Monday, August 9, 2010

Butterflies and Flashlights

I once met a fellow who was an aficionado of, believe it or not, flashlights. It seemed rather mundane until I saw all the neat designs using LEDs (light emitting diodes). These semiconductor devices have been greatly improved in recent years and are finding a wide range of uses. But as is so often the case, these technological advancements were there all along in the biological world. In this case, certain butterfly species have their own elaborate optical emission system in their wings. As one researcher put it, “Who knows how much time could have been saved if we'd seen this butterfly structure 10 years ago.”

Up until a few years ago the problem with LEDs was that most of the light was not emitted. This inefficiency was resolved with two-dimensional crystals and layered reflectors called distributed Bragg reflectors (DBRs). And like these high-emission LEDs, scales on the wings of African Swallowtail butterflies make up a two-dimensional photonic crystal enhanced by a three-layer, cuticle-based DBR. The photonic crystal is infused with highly fluorescent pigment and contains an array of hollow air cylinders arranged in a pattern of triangular symmetry. As one paper further explains:


As in ultra–high-efficiency LEDs, these Butterflies’ DBRs support a spectral stop band that matches the peak emission from the structure above it. The DBRs reflect upwardly the downward-emitted fluorescence concurrently with non absorbed longer wavelengths pass through the PCS. The spatial separation between the DBR and PCS minimizes losses via coupling to guided modes in the DBR. Excitation for this fluorescent material appears to be optimized for the radiance from blue skylight, which peaks around 420 nm. Additionally, because the alpha-absorbance band of rhodopsin dominates the green wavelength photosensitivity of Papilio vision, the spectral form of this absorption is ideally placed for stimulation by fluorescence from conspecific wings. As with some shrimps and birds, this enhances signaling, because absorption of visually less productive short wavelengths leads to the emission of longer wavelengths that trigger photoreception.

As the passage explains, the butterfly’s optical emission system is tuned to use sunlight and to maximize visibility. Here is a less technical description of the system:


The trouble with this mechanism is that while half the fluorescent light radiates away from the butterfly, the other half radiates into the wing structure. That half of the light would be lost were it not for the extraordinary structure of the scales.

Vukusic discovered that the base of each scale is a highly efficient three-layered mirror—a structure known as a distributed Bragg reflector. Light from the pigment bounces between these layers, interferes constructively, and then escapes in the direction it came from.

Distributed Bragg reflectors are not perfect, however; some light always becomes trapped on the surface of the reflector and is lost. But the butterfly has another neat trick to get around this. Vukusic and his colleague Ian Hooper discovered that in each scale, sitting just above the mirror, is a slab of material filled with hollow cylinders of air that run perpendicular to the mirror. These cylindrical holes channel the light away from the reflector, preventing it from getting trapped. The slab, says Vukusic, is what optical physicists call a photonic crystal.

The end result is a highly specialized structure that converts skylight into blue-green light, captures this light, and finally channels it out to act like plumage to attract female butterflies.

Was this remarkable system constructed by the blind interplay of natural processes? Evolutionists think so. In fact they are certain it was, though beyond vague speculation they don’t know how.

Evolutionists speculate that perhaps these marvels happened to arise luckily via random mutations. Or perhaps self-assembly and mechanical processes such as buckling, cracking and splitting are important factors. In fact, perhaps pre existing cellular structures serendipitously provide a manufacturing framework. Could it be that “the highly complex inverse opal-type structures could appear ‘suddenly’ in evolutionary time (without having to evolve stepwise)”? Amazingly this is what one finds in evolutionary theory--unfounded speculation underwritten by dogmatic certainty.

Perhaps flashlights also appeared suddenly. Religion drives science, and it matters.

92 comments:

  1. Interesting topic.

    And unlike the evolutionists, those not religiously driven are free to consider the full range of possibilities, including that these designs may not have arisen by chance.

    Anyone, even a scientist, is free to consider a full range of possibilities. Beyond that point, research is required. Have at it.

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  2. We have strong evidence of Common Descent, including the nested hierarchy. We have strong evidence of robust evolutionary mechanisms, including natural selection.

    There are many details of evolutionary history that are unknown. That's not an argument.

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  3. Zachriel, even species of shoes have nested hierarchies. This tautology, believe it or not, is getting boring.
    Everybody, stop pretending anybody is attacking nested hierarchies.
    All they seem to be saying is that the hierarchies did not get there without help. I think they are right.

    Natural selection cannot achieve just anything. If you disagree, you are a many-eons creationist. If randomness + selection can achieve anything, do you realise you are referring to an entity that, save for the name, is literally God?

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  4. The 27th Comrade: even species of shoes have nested hierarchies. This tautology, believe it or not, is getting boring.

