false appearance of tree branches. I would have thought with your level of education, such a thought might have donned upon you.

      But evidently, leaning on a Darwinian crutch is a hard habit to break. Maybe one of those revival meetings where the preacher kicks the crutch out from under you and tells you to just go ahead and walk could do the trick.

      Delete
    6. Steve,generally it is more effective when insulting someone's education to use the correct word,for instance your putdown "such a thought might have donned on you" , the word you are looking for is "dawned".The misuse makes the onlookers instead wonder what your level of education is. Classic boomerang.

      Delete
  18. Thornton: Damn but you're a willfully ignorant blowhard.

    My hat's off to Neal and everyone else for ignoring obviously troubled persons coming to this debate with personal attack as their habitual standpoint. Behavior which tends to prove Cornelius correct in that the opponents are not motivated solely by reasoned thought processes or even in the best interests of philosophical and/or scientific discourse. Especially interesting since such behavior obviously undermines their position, or at least indicates a degraded confidence in such.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. So said the person who just made a personal attack.

      Delete
    2. MSEE

      My hat's off to Neal and everyone else for ignoring obviously troubled persons coming to this debate with personal attack as their habitual standpoint.


      Oh goody, it's another cowardly rock thrower who's run crying from every attempt to get him to discuss the technical details. All it took to get him from hiding was a chance to throw another rock.

      Go ahead MSEE. Defend CH's claim that examples of LGT somehow invalidate all of evolutionary theory.

      Don't trip and hurt yourself as your scurry back into the shadows.

      Delete
    3. Thorton is a scared little boy (girl?). The thought that science might show that Christians were right all along to claim that life on earth was designed is too much for him to bear. He has nothing but hatred for Christians and his mission in life is to contradict everything that comes from Christianity, whether warranted or not. So, he only has his little tantrums to fall back on as he sees defeat approaching. Too bad his worst nightmares are about to become real.

      I'll be watching from the bleachers with a bag of Cheetos. :-D

      Delete
    4. The thought that science might show that Christians were right all along to claim that life on earth was designed is too much for him to bear.

      I don't think so. Science can't even answer that question. All it can do is reveal laws and mechanisms, not the Ultimate Cause.

      Delete
    5. Liddle:

      I don't think so. Science can't even answer that question. All it can do is reveal laws and mechanisms, not the Ultimate Cause.

      You have a lot less faith in science than I do and I am a Christian. At any rate, I was not referring to ultimate causes but to the origin of life on earth.

      Delete
    6. Christians have faith in God, science is a tool to study the natural world. It works better than any proposed alternative . Unless you have a suggestion.

      Delete
    7. Louis - I'm sure you are correct. I don't have "faith" in science. I use scientific methodology to address the questions that are within its scope (which requires no "faith" at all), and do not expect it to address questions that are outside that scope.

      As for your second point - is it your position that only life was designed, and the rest of the universe was not?

      Delete
  19. Several hours ago, Elizabeth Liddle asked:

    So horizontal transfer of genetic material invalidates evolutionary theory?

    Precisely why, Cornelius?


    Is there an answer?

    Dr Hunter?

    Anyone?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Pedant:

      "So horizontal transfer of genetic material invalidates evolutionary theory?

      Precisely why, Cornelius?

      Is there an answer? Dr Hunter?"

      Go back and reread the OP, where it states:

      Evolutionists often use this argument. They claim evolution is a fact, and when you point out that it has significant problems and comes nowhere close to being a fact, they shift the burden of proof to you. You must demonstrate evolution to be false.

      You have provided a good example of this, right here in the comments.

      Delete
    2. Cornelius Hunter

      Pedant:

      "So horizontal transfer of genetic material invalidates evolutionary theory?

      Precisely why, Cornelius?

      Is there an answer? Dr Hunter?"

      Go back and reread the OP, where it states:


      So the answer is no. CH has no answer to the actual question. Just the same regurgitated evasive non-answer he gives every time he gets called on his ridiculous misrepresentations.

      You expected anything different?

      Delete
    3. Cornelius HunterJune 1, 2012 6:15 PM

      Pedant:

      "So horizontal transfer of genetic material invalidates evolutionary theory?

      Precisely why, Cornelius?

      Is there an answer? Dr Hunter?"

      Go back and reread the OP, where it states:

      Evolutionists often use this argument. They claim evolution is a fact, and when you point out that it has significant problems and comes nowhere close to being a fact, they shift the burden of proof to you. You must demonstrate evolution to be false.

      You have provided a good example of this, right here in the comments.


      Cornelius, this is no answer at all.

      I asked you why you think that
      horizontal transfer of genetic material invalidates evolutionary theory.

      You say that evolutionary theory "has significant problems" and that these include genetic sequences that don't follow a tree pattern. I'm asking you why this is a "significant problem" for evolutionary theory?

      It was certainly a phenomenon that demanded an explanation, but an explanation was forthcoming - horizontal gene transfer by viral, and other, vectors, hypotheses that have been supported by excellent evidence.

      So the "problem" has been solved. Why do you think there is still a problem?

      Delete
    4. Don't hold your breath, Liz. I have been trying to ask him and other creationists (e.g., Paul Nelson) how HGT invalidates common descent of humans and apes. They mumble something about the tree of life being uprooted, even though the very scientists who did the uprooting (e.g., Eric Bapteste) stress that the tree model still works pretty well for animals.

      Delete
    5. CH: Evolutionists often use this argument. They claim evolution is a fact, and when you point out that it has significant problems and comes nowhere close to being a fact, they shift the burden of proof to you. You must demonstrate evolution to be false.

      Do they actually say that? If so, who says it and why are they relevant?

      For example, here's what you quoted from Richard Leakely in your OP, located here….

      You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So the question is why, how does this happen? It’s not covered by Genesis. There’s no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I’ve read from the lips of any God.

      However, having seen this sort of thing before, I decided to actually compare this with what the author actually wrote.

      In the AP article, located here, we find that Leakely was quite clear as to which aspect he was referring to, in the entire paragraph.

      "If you don't like the word evolution, I don't care what you call it, but life has changed. You can lay out all the fossils that have been collected and establish lineages that even a fool could work up. So the question is why, how does this happen? It's not covered by Genesis. There's no explanation for this change going back 500 million years in any book I've read from the lips of any God."

      Apparently, it not enough to personally equivocate on evolution.

      So, Cornelius, how do you explain this missing sentence from the paragraph, which specifically indicates which part of evolution he was referring to? Do you have one of those "limited data plans", and the bytes required to include that extra sentence would have put you over the limit when you posted that article from your smart phone?

      What else are we supposed to conclude, other than you've taken it upon yourself to deliberately obfuscate what other people's views as well?

      Delete
    6. oleg
      "They mumble something about the tree of life being uprooted"

      That is the specific point. A common descent is a preferred explanation for a nested hierarchy, because common descent should yield a nested hierarchy, no matter a nested hierarchy do not exclude other patterns. When you have HGT and the base of your tree is a net make less preferred the common descent explanation. Add too that the amazing pararel convergent evolution and the hypothesys of common descent is nothing more than one between others.

      Delete
    7. One more time: branching descent with no gene flow between branches after splitting would yield a perfect nested hierarchy. But common descent that is not cleanly branched will not.

      Human beings descend from a common ancestry (only racists and the very ignorant deny this; even most of the creationists on this site might be agreeable to this). But our descent has been reticulate (net-like, with gene flow between somewhat isolated populations), so there is no perfect nested hierarchy for human populations, genes, or traits within human populations.

      Delete
    8. Still no answer from Cornelius.

      I have a growing list of pertinent question Cornelius declines to answer.

      Delete
  20. The answer is that evolution is not about the science.

    Well said Dr Hunter!! If it were, evolutionists would welcome those who expose its weaknesses instead of trying to silence them. Ad hominem comments are not refutations of your arguments.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. But he hasn't.

      It was "evolutionists" who "exposed" the evidence that some genetic material appears to "jump" from lineage to lineage. And of course the evidence was "welcome". Problems are always welcome to scientists, who make their living trying to solve them.

      And solve this one the "evolutionists" did.

      And ad hominems are not refutations of any arguments, including mine.

      Delete
  21. Steve:Liddle, genetic transfer cannot be described as a tree under any circumstances.

    Of course it can. That's exactly how you describe genetic transfer from parent to offspring (the route by which the vast majority of our genetic material comes to us).

    That is why we refer to "family trees". In fact, let us suppose that the Adam and Eve story were true, and that Adam and Eve were the the common ancestors of all human beings. What you will get is a family tree with a single couple at the root.

    "Inheritance" automatically gives you a tree structure. However, if you can also "catch" genetic material from some source other than your parents, e.g. from a virus, then that material won't fit into the tree. Although if it affects your germline cells it will then form part of the tree of your descendents, and, indeed, is an excellent way of tracking that tree. Viral material common to great apes is one way we know for sure that great apes (including us) share a common ancestor.