    There is no singular nested hierarchy for shoes or cars or books. Human designed objects can be categorized with many different schemes. If one line of shoes introduces Velcro fasteners or plastic soles, this often leads to its adoption by other lines. With biological organisms, across most taxa, there is only one reasonable classification.

    We've tried to have that discussion, but no one here seems capable of following it. But understanding the nested hierarchy and Common Descent is essential to answering Cornelius Hunter's use of Gaps in the historical narrative to argue against the Theory of Evolution.

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  5. The 27th Comrade: All they seem to be saying is that the hierarchies did not get there without help. I think they are right.

    The intricate correlations of the nested hierarchy are the inevitable result of uncrossed descent. Nested hierarchies don't need help.

    The 27th Comrade: Natural selection cannot achieve just anything.

    Showing you don't understand the nested hierarchy, which is due to descent along uncrossed lines. Natural selection doesn't lead to a nested hierarchy, but adaptation.

    The 27th Comrade: If randomness + selection can achieve anything, do you realise you are referring to an entity that, save for the name, is literally God?

    Further showing you don't understand the nested hierarchy. Descent along uncrossed lines leads to a very specific and intricate correlation of traits. It doesn't "achieve anything," but is highly constrained.

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  6. Cornelius Hunter: Or perhaps self-assembly and mechanical processes such as buckling, cracking and splitting are important factors. In fact, perhaps pre-existing cellular structures serendipitously provide a manufacturing framework. Could it be that “the highly complex inverse opal-type structures could appear ‘suddenly’ in evolutionary time (without having to evolve stepwise)”? Amazingly this is what one finds in evolutionary theory--unfounded speculation underwritten by dogmatic certainty.

    Here is the full review article.

    The review authors' inference of sudden development of inverse-opal like structures is based on a census of living representatives. That does not exclude the possibility that there were intermediate steps within the ancestry of the three or more (microlepidoterans are not a clade) lepidopteran lineages that developed these crystals. Rapid manufacture is a sufficient, but not necessary, explanation of the data.

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  7. Shorter Cornelius:

    "OOOOHH!! It's sooooo COMPLICATED!! I personally can't understand how it could have evolved, so GAWDDIDIT!!'

    You'd think we'd occasionally get something other than the same hand-waving personal incredulity from CH. But no.

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  8. The 27th Comrade: If randomness + selection can achieve anything, do you realise you are referring to an entity that, save for the name, is literally God?

    Nobody said that natural selection could achieve anything. If it could, sperm whales would have gills, and a botched thyroid surgery (or massively botched thoracic surgery) could not render a patient hoarse for the rest of his or her life (potentially mute in the case of thyroid surgery).

    But if mechanical, genetic, phylogenetic, and material constraints allow variability in the showiness of males, and if vibrant males are preferentially seen and mated with by females, you can bet that there will be some spectacular-looking male butterflies flying around today (75+ million years after the original radiation of butterfly lineages).

    Sexual selection is the form of natural selection that is most like the artificial selection of the breeding world, and can lead to rapid, runaway feedback loops as descendants yield not only the showy males but also females who tend to choose the showy males.

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  9. Cornelius -


    Was this remarkable system constructed by the blind interplay of natural processes?


    How would you go about actually answering this question?

    Or is your point more to do with the fact that you wouldn't? Do you just want to say 'Look there's a mystery. Scientists are being swayed by religious bigotry if they refuse to consider every possible explanation, including miracles, magic, fairies and unicorns and God'?

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  10. Dr Hunter said, "As one researcher put it, 'Who knows how much time could have been saved if we'd seen this butterfly structure 10 years ago.'”

    ==============

    If more scientists were to adopt the view that life was intelligently designed, it would have a positive influence on researchers actively going after the technology that can be learned and copied from nature.

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  11. Zachriel says: "Human designed objects can be categorized with many different schemes."
    Are you trying to pretend that there is only one way to categorise organisms? Do you not even consider any riddles that use animals? :o)

    Zachriel says: "If one line of shoes introduces Velcro fasteners or plastic soles, this often leads to its adoption by other lines."
    It is called inheritance, Zachriel. The same thing that passes on genes. Have you not heard of the selfish shoe, the necessary corollary of the selfish gene?

    Zachriel says: "With biological organisms, across most taxa, there is only one reasonable classification. "
    Get serious, Zachriel. Reflect before you rush forth. Also, the playpus is a duck. The bat is a bird.

    Zachriel says: "We've tried to have that discussion, but no one here seems capable of following it."
    I am not regular here, but every time I check, I think the problem is shared.