    In early life, there was no bush but a web.

    OK, call it a web rather than a bush if you like. We agree that in early life there may have been many more horizontal genetic transfer pathways in proportion to vertical (longitudinal) pathways.

    And when sexual reproduction was introduced, many web connections were broken that now give you the false appearance of tree branches.

    I think you are confused. As soon as you have reproduction, you have a tree. If a single cell organisms divides to produce near identical offspring organisms and those offspring do the same, and so on, you have a family tree. Sexual reproduction means that every time an offspring is produced, the offspring inherits genetic material from two parents, rather than one, but the pattern of inheritance remains a tree.

    What does not leave a tree pattern are mechanisms such as symbiosis (when two organisms join to become one) or viral transfer (when viral DNA is inserted into the genome of another organism). There may well be more.

    I would have thought with your level of education, such a thought might have donned upon you.

    Why so offensive?

    But evidently, leaning on a Darwinian crutch is a hard habit to break. Maybe one of those revival meetings where the preacher kicks the crutch out from under you and tells you to just go ahead and walk could do the trick

    The only "crutch" I lean on is evidence. I find it more reliable than authority.

    ReplyDelete
  22. Elisabeth,

    I think your points and arguments about the Tree of Life (TOL) are highly compelling and a welcomed departure from the current trend among evolutionists to question the validity of the TOL.

    Indeed, in their impetus to come up with innovations in context of a reductionist approach of inferring phylogenies that blatantly uses sequence data with little compassion for common sense and biological principles (like those eloquently listed by Elisabeth), many of the current leading evolutionists, including some (e.g. Bapteste, Ford Doolittle, Koonin) who are quoted in this and related posts, have not only created confusion and an unproductive intellectual framework for understanding the significance TOL, but have brought this concept close to the realm of pseudoscience. Needless to say, those opposing evolution use this confusion to bring it down!

    I would start by the reality check emphasized by Zachriel in one of the previous posts (The Evolutionary Tree Failed But Evolutionists Still Insist Evolution is a Fact) that the TOL is model. Thank you Zachriel for reminding us about that!

    However, the major problem with the current prevalent view on the TOL, a view that is perhaps one of the biggest misconception in modern biology, relates to the technical difficulties of building a coherent TOL using sequence data. Because this approach has often failed, and it did that for good reasons such as lateral gene transfer phenomenon and deferential rates of evolution of genes among various organisms, many of the evolutionists have started to second guess the TOL and question its validity, instead of questioning their reductionist approach and lack of common sense.

    The intent of the TOL, however, is to establish the line of descent among groups of organisms or species, not necessarily the evolutionary relationships among their genes. Certainly, each of the millions of cellular and viral genes has an evolutionary history that can be revealed by a sequence-based phylogenic tree, but many of these gene-based trees do not represent a TOL that reflects the line of descent among the species

    This excerpt is from a section of a paper (http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3888/version/1), a section in which I discuss the merits of including viruses, which are prone to intense lateral gene transfer and have high evolutionary rates, in the TOL. Indeed, over long periods of evolution, most if not all the genes in some viral lineages have been replaced by genes from other viruses or from other sources, possibly several times over.

    Evidently, the line-of-descent of extant viruses and of many cellular species cannot be established by sequence-based phylogenetic analysis, but this technical difficulty cannot be used to defy their ‘right’ to be included in the TOL, and our ‘right’ to use a line-of-descent TOL for understand the evolutionary process.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Claudiu Bandea:
      "The intent of the TOL, however, is to establish the line of descent among groups of organisms or species, not necessarily the evolutionary relationships among their genes."

      Good admission, then the only "evidence" for common descent is "nested hierarchy" of traits in superior animals.

      Delete
    2. Well, phenotypic traits (at least in animals) do form a nested hierarchy, which is not surprising, as phenotypic features are what are "selected" and thus tend to be conserved. We are now much more aware, however, of the role HGT plays in producing novel sequences, some of which, occasionally, produces a phenotypic effect that affects reproductive success.

      In other words, HGT can be seen as an additional variance generator (additional to other forms of mutation). Thinking of it as a "problem" for common descent is misguided, I'd say.

      Delete
    3. Ever since the theory of ‘spontaneous generation’ was abandoned, it has became clear and fully accepted that all extant individual organisms on Earth arise from one or more parental individuals. As pointed out by Elisabeth, this process automatically generates a tree-like line-of-descent. That’s what the current evidence clearly indicates.

      Surely, we can only directly observe this phenomenon for a relatively small number of generations, but based on these observations alone we have little choice but to hypothesize that, unless we can produce evidence to the contrary, that’s what also happened in the past. Moreover, the ever-growing fossil record, whether in form of anatomical, physiological or sequence characteristics, is consistent with this TOL model. Is there any evidence for a different model?

      Blas, you mentioned “superior animals” in your comment, and I want point out that these groups of organisms, such as the vertebrates, have only originated relatively recent, in the case of vertebrates about two hundred million years. Many other groups of organisms such as bacteria, for example, have been around for much longer. Due to their apparent structural and functional simplicity, however, they are usually perceived to be less 'evolved' and rather 'inferior'. On the contrary if evolution could be quantified, based on population size, generation time, and length of evolution, bacteria are more 'evolved' than us by an enormous factor.

      Delete
    4. Claudiu Bandea:

      You say there is a lack of common sense in those questioning the TOL. Is there also a lack of common sense in those claiming it is a fact that biology arose spontaneously?

      Delete
    5. Nobody claims that as a fact, Cornelius, and you know that. Many of us assume that spontaneous abiogenesis occurred, but we do not claim it as a "as a fact".

      You are guilty of the very equivocation you accuse (wrongly) "evolutionists" of.

      Delete
    6. Elizabeth Liddle

      Nobody claims that as a fact, Cornelius, and you know that. Many of us assume that spontaneous abiogenesis occurred, but we do not claim it as a "as a fact".

      You are guilty of the very equivocation you accuse (wrongly) "evolutionists" of.


      PREDICTION:

      Cornelius will now quote-mine the TalkOrigins page here.

      "Abiogenesis is a fact."

      He will of course leave out the most important part of the quote

      "Abiogenesis is a fact. Regardless of how you imagine it happened (note that creation is a theory of abiogenesis), it is a fact that there once was no life on earth and that now there is."

      Wait for it.

      Delete
    7. I wonder what Cornelius means by "spontaneously". Particularly, "spontaneous" as opposed to what.

      Delete
    8. Geoxus

      I wonder what Cornelius means by "spontaneously". Particularly, "spontaneous" as opposed to what.


      That's just Cornelius playing his usual equivocation games. When he gets tired of equivocating over "evolution is a fact!" he breaks out his second favorite term to equivocate, spontaneously. Like in "evolution says a fish spontaneously turned into a giraffe!".

      One definition of spontaneous is "happening or arising without apparent external cause" which can be stretched to fit evolution, even over millions of years. But CH is counting on most laymen assuming the much more common colloquial meaning of "arising rapidly and impulsively".

      CH fancies himself the clever little Creationist wordsmith, he does.

      Delete
    9. Cornelius Hunter:

      For those who believe that evolution is not true, it make sense to question the TOL. For evolutionists, however, questioning the TOL makes little sense, if any!

      Unfortunately, many evolutionists have turned the field into a type of opaque religion unresponsive to reasoning and common sense. Even worst, when they have no data or arguments against new ideas, or no reasonable answers to uncomfortable questions, these scientists pretend that the ideas and questions do not exist, which is the most effective way of suppressing them.

      Take, for example, the current prevalent view about the origin and evolution of viruses. This topic is very important not only because viruses are the most abundant and genetically diverse biological entities on Earth, but they have killed tens of millions of people, and even more other organisms; for example, it has been estimated that every day viruses kill about one third of all bacteria in the world, which is just extraordinary.

      Fortunately, there are only two broad ways of thinking about the evolution of viruses: they evolved from simple to complex by increasing the size of their genome, or from complex to simple by reducing the size of their genome. In absence of fossils, this evolutionary pathway is key evidence for their origin.

      The current prevalent hypothesis is that viruses originated from some mysterious simple genetic elements before the origin of cells, and that they evolved by acquiring new genetic material into complex viruses such as poxviruses, chloroviruses, or mimiviruses whose genome is several times larger than the genome of many cellular organisms.

      Alternately, I proposed that ancestral viral lineages originated from parasitic or endosymbiotic cellular organisms that fused with their host cells, and that these ancestral viruses evolved by reductive evolution, that is by losing genetic material, into a myriad of viruses with diverse complexity, genome size, and life cycles.

      So, which of these models is more likely to be correct? I think that the current data and observations are more consistent with the fusion model and with the reductive evolution of viruses. However, there is a more compelling reasoning based on common sense, and here’s where the ‘uncomfortable question’ comes into play.

      Besides viruses, there are thousands of intracellular parasitic or endosymbiotic bacterial or eukaryal species. Although, these organisms do acquire occasionally some new genetic material, there is overwhelming evidence that, overall, they have evolved by reductive evolution from more complex ancestors. Basically, this is close to being a ‘fact,’ and it fully accepted by all researchers in the field!

      So my common sense question is: if all parasitic or symbiotic cellular species have evolved by reductive evolution, why would parasitic or symbiotic viral lineages evolve any other way?

      There are many more examples of misleading dogmas in evolution and biology, some of which are of very high medical and public health relevance. Here, I just want to mention one that relates to Cornelius’ question: Is there also a lack of common sense in those claiming it is a fact that biology arose spontaneously?

      When trying to learn on what happen in the past, or what might happen in future, we use the best models we can build based on the existing evidence and commons sense. Obviously, models are not facts, but they should present us with the best explanation for the phenomenon we are studding.

      The current prevalent view about the origin of life on Earth is the ‘RNA world’ model, which has dominated the thinking in this field, as well as most textbooks of Biology and Biochemistry, for the last two decades or so, despite strong evidence and arguments that this model makes very little sense, if any.

      I think it would make sense to replace it with a model that is more consistent with the current evidence and it makes more sense. And, there are plenty of them. What is your preferred model Cornelius?

      Delete
    10. Claudiu:

      Thanks so much for the terrific comment. Very interesting and informative. We haven't discussed virus evolution here so very much appreciate your points. I agree with your point about the RNA World hypothesis. We recently discussed it here:

      http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/03/evolutionist-just-gave-up-on.html

      You asked: "I think it would make sense to replace it with a model that is more consistent with the current evidence and it makes more sense. And, there are plenty of them. What is your preferred model Cornelius?"

      My feeling is we are not very close to a good model. In the history of science there sometimes have been controversies between those who very much want there to be a model even where no good model is known (call them "rationalists") and those who are perfectly happy to be without any particular model declared as the winner (call them "empiricists"). When it comes to the origin of species, I don't think we're very close to having a good model or theory, and like the empiricists I'm happy to leave it at that.

      I have no problem with working with a model, and those who want to promote a particular model. Let a thousand flowers bloom. But I do think we at least need to honestly and accurately represent the model. There is a great tendency to get carried away with the chosen model, and hold it as the clear winner.

      This is even worse when it comes to theories of origins given the religious overtones.

      So a concern I have is not so much which model it advocated or taught, but how honestly the science (whether supporting or contradicting the model) is represented.

      Delete
    11. Well, I have a concern over which model is advocated and taught. Some models have much greater explanatory power than others, and shouldn't be presented as equivalent.

      But of course they should be presented as models, as should the methodology required to evaluate and compare models.

      If that was really all that concerned you, Cornelius, then you could join NCSE without turning a hair.

      But it seems to me that it is you (and the DI) who insist on these "religious overtones", not scientists.

      Delete
    12. “it has became clear and fully accepted that all extant individual organisms on Earth arise from one or more parental individuals.”

      There is no evidence that point to this.

      “As pointed out by Elisabeth, this process automatically generates a tree-like line-of-descent. That’s what the current evidence clearly indicates.”

      That do not means is the only way to get a nested hierarchy.
      “Surely, we can only directly observe this phenomenon for a relatively small number of generations, but based on these observations alone we have little choice but to hypothesize that, unless we can produce evidence to the contrary, that’s what also happened in the past.”

      The mess found analyzing the genomas is evidence against common descent.

      “Moreover, the ever-growing fossil record, whether in form of anatomical, physiological or sequence characteristics, is consistent with this TOL model.”

      Yes, nested hierarchy of traits in uperior life is the evidence of common descent nothing more.

      “Blas, you mentioned “superior animals” in your comment, and I want point out that these groups of organisms, such as the vertebrates, have only originated relatively recent, in the case of vertebrates about two hundred million years. Many other groups of organisms such as bacteria, for example, have been around for much longer. Due to their apparent structural and functional simplicity, however, they are usually perceived to be less 'evolved' and rather 'inferior'. On the contrary if evolution could be quantified, based on population size, generation time, and length of evolution, bacteria are more 'evolved' than us by an enormous factor.”

      Thi is an interesting view derived from the dogma of RM+NS. So according to darwinism an animal with optical cameras, image processing, gps like location that allows it to fly from one continent to other is less evolved than a bacteria.
      We have evolution without phenotipics changes and is better that the evolution with phenotipic changes.
      Are the krebs cycle, electron transport, ion channels, DNA replication, transcription,translation and repair more efficient in the more evolved baterias than in birds? No. So what did hundred of millions of years of evolution in “inferior animals”?
      Off course the adapted to the changing enviroment. Are birds less adapted to his enviroment than a bacteria? Show me that.
      Nothing make sense in biology if not in the dogma of evolution.

      Delete
    13. Blas: That do not means is the only way to get a nested hierarchy.

      No, but it is certainly one way. And we do observe a discernible nested hierarchy. What other specific hypothesis explains the same pattern?

      Blas: So what did hundred of millions of years of evolution in “inferior animals”?

      They eat people.

      Delete
    14. CB: For those who believe that evolution is not true, it make sense to question the TOL. For evolutionists, however, questioning the TOL makes little sense, if any!

      Why exactly might this be the case?

      Specifically, this assumption is parochial, as it excludes the idea that all theories will always contain errors, to more or less degree, and that we can continue to make progress by discarding these errors through the process of criticism.

      In fact, our best explanation of how we make progress is though conjecture and refutation. As such, ceasing to question everything would cause our ability to make progress to slow down considerably.

      So, I think it makes perfect sense to question evolution, and it will continue to do so because we'll always make discoveries that lead to new questions, which lead to better answers, which lead to better questions, etc.

      Delete
    15. Zachriel said

      "And we do observe a discernible nested hierarchy."

      That is the only evidence for UCLA to all the forms of life trough RM + NS

      "What other specific hypothesis explains the same pattern?"

      Pararel convergent evolution starting from similar genomas.

      Delete
    16. Blas: That is the only evidence for UCLA to all the forms of life trough RM + NS

      Only if you ignore all the other evidence that helps define the tree.

      Blas: Pararel convergent evolution starting from similar genomas.

      Have no idea what that entails. If they started from the similar places and then converged, then there would be no diversity.

      Delete
    17. Cornelius:

      Thanks for your kind words.

      I just read your post on the ‘RNA world’ and I was pleasantly surprised that it was on a paper by Gustavo Caetano-Anollés and his colleagues. Incidentally, Gustavo was among the very few scientists in the field who appreciated the ‘common sense’ question (see my previous commenet) about the evolution of viruses: if all parasitic or symbiotic cellular species have evolved by reductive evolution, why would parasitic or symbiotic viral lineages evolve any other way?

      Gustavo was also receptive to the common sense question asked by Russell Doolittle about his protein-first scenario on the origin of life: I wonder how – if proteins were more ancient than the ribosomal machinery that today produces most of them –the amino acid sequences of those early proteins were 'remembered' and incorporated into the new system?

      To his credit, Gustavo agreed that this "central, foundational question" about his hypothesis is yet to be reasonably addressed, which I think is in tone with your perspective.

      I recently proposed a model for the origin of life integrated in a broader, unifying scenario on the origin and evolution of cellular and viral domains. This model starts with an abiotic, self-sustained cell-like entity, which over several hundred million years acquired biological attributes, including a coupled replication, transcription and translation (RT&T) information system. You can see an outline of this model in a paper (pgs. 7-11) at:http://precedings.nature.com/documents/3888/version/1. It would be a pleasure to address any questions or arguments you and your colleague bloggers have about this model and the unifying scenario.

      But I do think we at least need to honestly and accurately represent the model. There is a great tendency to get carried away with the chosen model, and hold it as the clear winner. This is even worse when it comes to theories of origins given the religious overtones.

      I agree with you and, in an upcoming comment, I’ll try to make the case that this unfortunate phenomenon is at work even in fields that are of immediate and very high medical and public health significance.

      Delete
    18. Blas:

      There is no evidence that all extant individual organisms on Earth arise from one or more parental individuals.

      Probably I wasn’t clear, but I’m referring to the fact that there’s no spontaneous generation.

      That do not means is the only way to get a nested hierarchy.

      I agree, it doesn’t mean that; however, this is a mechanism that we are witnessing: line-of-descent among generations.

      The mess found analyzing the genomas is evidence against common descent

      As I tried to point out in my comment, I think that the ‘mess’ is partially due to misleading interpretation of sequence-based phylogenic analyses, and partially to lack of informative evidence (that’s what usually happens with historical events).

      Yes, nested hierarchy of traits in superior life is the evidence of common descent nothing more

      In my comment I tried focus on the ‘line-of-descent concept’ rather than on the ‘common descent concept’.

      Regarding to your take on my “if evolution could be quantified” comment, it’s a matter of what, and how we envision ‘superiority’, and in this context I agree with your points,which I enjoyed reading.

      I also enjoyed the point made by Zachriel: They eat people. Great line!