    Zachriel says: "Nested hierarchies don't need help."
    No, it is a normal distribution that does not need help (such as heaps, cancerous melanomae, Jackson Pollock). Hierarchies do need help (such as file system directories, river courses, family trees). Especially if they engender complexity (such as?). But anyway, you have an almighty random mutations + natural selection, so perhaps we are in agreement. Both you and I agree, don't we, that there is no reason to doubt the power of random generation and dictionary selection -- picking random letters and preserving only those words, then phrases, the sentences that appear in the dictionary -- to have generated this comment. So, honestly, I do not see why we are disagreeing.

    Zachriel says: "Showing you don't understand the nested hierarchy ..."
    You should use better language. And also, do not get too defensive (or, for that matter, offensive). I repeat what you did not answer to: natural selection cannot achieve just anything.

    Zachriel says: "It doesn't "achieve anything," but is highly constrained."
    Yes, Zachriel. P ∧ ¬P. We have known that for 150 years, now.

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  12. John said: "Nobody said that natural selection could achieve anything. If it could, sperm whales would have gills ..."
    Fish would write sonnets, program network adapters, and discuss their origins. But since they do these things -- heavily-mutated fish, I admit, but fish nonetheless -- then natural selection can, in fact, achieve anything. Given enough time, of course. Do not forget those millions of years.

    John said: "But if mechanical, genetic, phylogenetic, and material constraints allow variability in the showiness of males ..."
    Yes, if the evolvability is in place, if the enablers of evolution are in place, then ... why not? How serendipitous of them to be in place! My point is rarely to fight neo-Darwinism, but rather to chuckle at the fact that neo-Darwinism when it works merely uses different names for God, but appeals to God nonetheless -- as "75 million years and available niches", for example.
    Honestly, if you cannot see the justification (not necessarily correctness, but rather epistemic justification) for the claim that these things -- the evolvability -- is intentional, then you are too biased beyond help, as a faithful many-eons creationist should be.

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  13. The 27th Comrade: Are you trying to pretend that there is only one way to categorise organisms?

    There is only one reasonable categorization for most taxa. The nested hierarchy is strongly supported, and the entailed correlations allow for very specific empirical predictions.

    Zachriel: If one line of shoes introduces Velcro fasteners or plastic soles, this often leads to its adoption by other lines.

    The 27th Comrade: It is called inheritance, Zachriel.

    Velcro being adopted by different lineages *violates* the nested hierarchy. For most taxa, once biological lineages diverge, traits are only passed vertically.

    The 27th Comrade: Also, the playpus is a duck. The bat is a bird.

    Anyone with a passing familiarity with taxonomy knows that platypuses and bats are clearly mammals, not birds (though, like all mammals, they share a common ancestor with birds).

    The 27th Comrade: Hierarchies do need help (such as file system directories, river courses, family trees).

    Uncrossed descent forms a nested hierarchy. It doesn't require "help" anymore than the complex movements of the planets across the sky need "help." It's a natural consequence of a few simple relationships.

    The 27th Comrade: But anyway, you have an almighty random mutations + natural selection, so perhaps we are in agreement.

    You repeat your error. Evolution is not almighty, but highly constrained.

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  14. The 27th Comrade: if the evolvability is in place, if the enablers of evolution are in place, then ... why not?

    All evolution requires is imperfect replication and competition for resources.

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  15. Thorton said...

    Shorter Cornelius:

    "OOOOHH!! It's sooooo COMPLICATED!! I personally can't understand how it could have evolved, so GAWDDIDIT!!'

    You'd think we'd occasionally get something other than the same hand-waving personal incredulity from CH. But no.


    Where did they find this thornton guy anyway?!

    As usual the Dawhiners claim their ubiquitous "argument from incredulity" error.

    Its called statistical mechanics and it can be applied to biology as much as anything else.

    "Statistical mechanics ( the probabilities of things happening or not happening) is the core of our understanding of nature above the quantum scale. Without it we’d be lost in a vast maze of never being able to predict anything. By discounting probabilities you discount physics. This is a basic problem with most biologists. Their understanding of nature seems to stop with chemistry. They have no appreciation for the physics which explain chemistry." -D.Scot

    In any case thornton's mere dismissal (denial of reality) of statistical mechanics from natural combinatorial occurrences in bio-systems is just as off base as it would be in any other domain.

    Nothing is exempted from the laws of probability and although Darwinists scream and squeal like little pigs whenever probabilities are introduced (even by implication here) - no wonder! - the numbers against them are still so astronomically huge they simply cannot win in the end.

    And when you see someone claiming that instead of 10^77 should actually be "24 orders of magnitude less" you have to wonder what they've been smoking.

    Not many good mathematicians among them I suppose.

    When you find several high level mathematicians telling you the same numbers over and over again - and that using the most optimistic probabilistic resources - you know the Darwieners are skewing the numbers in their own favor - yet even then, uselessly.