      Delete
    19. Scott:

      Yes, the art of questioning should be part of curriculum in all schools, including the schools of thought. I was just saying that as an ordinary expectation!

      Delete
    20. "“if evolution could be quantified” comment, it’s a matter of what, and how we envision ‘superiority’"

      I´m curious wich envision can make a bateria superior to a bird. (Not comparing apples and oranges).

      Delete
    21. Blas:

      “I´m curious which envision can make a bacterium superior to a bird. (Not comparing apples and oranges)”

      Well, your parenthesis makes me second guess all the examples I had in mind (thank you, Blas!). However, let me throw in a famous one: the bacterial flagellum.

      Delete
    22. Claudiu Bandea said
      "the bacterial flagellum."

      A bacteria could be thought as superior of a bird because it has a flagellum?

      Do not have a bird ciliated cells? Plus feathers, brain ...
      How a bacterial flagellum make superior or not inferior the bacteria. It is just the dogma of evolution, more survived mutation more advanced has to be the organism. But that it is not what we see in the real world.

      Delete
    23. Blas: I´m curious wich envision can make a bateria superior to a bird.

      "Superior" is a value-laden term.

      Bacteria reproduce much more quickly than birds. Bacteria also get a free ride in the guts of birds, who collect food for them, provide them a warm environment, and even fly them from place to place.

      Delete
    24. Zachriel said

      "Bacteria reproduce much more quickly than birds."

      But they are smaller.

      " Bacteria also get a free ride in the guts of birds, who collect food for them, provide them a warm environment, and even fly them from place to place."

      And birds get help in his digestion process.

      Delete
    25. Blas: But they are smaller.

      Yes, and tree are bigger than people.

      Blas: And birds get help in his digestion process.

      Yes, so some bacteria are very magnanimous in their superiority.

      As we said, "superior" is value-laden.

      Delete
    26. Zachriel said

      "As we said, "superior" is value-laden."

      Yes off course, like more or less "evolved", good or bad design, or vestigial organ. But sistematic needs value-laden concepts in order to make hierarchies.

      Delete
    27. Blas: Yes off course, like more or less "evolved"

      You might mean derived here. All extant organisms are just as evolved as any other.

      Blas: good or bad design

      Good or bad in this case refers to its match to function, not whether you like it or not.

      Blas: or vestigial organ.

      A vestigial no longer has its original, primary function, so ostrich wings may have a current function (such as balance), but they have lost their original, primary function (of flight). This is not a value-laden assertion, though there may be ambiguity in certain cases.

      Blas: But sistematic needs value-laden concepts in order to make hierarchies.

      No. That is not the case. You seem to be confusing value-laden with ambiguity.

      Delete
    28. Zachriel said

      "All extant organisms are just as evolved as any other."

      Evolution is measured in time or in number of genome replications?


      "Good or bad in this case refers to its match to function, not whether you like it or not."

      No, when evolutionist talk about that refers that exists a better solution for that function, and is value-laded.

      "A vestigial no longer has its original, primary function, so ostrich wings may have a current function (such as balance), but they have lost their original, primary function (of flight)."

      A supposed original function.

      "though there may be ambiguity in certain cases."

      As with the word evolution. Many ambiguid words in this discussions.



      "No. That is not the case. You seem to be confusing value-laden with ambiguity."

      Ambiguity ends in value-laden concepts.

      Delete
    29. Blas: Evolution is measured in time or in number of genome replications?

      Evolution refers to a complex process, not a simple metric. Perhaps you are referring to generations. Keep in mind that when it comes to replications, there are multiple replications from zygote to germ cell. In humans, about 200 per generation (30 for females, 400 for males).

      Blas: No, when evolutionist talk about that refers that exists a better solution for that function, and is value-laded.

      It's not value-laden if you can provide an objective measure.

      Blas: A supposed original function.

      Posited. Hypotheses are tentative assumptions proposed for testing their empirical implications.

      Blas: As with the word evolution. Many ambiguid words in this discussions.

      Perhaps. That's why scientists use more specific terminology.

      Delete
    30. Zachriel said

      "Evolution refers to a complex process, not a simple metric. Perhaps you are referring to generations. Keep in mind that when it comes to replications, there are multiple replications from zygote to germ cell. In humans, about 200 per generation (30 for females, 400 for males)."

      So is incorrect what you said All extant organisms are just as evolved as any other.

      "It's not value-laden if you can provide an objective measure."

      Can you give an example of that objective measure for goodness of design please?

      "Posited. Hypotheses are tentative assumptions proposed for testing their empirical implications."


      But still it would be perverse withold provisional assent.

      "Perhaps. That's why scientists use more specific terminology."

      Yes, darwinist should lern from scientists.

      Delete
    31. Blas: So is incorrect what you said All extant organisms are just as evolved as any other.

      We might have used scare-quotes for clarity, but had already clarified in the preceding sentence.

      Blas: Can you give an example of that objective measure for goodness of design please?

      Usually, "goodness" connotes moral good. As for good design, there are many highly optimized systems, such as bird flight. As for bad design, the detour of the laryngeal nerve in giraffes is an example. These sorts of cludges are evidence of descent with modification, and contradicts special creation by an omnipotent being.

      Blas: But still it would be perverse withold provisional assent.

      Yes, some hypotheses, such as the movement of the Earth, are so well supported that it would be perverse to withhold provisional assent.

      Delete
    32. Blas: A bacteria could be thought as superior of a bird because it has a flagellum?

      As I said, it is difficult to escape your requirement: “Not comparing apples and oranges”. If we can’t even compare apples and oranges, which are fruit, how can we meaningfully compare birds and bacteria. However, I think Zachriel made a sensible and brave attempt.

      I mentioned bacterial flagellum because it is the icon for ‘superior’ biological machines that, in the view of many people, could not have been produced by natural selection-driven evolution, so bacteria might win the superiority competition with the birds on this character alone.

      Delete
    33. Zachriel said

      "Blas: Can you give an example of that objective measure for goodness of design please?

      Usually, "goodness" connotes moral good. As for good design, there are many highly optimized systems, such as bird flight. As for bad design, the detour of the laryngeal nerve in giraffes is an example. These sorts of cludges are evidence of descent with modification, and contradicts special creation by an omnipotent being. "

      Where is the objective measure of "design goodness"?

      Delete
    34. Claudiu Bandea said

      "I mentioned bacterial flagellum because it is the icon for ‘superior’ biological machines that, in the view of many people, could not have been produced by natural selection-driven evolution, so bacteria might win the superiority competition with the birds on this character alone."

      But the bird cells has molecular machines.

      Delete
    35. Blas: Where is the objective measure of "design goodness"?

      If you mean good design, efficiency and reliability are considered aspects of good design. You might posit the Designer had other values, which is fine, but then the notion of Designer seems unconstrained, and might make cancer just to enjoy watching organisms suffer. Are you arguing that Loci is the designer?

      The fact that a structure is less than perfect is not an argument that it was not designed, but argues against an intelligent designer, certainly against an omniscient and moral agent working through special creation. Cludges argue that the process was incremental adaptations of preexisting forms.

      Delete
    36. Blas: But the bird cells have molecular machins

      Yes they do, and many of them might be included in the ‘irremediable complexity' group. However, the bacterial flagellum is the icon, and I just wanted to point that out.

      Delete
    37. Zachriel said
      "Blas: Where is the objective measure of "design goodness"?

      If you mean good design, efficiency and reliability are considered aspects of good design. You might posit the Designer had other values, which is fine, but then the notion of Designer seems unconstrained, and might make cancer just to enjoy watching organisms suffer. Are you arguing that Loci is the designer?

      The fact that a structure is less than perfect is not an argument that it was not designed, but argues against an intelligent designer, certainly against an omniscient and moral agent working through special creation. Cludges argue that the process was incremental adaptations of preexisting forms."

      Zachriel maybe you do not know but I`m not interested in ID. We were talking about value-leade concepts.
      You stated that there is an objective measure for good design. I want an example.
      You still sustain that an objective measure of good design exist? yes or no?
      If yeas could you give the example please.

      Delete
    38. Blas: You still sustain that an objective measure of good design exist? yes or no? If yeas could you give the example please.

      We already did. As good-bad is a continuum, another example would be the Golden Gate Bridge compared to "Gallopin' Gertie".

      Delete
    39. Zachriel said

      "We already did. As good-bad is a continuum, another example would be the Golden Gate Bridge compared to "Gallopin' Gertie"."

      Ok I take note of what a darwinist understand for objective measure.
      I´m close to understand what they are saying when they explains there is so owerhelming evidence for evolution that it would be perverse withold provisional assent.

      Delete
    40. Blas: Ok I take note of what a darwinist understand for objective measure

      Do you disagree that the Golden Gate is an objectively better bridge (that is, performing the function of a bridge more reliably) than "Gallopin' Gertie"? Or do you think it is a matter of opinion which one is better at conveying people from one side to the other? Your point is not clear.

      Delete
    41. Zachriel said

      "Blas: Ok I take note of what a darwinist understand for objective measure

      Do you disagree that the Golden Gate is an objectively better bridge (that is, performing the function of a bridge more reliably) than "Gallopin' Gertie"? Or do you think it is a matter of opinion which one is better at conveying people from one side to the other? Your point is not clear."

      Thas is darwinist rational? Well. No apply that objective measure of bad design to the laryngeal nerve in giraffes. How bad it is?
      Please give the units of the badness and the calculation details.

      Delete
    42. Blas: Thas is darwinist rational?

      You didn't answer the question.

      Delete
    43. Yes I did. I disagree that exists a "objective measure" for good and bad design.
      You are showing me an example of bad design, I do not see the definition nor the units with I can objective measure of the design.
      I offer another example where you can show your claim that bad design it is not value-laded.

      Delete
    44. Blas: Yes I did.

      This was the question.

      Do you disagree that the Golden Gate is an objectively better bridge (that is, performing the function of a bridge more reliably) than "Gallopin' Gertie"?

      The measure is performing the function of a bridge more reliably. Which term are you having troubles with?

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

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_%28engineering%29

      Delete
    45. Zachriel sai

      "The measure is performing the function of a bridge more reliably. Which term are you having troubles with?

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

      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Reliability_%28engineering%29"

      Sorry Zachriel, you are defining reliability, not good design. The equivalence between reliability and good design is value-laded.

      But if you want to use them, I will accept your definition of "good design" as reliability. Can you apply that concept to the laryngeal nerve in giraffes and say how much bad designed it is?

      Delete
    46. Blas: Sorry Zachriel, you are defining reliability, not good design.

      From above:

      Blas: Where is the objective measure of "design goodness"?

      Zachriel: If you mean good design, efficiency and reliability are considered aspects of good design.

      Blas: But if you want to use them, I will accept your definition of "good design" as reliability. Can you apply that concept to the laryngeal nerve in giraffes and say how much bad designed it is?

      You seem confused on our position. We're not wed to the qualitative concepts of good or bad design. That's apparently subject to contention by those who wish to contend. Regardless of whether you consider it good design or not, cludges are evidence of incremental improvement.

      As for the laryngeal nerve, a designer intending on creating the most efficient and reliable design would take the shortest path. However, in this case, the designer was apparently working with an existing design, and for whatever reason couldn't start over, but had to continually patch what was there as the neck grew longer.

      Delete
    47. Zachriel said

      "If you mean good design, efficiency and reliability are considered aspects of good design."

      Considered aspects do not means objective measure. You stated: "It's not value-laden if you can provide an objective measure. "
      And you are not providing the objective measure.

      "As for the laryngeal nerve, a designer intending on creating the most efficient and reliable design would take the shortest path."


      Prove that a shortest path would be more efficient and reliable.

      "However, in this case, the designer was apparently working with an existing design, and for whatever reason couldn't start over, but had to continually patch what was there as the neck grew longer."

      It is interesting that a darwinist said this, because the comparative embriology has demostrated that jiraffe and fishes do not start from the same point. According with the hour-glass model they use different paths to reach an "astoundingly similar" intermediate, but not exactly the same starting point.

      Delete
    48. Blas: Considered aspects do not means objective measure.

      It's what the word means. If you were using the word in a different sense, then you should say so.

      Blas: Prove that a shortest path would be more efficient and reliable.

      It takes less time for the signal to move, and being shorter, there's less chance of injury.

      Blas: According with the hour-glass model they use different paths to reach an "astoundingly similar" intermediate, but not exactly the same starting point.

      Not sure your point.

      Delete
    49. Objectivity is a central philosophical concept which has been variously defined by sources. A proposition is generally considered to be objectively true when its truth conditions are met and are "mind-independent"—that is, not met by the judgment of a conscious entity or subject.
      Measure (probability), a mathematical construct that models a real-world experiment


      ZachrielJune 8, 2012 11:15 AM
      Blas: Considered aspects do not means objective measure.

      It's what the word means. If you were using the word in a different sense, then you should say so.

      "It takes less time for the signal to move, and being shorter, there's less chance of injury."

      And how do you know that there is a shorter path that no matter have less time for the signal and less chance of injury is more reliable and efficient?

      Delete
    50. Blas: And how do you know that there is a shorter path that no matter have less time for the signal and less chance of injury is more reliable and efficient?

      Gee whiz, Blas, read a book on engineeering or something. Is there a point you are trying to make?

      As we said, we are not wedded to the concept of good or bad design. Rather, we point to cludges, which give us clues as to the design process.

      Delete
    51. Zachriel  said 

      “Gee whiz, Blas, read a book on engineeering or something. Is there a point you are trying to make?”

      Yes I have a point, good and bad design are value-laded concepts. There is no objective metric for good design, you do not provided no one and the books of engeering neither talk about good or bad design. They give like you criteria to design.


      “As we said, we are not wedded to the concept of good or bad design. Rather, we point to cludges, which give us clues as to the design process.”

      But bring you to the wrong conclusions. You are like and allien civilization that found a F1 car and said that it is a bad design because the engine consume to much fuel and the position of the driver is unconfortable.
      The only way to say a design of a car has a better design is if you can define the scope of the design, i.e. the idea of the designer, and you compare it with another designer. So if you take two different designs of F1 can you can say this was a best design than this because won more races. And still that will be an arbitrary definition, because there was splendid designs of F1 cars but won by different reasons less races than others not so splendid.
      Going back to biology, if you apply to the laringeal nerve the criteria of lower time for the signal arrival to the brain, maybe that it is not the best design, but the definition of that criteria in order to day it is a bad design is value-laded.
      You may have a case, if you can compare the design of the laringeal nerve with another long neck mammal with a different path and define the goal to compare how good one perform against the other. But for some reason you have not other “better” design.

      Delete
    52. Blas: There is no objective metric for good design, you do not provided no one and the books of engeering neither talk about good or bad design.

      The comparative degree of performing the function, efficiency and reliability are objective measures.

      Blas: The only way to say a design of a car has a better design is if you can define the scope of the design, i.e. the idea of the designer, and you compare it with another designer.

      Yes, which is why a disembodied designer with no known characteristics doesn't constitute a useable scientific hypothesis.

      Blas:> But for some reason you have not other “better” design.

      The 'better' design is one without a circuitous route. Such a design is simpler, more reliable, and a more efficient use of resources. However, this does make some assumptions about the designer, that they prefer a simpler, more reliable, more efficient design better than a circuitous, less reliable, less efficient design.

      In any case, as we said, it's not the good or bad that constitutes an argument against Intelligent Design. Intelligent Design isn't defined well-enough to make a scientific hypothesis. Rather, the cludge gives us information about the 'design' process, that the designing process was incremental changes of previous designs.

      Delete
    53. Zachriel said

      “The comparative degree of performing the function, efficiency and reliability are objective measures”
      You said it, “comparative degree of performing” it is not objective measure unless you define a value-ladded standard, and a value ladded goal for efficiency and reliability


      “The 'better' design is one without a circuitous route. Such a design is simpler, more reliable, and a more efficient use of resources. However, this does make some assumptions about the designer, that they prefer a simpler, more reliable, more efficient design better than a circuitous, less reliable, less efficient design.”

      And the assumption that a simpler, less circuitust laryngeal nerve would be more efficient and do a better jiraffe, for what you donot have any objective evidence.

      “ Rather, the cludge gives us information about the 'design' process, that the designing process was incremental changes of previous designs.”

      This is only true only given common descent.

      Delete
    54. Blas: “The comparative degree of performing the function, efficiency and reliability are objective measures” You said it, “comparative degree of performing” it is not objective measure unless you define a value-ladded standard, and a value ladded goal for efficiency and reliability

      Repeating yourself doesn't make your point better. Let's try a simple example. All else equal, you have two designs that do the exact same job, but one requires twice the materials and twice the energy.

      Blas: And the assumption that a simpler, less circuitust laryngeal nerve would be more efficient and do a better jiraffe, for what you donot have any objective evidence.

      Ah, so are you now granting that doing the same job more efficiently is a "better" design? Because that wasn't the point you've been arguing.

      Blas: This is only true only given common descent.

      It's true of any incremental adaptive design process, including human design.

      Delete
    55. Zachriel said

      "All else equal, you have two designs that do the exact same job, but one requires twice the materials and twice the energy."

      A formula 1 car against a compact car. Which is worst design?


      "Ah, so are you now granting that doing the same job more efficiently is a "better" design? Because that wasn't the point you've been arguing."

      Do not change the subject, my point is that there is no objective measure of good or bad design, always it is value-ladded because you have to establish (subjective) a goal and compare different designs (relative) against it.
      Also in this case you cannot say laeyngeal nerve is better or worst because you can establish subjectivly a goal, but you do not have another design to compare.

      "It's true of any incremental adaptive design process, including human design."

      You are taking for a given common descent and darwinistic evolution.