    Take away some zeros and good luck making it work anyway, 10^53 is never going to give you what you need.

    thornton is a hopeless loser here
    - the deck is stacked against him in every game.

    If he had to put his money where his big mouth is he'd be so indebted that even Bill Gates couldn't bail him out.

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  16. Gary said...

    Its called statistical mechanics and it can be applied to biology as much as anything else.


    So show us these wonderful probability calculations Gary, and justify any assumptions you make with references to the appropriate primary scientific literature.

    Every time I ask for them you wet yourself and head for the door.

    "Statistical mechanics ( the probabilities of things happening or not happening) is the core of our understanding of nature above the quantum scale. Without it we’d be lost in a vast maze of never being able to predict anything. By discounting probabilities you discount physics. This is a basic problem with most biologists. Their understanding of nature seems to stop with chemistry. They have no appreciation for the physics which explain chemistry." -D.Scot

    HUGE ROFL! for quoting ex-marine, ex-Dell computer salesman Dave "cheesy-poofs" Scot from Uncommonly Dense. That made my whole morning!

    Nothing is exempted from the laws of probability and although Darwinists scream and squeal like little pigs whenever probabilities are introduced (even by implication here) - no wonder! - the numbers against them are still so astronomically huge they simply cannot win in the end.

    That sound is actually peals of side-splitting laughter whenever blustering fools start with the ZOMG IT'S TOO IMPROBABLE" stupidity.

    Show us the calculations Gary.

    When you find several high level mathematicians telling you the same numbers over and over again - and that using the most optimistic probabilistic resources - you know the Darwieners are skewing the numbers in their own favor - yet even then, uselessly.

    Another HUGE ROFL! Which "high level mathematicians" would those be? Bill "the Fig Newton of Information Theory" Dembski? Bob "Gloppy the Darwin of ID" Marks?

    Show us the calculations Gary. You won't of course, because as always empty bluster is all you've got.

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  17. Let's do a little design inference.

    Gary is obviously

    (1) UD veteran. Remembers awesome DaveScot quote.
    (2) Innumerate, science-illiterate, plain dumb.
    (3) Cocky: Dunning-Kruger effect.
    (4) Incivil language.

    Hmmm, I'd say Gary = Borne.

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  18. Zachirel, if I assume a orchard model for the evolution of life and not a common descent may I explain the nested hierarchy?

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  19. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  20. Ok....I'll try reposting this. See if it sticks this time.

    Couple points:

    1) The idea that basing engineering on nature requires nature to be divinely designed is asinine. Biologists believe complex features evolve-even beyond what we might design de-novo. Hence the use of directed evolution, and genetic algorithms, for example.

    2) ID presents a roadblock to the use of biological inspiration for engineering. If the system is irreducibly complex, what hope of utilizing it in isolation is there? How can one hope some component synthesized by model organisms will be useful?

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  21. Blas: if I assume a orchard model for the evolution of life and not a common descent may I explain the nested hierarchy?

    Presumably, you mean many separate trees. The evidence strongly supports a single phylogenetic tree (with some notable exceptions) at least to the domain-level.

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  22. Are others' comments posting, then vanishing?

    Is anyone else observing my comments post then vanish?

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  23. RobertC,

    I saw you post with 4 or 5 points, which disappeared, and then there was your post with 2 points.

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  24. RobertC -

    Yes mine did. I wrote a rather lengthy post about evolutionary algorithms! Don't really fancy typing it all out again. Annoying...

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  25. Well, I'll be waiting for a clarification. Perhaps some filter, like use of links, quotes, or words like "se*x*al selection" are causing issues.

    At any rate, I'm off until this problem is solved. Hopefully its not some new odd moderation policy.

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  26. RobertC:

    "Well, I'll be waiting for a clarification"

    Rest assured that I am not deleting your posts. I guess the rule of thumb is to type a post off line and paste it in.

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  27. Zach said:"The evidence strongly supports a single phylogenetic tree (with some notable exceptions) at least to the domain-level. "

    Does the evidence that strongly supports the single phylogenetic tree rule out themultiple phylogenetic tree?

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  28. troy said...

    RobertC,

    I saw you post with 4 or 5 points, which disappeared, and then there was your post with 2 points.


    I saw the long post too, now it seems to be gone.

    I recall the blog SW was acting weird a few weeks ago, eating posts then having them mysteriously reappear a day or so later. That may be the case here.

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  29. Zachriel said...

    We have strong evidence of Common Descent, including the nested hierarchy. We have strong evidence of robust evolutionary mechanisms, including natural selection.

    There are many details of evolutionary history that are unknown. That's not an argument.


    Actually it is. It's called 'God of the gaps', and has been known to be intellectually bankrupt for over 150 years.

    It's still an argument, just a completely worthless one.

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  30. Blas: Does the evidence that strongly supports the single phylogenetic tree rule out the multiple phylogenetic tree?

    Are you confused on the basics of trees (structures)? Each branch of a tree forms a tree. Relating this to biology; land vertebrates are a tree, while mammals are a tree that is a branch of land vertebrates.

    Your original point seemed to be that life is comprised of disconnected trees. However, the evidence supports a single phylogeny, or at least rooted in the domain-level.

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  31. RobertC, I saw the second attempt you made with the longer post too. It was there for an hour or so, and now it has suddenly vanished also.

    What's going on?

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  32. I believe that God created the butterfly’s optical emission system for our enjoyment and delight. What an amazing example of His wondrous creation! Plus, it gives us something nice to look at while we're busy dying and suffering from His other great creations like parasites, viruses, and debilitating genetic diseases. Praise God!

    -- religion drives the religious, and it matters (to them).

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  33. This is aggravating. I reposted Thorton's comment and my reposting disappeared! I'll try again.

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  34. If bad design is evidence that life was not designed, then really good design shuld be evidence that life was.

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  35. Cornelius Hunter

    "This is aggravating. I reposted Thorton's comment and my reposting disappeared! I'll try again."

    ==========================

    Wonder if there could be a metaphysical explanation for this phenomena somewhere ??? Especially considering the named user mentioned!!!

    *grinning*

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  36. Zachriel, you and those who respond like you are why I do not take part in these debates. Between wielding a logically-trivial theory and affirming the consequent, and requiring falsification for counter-factuals and citing intentionality and final causes as evidence for the rejection of the same … nothing remains to be discussed. Content yourself with knowing that, if neo-Darwinian theory did in fact explain life’s diversity, I would have seen it multiple times by now. Have you spent a lot of time looking? I have. (Incidentally, I and my friends leap when we see a distant semblance of it—“industrial melanism! different beaks! different eating patterns!”—but we are blind to the rest of the cases that we beat aside as we seek the one case.)
    But so be it; minds are not changed from outside.

    How can you say that evolution is constrained, when it created comment-typing fish? Is there anything beyond it, if that is not?
    All the same, like I said above: “if you cannot see the justification (not necessarily correctness, but rather epistemic justification) for the claim that these things—the evolvability—is intentional, then you are too biased beyond help, as a faithful many-eons creationist should be.”

    As for John, my friend, let’s celebrate that “imperfect replication” and the resources over which the organisms compete also managed to evolve! Like I said, since we had the evolvability in place, there is literally no limit. (And, yes, in current theory there is no limit to what can be thus achieved.)
    By the way, John: I will tell you a secret. The replication we find in the cell is not imperfect. The Enlightenment biases for human-complete determinism are still with us, I see. “Randomised from the human point of view” does not “imperfect” make. Please take another look at the definition of “pseudo-random”.

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  37. Zachirel, is there any evidence that do not allow me to think in multiples trees of live are possible? Can you share it with me?

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  38. The 27th Comrade:

    "The replication we find in the cell is not imperfect. The Enlightenment biases for human-complete determinism are still with us, I see. “Randomised from the human point of view” does not “imperfect” make. Please take another look at the definition of “pseudo-random”."

    Thus spoke Dr Pangloss. I'm sure the "imperfect" replication leading to cancer must have some benefit we just haven't dreamed of.

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  39. The 27th Comrade: Are you trying to pretend that there is only one way to categorise organisms?

    Zachriel: There is only one reasonable categorization for most taxa. The nested hierarchy is strongly supported, and the entailed correlations allow for very specific empirical predictions.

    The 27th Comrade: you and those who respond like you are why I do not take part in these debates.

    Yet, you'll post 300 words without responding to the point.

    The 27th Comrade: Content yourself with knowing that, if neo-Darwinian theory did in fact explain life’s diversity, I would have seen it multiple times by now.

    Now, that's funny.

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  40. Blas: is there any evidence that do not allow me to think in multiples trees of live are possible?

    There is nothing that disallows you from thinking about whether multiple trees of life are possible.

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  41. I'm sure the "imperfect" replication leading to cancer must have some benefit we just haven't dreamed of.
    Yes. For example, if cancer got rid of me—and those with my eating habits—that would be tremendous good.

    Yet, you'll post 300 words without responding to the point.
    Yes. That is precisely my point. I am not that way inclined; that is why I read you more than you read me.

    Now, that's funny.
    No, it's not. It's depressing, and a tiny bit boring.

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  42. Darwin: There is grandeur in this view of life, with its several powers, having been originally breathed into a few forms or into one; and that, whilst this planet has gone cycling on according to the fixed law of gravity, from so simple a beginning endless forms most beautiful and most wonderful have been, and are being, evolved.