      Delete
    56. Blas: A formula 1 car against a compact car. Which is worst design?

      They have different purposes. You didn't answer this:

      All else equal, you have two designs that do the exact same job, but one requires twice the materials and twice the energy. Which is the better design?

      Blas: You are taking for a given common descent and darwinistic evolution.

      Don't understand your meaning here.

      Delete
    57. Zachriel said

      “They have different purposes.”

      I cannot believe you do not see the value-ladded of the good/bad design concept.
      Of course both have the same purpose, both are cars.
      But as do not fit your subjectivity you want to specify more the purpose. But then I can say street car, and I will compare a Ferrari or a Porsche with a Fiat compact car or I can say race car and comprar a F1 and NASCAR. And again your criteria for bad design will fail and you will change the purpose to compact car, elegant car, F1 car and NASCAR car, and inside that categories you will find different purposes and objectives that do not fit your criteria.

      “ You didn't answer this: 

      All else equal, you have two designs that do the exact same job, but one requires twice the materials and twice the energy. Which is the better design?”

      Don`t you see the subjectivity? What do you mean by “the exact same job?. Do you have a long neck ruminant mammal with a different laryngeal nerve than the jiraffe?

      Delete
    58. Blas: Of course both have the same purpose, both are cars.

      Though they are both cars, they have different purposes. You are correct that purpose has to be in reference to some standard.

      Blas: I cannot believe you do not see the value-ladded of the good/bad design concept.

      We have tried to bridge our differences. "Good" and "bad" are qualitative terms. We have suggested specific qualities and provided a clear example.

      Blas: What do you mean by “the exact same job?.

      It's not that difficult to understand "exact same job".

      Delete
    59. Zachriel said

      "We have suggested specific qualities and provided a clear example."

      That not make god/dad design objectivly measurable.
      OT: why you talk in plural? Who are we? Usually the Pope talk in that way. Is your dogmatic side?

      "It's not that difficult to understand "exact same job"."

      car, street car-race car, compact car- luxury car, F1 racing car- NASCAR racing car, F1 racing car fifties regulations, racing car nineties regulations, luxury sport car- limo.

      How do you define "the same job" for the jiraffe laryngeal nerve?

      Delete
    60. Blas: How do you define "the same job" for the jiraffe laryngeal nerve?

      The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx.

      The question was general. Are you saying there is never an instance where two designs perform the exact same function with one requiring more resources?

      Delete
    61. Zachriel said

      "The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx."

      In a long neck rumminant mammal, that it is not the same than in an elephant or a fish.

      "The question was general. Are you saying there is never an instance where two designs perform the exact same function with one requiring more resources?"

      Yes, my point is you cannot say " a priori"
      the one requiring more resources is a bad design as I show you with the car example. You have to define "the same job" and compare with another design doing "the same job" and on the basis of a defined performance.

      Delete
    62. Blas: In a long neck rumminant mammal, that it is not the same than in an elephant ...

      First of all, that wasn't the question you asked. You asked the function in a giraffe. Furthermore, it is the same in an elephant.

      Blas: You have to define "the same job" and compare with another design doing "the same job" and on the basis of a defined performance.

      That's right. The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx.

      Delete
    63. Zachriel said

      "Blas: You have to define "the same job" and compare with another design doing "the same job" and on the basis of a defined performance.

      That's right."

      Thanks.


      "The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx."

      And it is a bad design because ...

      Delete
    64. Blas: And it is a bad design because ...

      It's evidence of a kludge, because the circuitous route is much less efficient than a direct route.

      Delete
    65. ZachrielJune 15, 2012 8:59 AM

      "It's evidence of a kludge, because the circuitous route is much less efficient than a direct route."

      This is an " a priori" subjective conclusion. I can`t beleive you do not see it.
      Is like say the position of the car driver in an F1 is a kludge. Yuo have to show in both cases that design is bad for a defined "same job" and show another design making that job better in an agreed parameter.

      In the car case we have t agree if "same job" is street car or F1 car, and then between two designs of F1 car with different driver position we have to agree if the parameter will be, driver vision, aerodinamically advantage, winning races or better vision of the sponsor add.
      For the laryngeal nerve if you call same job drive the signal from one point to the body of the neuron, and the fastest is the best you will probably be right. But for me same job is provide motor function and sensation to an area of the body to a long neck ruminant mammal. Then we have to find another design to compare an the parameter to compare.

      Delete
    66. Blas: This is an " a priori" subjective conclusion.

      A circuitous route is less efficient because it takes more materials, more energy, and more exposure to injury or decay.

      Blas: Then we have to find another design to compare an the parameter to compare.

      The function is specific and well-defined. The design to compare it with is one without a circuitous route.

      Delete
    67. Zachriel said

      "A circuitous route is less efficient because it takes more materials, more energy, and more exposure to injury or decay."

      Like an F1 engine is bigger and less fuel efficient than an engine for a compact car.


      "The function is specific and well-defined."

      Like the function for en engine, the design will depend if what you want to do with the engine.


      "The design to compare it with is one without a circuitous route."

      For the same purpose, for you is the purpose of the nerve itself to me is the motion and sensation of a long neck ruminant mammal. Who is right?

      Delete
    68. Blas: Like an F1 engine is bigger and less fuel efficient than an engine for a compact car.

      We've pointed this out before. They have different functions. Nor does the circuitous route provide an advantage of speed.

      Blas: For the same purpose, for you is the purpose of the nerve itself to me is the motion and sensation of a long neck ruminant mammal.

      The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx (not the neck). And a non-circuitous nerve would do the same job, with fewer materials, less energy, shorter delay-time, and a lower risk of injury or deterioration.

      Delete
    69. Zachriel said

      "We've pointed this out before. They have different functions. Nor does the circuitous route provide an advantage of speed."

      Yes we have been discussing for a while and you agree
      "Blas: You have to define "the same job" and compare with another design doing "the same job" and on the basis of a defined performance. 

      That's right. The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx. "

      If you want say that it is a bad design because a shorter nerve will give the advantage of the speed, good, but that is a value-ladded concept.

      continue

      Delete
    70. "The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx (not the neck). And a non-circuitous nerve would do the same job, with fewer materials, less energy, shorter delay-time, and a lower risk of injury or deterioration."


        The Superior Laryngeal Nerve (n. laryngeus superior) larger than the preceding, arisesfrom the middle of the ganglion nodosum and in its course receives a branch from the superior cervical ganglion of the sympathetic. It descends, by the side of the pharynx, behind the internal carotid artery, and divides into two branches, external and internal.
         16
        The external branch (ramus externus), the smaller, descends on the larynx, beneath the Sternothyreoideus, to supply the Cricothyreoideus. It gives branches to the pharyngeal plexus and the Constrictor pharyngis inferior, and communicates with the superior cardiac nerve, behind the common carotid artery.
         17
        The internal branch (ramus internus) descends to the hyothyroid membrane, pierces it in company with the superior laryngeal artery, and is distributed to the mucous membrane of the larynx. Of these branches some are distributed to the epiglottis, the base of the tongue, and the epiglottic glands; others pass backward, in the aryepiglottic fold, to supply the mucous membrane surrounding the entrance of the larynx, and that lining the cavity of the larynx as low down as the vocal folds. A filament descends beneath the mucous membrane on the inner surface of the thyroid cartilage and joins the recurrent nerve.
         18
        The Recurrent Nerve (n. recurrens; inferior or recurrent laryngeal nerve) arises, on theright side, in front of the subclavian artery; winds from before backward around that vessel, and ascends obliquely to the side of the trachea behind the common carotid artery, and either in front of or behind the inferior thyroid artery. On the left side, it arises on the left of the arch of the aorta, and winds below the aorta at the point where the ligamentum arteriosum is attached, and then ascends to the side of the trachea. The nerve on either side ascends in the groove between the trachea and esophagus, passes under the lower border of the Constrictor pharyngis inferior, and enters the larynx behind the articulation of the inferior cornu of the thyroid cartilage with the cricoid; it is distributed to all the muscles of the larynx, excepting the Cricothyreoideus. It communicates with the internal branch of the superior laryngeal nerve, and gives off a few filaments to the mucous membrane of the lower part of the larynx.
         19
        As the recurrent nerve hooks around the subclavian artery or aorta, it gives off several cardiac filaments to the deep part of the cardiac plexus. As it ascends in the neck it gives off branches, more numerous on the left than on the right side, to the mucous membrane and muscular coat of the esophagus; branches to the mucous membrane and muscular fibers of the trachea; and some pharyngeal filaments to the Constrictor pharyngis inferior.
         20
        The Superior Cardiac Branches (rami cardiaci superiores; cervical cardiac branches), two or three in number, arise from the vagus, at the upper and lower parts of the neck.
         21
        The upper branches are small, and communicate with the cardiac branches of the sympathetic. They can be traced to the deep part of the cardiac plexus.
         22
        The lower branch arises at the root of the neck, just above the first rib. That from the right vagus passes in front or by the side of the innominate artery, and proceeds to the deep part of the cardiac plexus; that from the left runs down across the left side of the arch of the aorta, and joins the superficial part of the cardiac plexus.


      Darwinists always underestimates de complexity of life.
      What a design!
      Do you have one to compare in any kind of performance?

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    71. Blas: If you want say that it is a bad design because a shorter nerve will give the advantage of the speed, good, but that is a value-ladded concept.

      If something does the same job with fewer materials, less energy, shorter delay-time, and a lower risk of injury or deterioration with no advantages, then it is reasonable to consider it a better design.

      But that's not the main point, even though you keep returning to it. The main point is that it is an obvious kludge, an indicator of its design process.

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    72. Zachriel said

      "If something does the same job with fewer materials, less energy, shorter delay-time, and a lower risk of injury or deterioration with no advantages, then it is reasonable to consider it a better design."

      Yes, but we started this saying not better bad good/bad design, and we have agree that same job should be defined and the choosing of fewer materials, lower risk injury,are only part of the categories you can take in count in order to evaluate the goodnes of the design. So yes, given the parameters to define which is better design you can take two design and say which is better. Apply this to any example of life.

      "But that's not the main point, even though you keep returning to it. The main point is that it is an obvious kludge, an indicator of its design process."

      Interesting how darwinists likes to change words now "bad design" is a kludge.
      The kludge is obviuos if your definitions about job and performances are accepted and then compare the possibilities of design.
      Can you explain how you arrive the conclusion that it is an "obvious" kludge and what that indicates about the design process?

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    73. Blas: Yes, but we started this saying not better bad good/bad design,

      No. You started with whether one organism is "superior" to another. (Of course, bacteria are superior because they coopt humans to give them a warm gut to live in, feed them, and fly them into space, among other things. Superiority, in this sense, is value-laden.)

      Then you introduced this,

      Zachriel: Good or bad in this case refers to its match to function, not whether you like it or not.

      Blas: when evolutionist talk about that refers that exists a better solution for that function, and is value-laded.

      Notice that way up the thread, you have already said it is a *comparison* for a *given function*. As we pointed out, it's not value-laden if we provide an objective measure related to the *given function*.

      Blas: Interesting how darwinists likes to change words now "bad design" is a kludge.

      Again, way up in the thread, we pointed out that the relative merits of the design doesn't necessarily tell us a lot, but being a kludge provides us information about the design process.

      Blas: Can you explain how you arrive the conclusion that it is an "obvious" kludge and what that indicates about the design process?

      A kludge is a "configuration that, while inelegant, inefficient, clumsy, or patched together, succeeds in solving a specific problem or performing a particular task."

      If workers need to adapt machinery, they may run a pipe or cable in a circuitous fashion around and about the existing structure, even though if they were to start over, they may find a more direct and obvious route which is not available when working with the existing machine. This is called a kludge. Over time, machines may become a complex web of kludges. Eventually, workers may tear it down, in whole or in part, and eliminate many of the kludges.

      In the case of the recurrent laryngeal nerve, it's clear that is would make more sense for the nerve to have a more direct route. However, it doesn't. It goes down, then up, a circuitous route which is exaggerated in the giraffe. When you examine multiple organisms, it's clear that this is because the giraffe is an incremental adaptation of a common ancestor with other mammals. There was no opportunity to redesign from scratch, so kludges were used.

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    74. Zachriel said
      “Notice that way up the thread, you have already said it is a *comparison* for a *given function*. As we pointed out, it's not value-laden if we provide an objective measure related to the *given function*.”

      Discussing logically with darwinists is very though, lest try a different way you said:

      “ It goes down, then up, a circuitous route which is exaggerated in the giraffe. When you examine multiple organisms, it's clear that this is because the giraffe is an incremental adaptation of a common ancestor with other mammals. There was no opportunity to redesign from scratch, so kludges were used.”

      So this supposed kludge is evidence of common ancestor and an incremental adaptation.
      The direct innervtion of the larinx in some families of camelides is evidence against common descent? Or evolution can do both solve and do not solve the kludges depending of the obsevation?
      Is that evolution of the gaps?

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    75. Blas: The direct innervtion of the larinx in some families of camelides is evidence against common descent?

      The superior laryngeal nerve is characteristic in mammals. Also, while the recurrent nerve doesn't innervate the larynx, it still winds around the aortic arch and ascends to the trachea. It's exactly the pattern expected of incremental modification of existing designs, rather than taking inspiration from previous designs and building from scratch.

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    76. This comment has been removed by the author.

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    77. Zachriel said

      "Also, while the recurrent nerve doesn't innervate the larynx, it still winds around the aortic arch and ascends to the trachea."

      You are a dishonest like most of darwinist.
      You posted before:

      “The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx.”

      "That's right. The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx."

      "The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx (not the neck)."

      And now when I bring an example of animals that has different innervation of the larinx you recognizes the other function of the recurrent nerve. You move the goal, as usual do darwinists whit his explanations.
      And I am perverse because I withold provisional assent! Sorry I would be stupid if I do not withold assent to darwinists.

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    78. Blas: You posted before:

      Zachriel: The recurrent laryngeal nerve supplies motor function and sensation to the larynx (not the neck).

      We also posted this:

      Zachriel: the detour of the laryngeal nerve in giraffes is an example.

      In giraffes. What did you think we were talking about? The nerve also exists in camelids, but they no longer enervate the larynx.

      Blas: You are a dishonest like most of darwinist.

      So your ignorant disagreement with the vast majority of the scientific community means others are dishonest. Good luck with that.

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  23. Thornton: Oh goody, it's another cowardly rock thrower

    Well maybe I'm not as well behaved as the other guys who ignore the angry guy with the default vituperative stance.

    But I find myself quite in the sporting mood when we can evoke the guy's out of control ego to this extent, where "Oh goody" is the opening salvo.

    who's run crying from every attempt to get him to discuss the technical details.

    Funny how I mention on a previous thread how experimental results over some years support the actual neural implementation of cross-correlation in human audition, as one of many parallel processes deriving sound localization. Seems like a detail mentioned that the "contributor" can't address because he doesn't know anything about what it was I was saying. He can't comment on a possible way for gradualism to come up with an astounding mathematical operation, supposedly "selected" by the revered RMNS to be operating in tandem with several other processes including neck motor function. So much on "technical details". Maybe too much.

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  24. MSEE

    I'm a newby UNGINEER so that means I know EVERYTHING!!


    Sorry Mr. self-proclaimed genius, but you forgot to explain how lateral gene transfer somehow invalidates the entire theory of evolution.

    But I'm sure you can think of lots more non-answers to tell us again what a SMART UNGINEER you is. Don't pull a muscle patting yourself on the back like last time.

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  25. "In fact, let us suppose that the Adam and Eve story were true, and that Adam and Eve were the the common ancestors of all human beings."

    In fact, there's no scientific find which can show Adam and Eve's history (God's Word) is untrue.

    We even know about their children's names and history (here from Jesus):

    "As a result, you will be held accountable for all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar." Mathew 23:35

    "Let us suppose otherwise", "just so stories"...none of these things count as disproof (or science).

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Darcy June 2, 2012 10:06 PM

      "In fact, let us suppose that the Adam and Eve story were true, and that Adam and Eve were the the common ancestors of all human beings."

      In fact, there's no scientific find which can show Adam and Eve's history (God's Word) is untrue.

      We even know about their children's names and history (here from Jesus):


      We can find similarly detailed histories and genealogies in Lord of the Rings or Star Trek. Since we're supposing, let's suppose an alien visits Earth who knows nothing at all about our literature or religions. How would you convince him, her or it that the Bible is fact but the other two are fictional?

      Delete
  26. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  27. Elizabeth: "In fact, let us suppose that the Adam and Eve story were true, and that Adam and Eve were the the common ancestors of all human beings."

    Me: In fact, there's no scientific find which can show Adam and Eve's history (God's Word) is untrue.

    We even know about their children's names and history (here from Jesus)

    "As a result, you will be held accountable for all the righteous blood shed on earth, from the blood of the righteous Abel to the blood of Zechariah, the son of Berechiah, whom you murdered between the sanctuary and the altar." Mathew 23:35

    "Let us suppose otherwise", "just so stories"...none of these things count as disproof (or science).

    ...

    Ian: "We can find similarly detailed histories and genealogies in Lord of the Rings or Star Trek.
    Since we're supposing, let's suppose an alien visits Earth who knows nothing at all about our literature or religions. How would you convince him, her or it that the Bible is fact but the other two are fictional?"

    Ian,

    Concerning your "red herring", are you supposing rational and contextual beings aren't able to draw distinctions between genrers?

    Since we're supposing, I suppose you agree there's no scientific find which can show Adam and Eve's history (God's Word) is untrue.