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  43. This comment has been removed by the author.

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  44. 27th Comrade: Fish would write sonnets, program network adapters, and discuss their origins. But since they do these things -- heavily-mutated fish, I admit, but fish nonetheless -- then natural selection can, in fact, achieve anything.

    Human hubris and possibly ethnocentrism here. Sonnets, computer programming, and scientific theories of origins are all very recent cultural developments. Evolution didn't bring us any of these. And many human cultures never produced any of these either; are they less evolved than we are?

    Natural selection cannot achieve everything that is conceivable, and in our case, certainly hasn't achieved everything that it could have. Next time that you see a hawk fly over, contemplate that the hawk has not only superior vision but also a superior respiratory and excretory system. Oh, and it can fly, although that comes with the constraint of preoccupied hands.

    Evolution cannot give you a titanium skeleton. Evolution cannot give snakes their forelimbs back (point of insertion on the axial skeleton has been erased by frameshift in Hox gene expression). Evolution cannot give whales gills, because their gills, like ours, are either lost completely or shriveled down to parathyroid glands with no openings to the outside world, and there is no viable precursor structure to build on. And the numbers are against it too; many, many lineages of amniotes have gone back into the water, none of them have ever developed gills.

    Our cultural developments were made possible (but not guaranteed) by a big brain and dexterous arms and hands. The fish ancestral to us had a smaller brain, arms, and two-thirds of a hand (surrounded by fin rays). The first vertebrates with a full hand and no fin rays are essentially limbed fish (internal gills and a lateral line system). So this is modification of precursor structures associated with changes in mode of life.

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  45. John says: "Human hubris and ethnocentrism, that's what it seems to boil down to for IDCers."
    I am not an ID person; I am just not a neo-Darwinism person either.
    But you know what it all boils down to, for the neo-Darwinists? Bulverism.
    You say I have human hubris, in response to a comment that merely said that if evolution can achieve architect fish, it is not reasonable to call it constrained. Do not used canned answers, everyone. Pause and reflect; it is a virtue.

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  46. 27th Comrade:Yes, if the evolvability is in place, if the enablers of evolution are in place, then ... why not? How serendipitous of them to be in place!

    We know evolvability is in place. Mutations are inevitable (we see copying errors in crystal growth too), drift is inevitable, and selection is inevitable but cannot stop drift, so genetic variability is a given.

    In the specific case of these butterflies, the optical properties of the wing would have been useful for any diurnal flying insect trying to get its genes passed on. But it never happened for any group other than lepidopterans, yet in lepidopterans it happened three times. They are set up for success in this regard by the scaly pattern of the wings, which of course also set them up to be named Lepidoptera.

    Concern over serendipity sounds like a symptom of overcredulous reading of Cornelius Hunter. Historically evolving systems will abound in contingency, whether it's evolution or human history. Every family it seems has a story of how parents, grandparents, or great-grandparents, met, fell in love, and reproduced "against all the odds." Many people tend to view themselves, quite immodestly, as inevitable outcomes, and thus there "must have been some magical force that brought them together." This is a juvenile thinking pattern that many (perhaps most) adults never grow out of. Scientists tend to be the kind of people that do grow out of it (not to say that scientists are universally more mature than nonscientists) and thus seek out proximal causes rather than quixotic final causes. Had events not happened for our ancestors the way they did, we simply wouldn't be here to contemplate it, and life would go on without us.

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  47. 27th Comrade: John says: "Human hubris and ethnocentrism, that's what it seems to boil down to for IDCers."

    That statement of mine was overblown, unfairly generalizing, and perhaps presumptive of your status as IDC. I apologize, and I retracted and modified before you had posted this.

    You mentioned in your response to Zachriel that you think the "nested hierarchy had help." How is that not ID?

    It is fully reasonable to describe evolution as constrained even if fish can evolve into humans. Sequoias cannot evolve into humans.

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  48. Zachirel said: "There is nothing that disallows you from thinking about whether multiple trees of life are possible."

    Then monophiletic tree or common descent is not a fact.

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  49. John says: "You mentioned in your response to Zachriel that you think the "nested hierarchy had help." How is that not ID?"
    I did not know that whoever appeals to the tree of life having to have a giver of minerals and air is an ID person. The reason I am not an ID person is because I think of them as trying to reduce things like design and other similarly-qualitative things down to mere numerical (“mathematical, scientific”) representation. That, from where I stand, is a fool's errand. If anything, I perceive them as making the same mistake they are pointing out. To them, as to their adversaries, Baconian science is both complete and consistent. And also Gödel never lived.

    It is also why I do not go at length to try and prove that my claim is “scientific” or “rational”; not least because I cannot prove what I have to presuppose before I can do a proof.
    For people like you and Zachriel and the ID people, the matter is settled in that fashion. For me, the naïve principle that makes me insist that this is not a dream, in spite of not having the Nature journal on my side of the claim, is the same that makes me say that life was engineered.

    For the record: I know for certain that evolution happened, but I also know for certain that it did not happen as the neo-Darwinian theory says it did. If anything, it is more-likely to have progressed in the same fashion as the Buick—complete with fossils, both living and excavated.

    John says: "Sequoias cannot evolve into humans."
    Even given a billion years? (500 million to revert to our common ancestor, 500 million to track the humanoid route thenceforth.)
    Show me your argument for that, and I will show an ID argument. (It is always funny, even though mildly depressing, when two opposite camps can barely be told apart—and they fail to realise it.)

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  50. 27th Comrade You say I have human hubris, in response to a comment that merely said that if evolution can achieve architect fish, it is not reasonable to call it constrained. Do not used canned answers, everyone. Pause and reflect; it is a virtue.

    The charge of human hubris still stands, conditionally. That's ok, we all have it to some degree. Were your post not infected with it, you would have used a fish to eagle (or other bird, or a king cobra) example, because anatomically and physiologically that's a far more impressive set of modifications. Perhaps humans are the only animals with which you have deep familiarity. If that's the case, charge is withdrawn, but it would preclude any relevant critique of evolutionary theory.

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  51. Blas: is there any evidence that do not allow me to think in multiples trees of live are possible?

    Zachriel: There is nothing that disallows you from thinking about whether multiple trees of life are possible.

    Blas: Then monophiletic tree or common descent is not a fact.

    One can think about whether the Moon is made of Green Cheese.

    You're also confused somewhat about Common Descent. Even if there is some ambiguity at the root of the tree of life, it doesn't call into question the strong scientific support for Common Descent of other taxa, such as vertebrates.

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  52. Zachriel says: "The charge of human hubris still stands, conditionally. That's ok, we all have it to some degree."
    I did not deny having human hubris; I just pointed out the bulverism in John’s charge. It is staple in the discussion from both ends in this debate. This, and other reasons, is why just being in this debate is a bad mark on one.

    Zachriel says: "Were your post not infected with it, you would have used a fish to eagle (or other bird, or a king cobra) example, because anatomically and physiologically that's a far more impressive set of modifications."
    That is not true. From fish to human is a more-impressive modification, especially given human as an intellectual achievement versus fish as intellectual run-of-the-mill (which, if you look, is the point of my comparison) there is nothing more impressive under the Sun.

    Zachriel says: "Perhaps humans are the only animals with which you have deep familiarity. If that's the case, charge is withdrawn, but it would preclude any relevant critique of evolutionary theory."
    I used humans because everybody understands their capacities. I do not write to exhibit whether I am knowledgeable; I write to communicate. I understand that it is not always the case in a place like this. I should know, having watched this debate from the sideline, for years, snickering at both sides.
    As for offering relevant critique of evolutionary theory, anybody can and should. The naïve questions are usually what throw or uphold a system; they are inaccessible to those who have come to live in the abstraction as a reality, who have begun to see other things in terms of what they should be seeing in terms of other things.

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  53. Sorry, I cited Zachriel instead of John. My apologies. But you all sound the same. :o) Just joking.

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  54. 27th Comrade: Zachriel (really John) says: "Were your post not infected with it, you would have used a fish to eagle (or other bird, or a king cobra) example, because anatomically and physiologically that's a far more impressive set of modifications."
    That is not true. From fish to human is a more-impressive modification, especially given human as an intellectual achievement versus fish as intellectual run-of-the-mill (which, if you look, is the point of my comparison) there is nothing more impressive under the Sun.


    Human hubris again and misunderstanding of evolution. Evolution did not bring us our intellectual achievements. Those were hard-fought victories of improved cultural transmission and modes of thought. Evolution brought us a big brain; it also brought the dolphins a brain of similar caliber. It's what we did as a people with those brains that yielded the intellectual achievements.

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  55. John says: "It's what we did as a people with those brains that yielded the intellectual achievements."
    What we did with the big brains also evolved. If you do not agree, state it plainly, and I will let Zachriel loose on you.
    Imagine, you start off by charging “human hubris again and misunderstanding of evolution”, and then you go to claim that what humans have done culturally is not brought by evolution (but, apparently, by some other biological-causal entity—aren’t you one of these ID people?), and that can be well-understood as hubris and misunderstanding of evolution.