    If I am wrong in supposing this, I'd appreciate if you or Elizabeth could give us the scientific find which has shown Adam Eve's history to be (in fact) untrue. Again, "Let us suppose otherwise", "just-so stories"...none of these things count as disproof (or science).

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    1. Darcy June 5, 2012 7:12 AM

      [...]

      Ian,

      Concerning your "red herring", are you supposing rational and contextual beings aren't able to draw distinctions between genrers?


      That wasn't the question. We know that Lord of the Rings and Star Trek are fictional stories intended only to entertain. By contrast, Christianity is held by its believers to be a factual account of how the Universe was created and why and the ultimate truth that lies behind it. What evidence could you provide which might convince our alien tourist that the Christian claim is true?

      Since we're supposing, I suppose you agree there's no scientific find which can show Adam and Eve's history (God's Word) is untrue.

      It isn't my job to prove the Adam and Eve story untrue. However, if you want to persuade me or anyone else that it is more than just allegory you will have to come up with something better than Bible stories.

      Delete
    2. Ian states: "However, if you want to persuade me or anyone else that it is more than just allegory you will have to come up with something better than Bible stories."

      Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality - video (Notes in description)
      http://vimeo.com/35088933

      Here is a paper which, though technical, shows that the modern genetic evidence we now have actually supports Adam and Eve. Moreover, the evidence it presents from the latest genetic research is completely inexplicable to neo-Darwinism, i.e. neo-Darwinism, once again, completely falls apart upon rigid scrutiny; (and although I don’t agree with the extreme 6000 year Young Earth model used as a starting presumption in the paper for deriving the graphs, the model, none-the-less, can be amended quite comfortably to a longer time period. Which I, personally, think provides a much more ‘comfortable’ fit to the overall body of evidence)

      The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! - Refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos
      http://creation.com/historical-adam-biologos

      CMI has a excellent video of the preceding paper by Dr. Carter, that makes the technical aspects of the paper much easier to understand;

      The Non Mythical Adam and Eve (Dr Robert Carter) - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ftwf0owpzQ

      Moreover this genetic evidence for 'Adam and Eve', elucidated by Dr. Carter, is corroborated by other lines of genetic evidence:

      Human Evolution? - The Compelling Genetic Evidence For Adam and Eve
      Dr. Fazale Rana - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4284482

      Dr. Fazale Rana defends the integrity of the genetic evidence for Adam and Eve, on page 4 of the following site, from some pretty high level criticism:

      Were They Real? The Scientific Case for Adam and Eve by Fazale Rana - November 2010
      http://www.reasons.org/files/ezine/ezine-2010-04.pdf

      The "Eve" Mitochondrial Consensus Sequence - John Sanford
      Excerpt: Given the high mutation rate within mitochondria and the large geographic separation among the individuals within our dataset, we did not expect to find the original human mitochondrial sequence to be so well preserved within modern populations. With the exception of a very few ambiguous nucleotides, the consensus sequence clearly represents Eve's mitochondrial DNA sequence.
      http://www.icr.org/article/mitochondrial-eve-consensus-sequence/

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    3. As well, there is actually very strong archaeological evidence tracing all human races to the three sons of Noah:

      TABLE OF NATIONS (GENEALOGY OF MANKIND) by Tim Osterholm
      Excerpt: The fact is, that wherever its statements can be sufficiently tested, Genesis 10 of the Bible has been found completely accurate; resulting partly from linguistic studies, partly from archaeology, and, more recently still, from the findings of physical anthropologists, who are, to this day, recovering important clues to lines of migration in ancient historic times. As implied in verse 32 of Genesis 10, this Table includes everybody; meaning that so-called fossil man, primitive peoples (ancient and modern) and modern man are all derived from Noah's three sons, Shem, Ham, and Japheth.
      http://www.soundchristian.com/man/

      Tracing your Ancestors through History - Paul James-Griffiths
      http://edinburghcreationgroup.org/video/1

      This following article is very interesting for it talks about the scientific evidence for a 'genetic Adam' and a 'genetic Eve', and how the evidence relates to Noah's flood:

      Book Review; Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man:
      Excerpt: The Bible claims that there was a genetic bottleneck at the Genesis flood. Whereas all females can trace their ancestry back to Eve (through the three wives of Noah's sons), all males trace their Y-chromosomes through Noah (through his three sons). This predicted discrepancy for molecular dates of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data is actually seen in the scientific literature.
      http://www.godandscience.org/newsletters/2005-09.html

      Of Note:

      Humanpast.net
      Excerpt: Worldwide, we know that the period of 14,000 to 13,000 years ago, which coincides with the peak of abundant monsoonal rains over India, was marked by violent oceanic flooding - in fact, the first of the three great episodes of global superfloods that dominated the meltdown of the Ice Age. The flooding was fed not merely by rain but by the cataclysmic synchronous collapse of large ice-masses on several different continents and by gigantic inundations of meltwater pouring down river systems into the oceans. (124)
      What happened, at around 13,000 years ago, was that the long period of uninterrupted warming that the world had just passed through (and that had greatly intensified, according to some studies, between 15,000 years ago and 13,000 years ago) was instantly brought to a halt - all at once, everywhere - by a global cold event known to palaeo climatologists as the 'Younger Dryas' or 'Dryas III'. In many ways mysterious and unexplained, this was an almost unbelievably fast climatic reversion - from conditions that are calculated to have been warmer and wetter than today's 13,000 years ago, to conditions that were colder and drier than those at the Last Glacial Maximum, not much more than a thousand years later. From that moment, around 12,800 years ago, it was as though an enchantment of ice had gripped the earth. In many areas that had been approaching terminal meltdown full glacial conditions were restored with breathtaking rapidity and all the gains that had been made since the LGM were simply stripped away…(124)
      A great, sudden extinction took place on the planet, perhaps as recently as 11,500 years ago (usually attributed to the end of that last ice age), in which hundreds of mammal and plant species disappeared from the face of the earth, driven into deep caverns and charred muck piles the world over. Modern science, with all its powers and prejudices, has been unable to adequately explain this event. (83)
      http://humanpast.net/environment/environment11k.htm

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  28. Darcy

    If I am wrong in supposing this, I'd appreciate if you or Elizabeth could give us the scientific find which has shown Adam Eve's history to be (in fact) untrue. Again, "Let us suppose otherwise", "just-so stories"...none of these things count as disproof (or science).


    Well, there's the human genome project for one.

    Populations of animals that start from a small original group (or an original pair) always show distinct genetic signs of a population bottleneck. In the human genome we see no such signs. In fact, the amount of genetic variation we do see makes it impossible for our population to have every been bottlenecked down to just two individuals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Thorton falsely claims:

      'genetic variation we do see makes it impossible for our population to have every been bottlenecked down to just two individuals."

      And yet this very evidence is part of what falsifies neo-Darwinism:

      The Non-Mythical Adam and Eve! - Refuting errors by Francis Collins and BioLogos
      http://creation.com/historical-adam-biologos

      CMI has a excellent video of the preceding paper by Dr. Carter, that makes the technical aspects of the paper much easier to understand;

      The Non Mythical Adam and Eve (Dr Robert Carter) - video
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ftwf0owpzQ

      Delete
    2. Book Review; Who Was Adam?: A Creation Model Approach to the Origin of Man:
      Excerpt: The Bible claims that there was a genetic bottleneck at the Genesis flood. Whereas all females can trace their ancestry back to Eve (through the three wives of Noah's sons), all males trace their Y-chromosomes through Noah (through his three sons). This predicted discrepancy for molecular dates of mitochondrial DNA and Y-chromosome data is actually seen in the scientific literature.
      http://www.godandscience.org/newsletters/2005-09.html

      Delete
    3. Thorton, Stop lying, or present solid proof that you are not lying and then I wouldn't have to expose as a liar with empirical evidence now would I?

      Evanescence-Lies- Origin
      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ml7JSG2KC44

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  30. Strange, I thought that professors were to think logically and act with some degree of civility and decorum

    "His audience, which consists mostly of YECs"

    Attempting to poison the well with an unsubstantiated assertion.

    "...is willing to believe his nonsense. But face it, Cornelius, you aren't even trying to win any converts, you're just preaching to the choir. If you try to flaunt your stuff at a professional biology conference, people will shrug you off as a crackpot. And they will be right."

    Appeal to ridicule noted.

    "Basically, creationists who are desperate to avoid admitting common descent like to point to exceptions to a strict tree."

    "Desperate"? Even though evolutionists admit that the tree is dead?

    "That leaves their audience thinking that it has been shown that there is no common descent. Which it hasn't been. They are being disingenuous."

    Please work on your grammar, Perfessur. How do you know what the audience is thinking? Why is showing the truth and letting people reach their own conclusions (Dr. Hunter has 1,2,3...uh, bunches of posts as resources) something you consider "disingenous"?

    The cult of evolutionism must be protected at all costs. This is the pronouncement of fundamentalist evolutionists. With the kind of logic that these purveyors of higher edjamakation are showing, no wonder there is a dearth in critical thinking skills.

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