    But I will not make those charges, because you are merely the victim of a logically-trivial theory, in which “humans caused their culture” and “humans did not cause their culture” can both be proven to be true, as can “culture evolved in the genes, just like the teeth, brain, and religion” and “culture did not evolve in the genes, unlike the teeth and big brain … and religion.”

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  56. 27th:As for offering relevant critique of evolutionary theory, anybody can and should.

    Anybody can offer critique of evolution. Only those with a relevant knowledge base can offer relevant critique. Elitist, snobbish thing of me to say, but it's true. To be an effective critic of science, you need to know at least as much as they do. That's why Stephen Jay Gould was an occasionally effective critic of other evolutionary biologists, but the ID crowd is never effective in this matter.

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  57. Zachriel says: “Only those with a relevant knowledge base can offer relevant critique.”
    The falsity of this was what set science apart from other pursuits. I agree that it is no longer true. Science, in many of the things that are controversial, is mostly a “metaphysical research program”, where (as in philosophy) mere falsification does not suffice—who you can name, preferrably by first name, matters just as much, even more.
    Therein lies a problem.

    All the same, “relevant” is defined before the criticism is heard, in your case. This is how atheists are prevented from telling the Pope what to believe. Draw the parallels yourself.

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  58. 27th: What we did with the big brains also evolved.

    Cultural "evolution" is not the same thing as biological evolution. The fine cultural developments you are describing are not in the genes; a baby born to Chinese parents but raised by English parents her whole life has no more difficulty learning English than her adopted siblings do. Biological evolution has given us the hardware to produce more vocalizations than chimps, but that won't get you Love's Labours Lost.

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  59. John says: “Cultural "evolution" is not the same thing as biological evolution.”
    I am talking about the evolution of culture—Chinese or English, not specified; just culture—and that is decidedly something that evolved.

    Anyway, to remove ambiguity:

    Do you believe that you can find human culture along the evolutionary ladder?

    That is, did it not exist prior to some “mutation”, and then began to exist? Is culture—Chinese or English—a result of evolution?
    In short (even easier question), is writing and reading the result of evolution?

    If yes, then why did you say “Evolution did not bring us our intellectual achievements. Those were hard-fought victories of improved cultural transmission and modes of thought. Evolution brought us a big brain …”?
    If not, then I am going to shout “Zachriel!” and biy you had better hide very far!

    John says: "Biological evolution has given us the hardware to produce more vocalizations than chimps, but that won't get you Love's Labours Lost."
    You are really blaspheming, now. You mean that evolution—the blind mutations and natural selection—did not give us (even deterministically) the very history—genetic and otherwise—that led directly to Love’s Labours Lost? What did? Please make more-precise what force it is that generates the dramatic music of the Mali empire, if not these self-same mutations and selection.

    Sir Charles Darwin was the first to use his theory to explain music; are you dissenting?
    Are you opposed to ID (or did I presume wrong)?

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  60. Zachirel:"One can think about whether the Moon is made of Green Cheese"
    Unless there is something showing me is not green cheese
    "You're also confused somewhat about Common Descent. Even if there is some ambiguity at the root of the tree of life, it doesn't call into question the strong scientific support for Common Descent of other taxa, such as vertebrates."

    Which is the data that do not allow me to think in a non common descent.

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  61. Zachriel: One can think about whether the Moon is made of Green Cheese

    Blas: Unless there is something showing me is not green cheese

    You can certainly think about the Moon being made of Green Cheese — regardless of the evidence. We're apparently on the wrong track. Let's try again.

    Blas: is there any evidence that do not allow me to think in multiples trees of live are possible?

    Let's make sure we understand the data. There is a clear phylogenetic tree for many taxa, including vertebrates. Okay so far?

    As we go farther back in time, the data become less clear, but there seems to be reconstructable phylogenetic trees since the time life diverged into its primary domains; eukaryota, bacteria and archaea. Are we still okay?

    The question then becomes whether the primary domains share a common ancestry. Molecular evidence suggests that they do share a common ancestry, but that they do not form a phylogenetic tree due to rampant horizontal mechanisms.

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  62. "Let's make sure we understand the data. There is a clear phylogenetic tree for many taxa, including vertebrates. Okay so far? "

    Exclude the data that allow to construct this tree the possibility of not common descent?

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  63. Zachriel said, "With biological organisms, across most taxa, there is only one reasonable classification."

    Whooo, that one can go down in the record book for evolutionary whoppers.

    Let's take one example,
    http://resources.metapress.com/pdf-preview.axd?code=rr1x30h326880071&size=largest
    Quoting bits from the introduction and the abstract:
    One of the more drastic rearrangements to the mammalian evolutionary tree in recent years concerns the African mammalian families Tenrecidae (tenrecs) and Chrisochloridae (golden moles). ... For most of the 20th century, tenrecs and golden moles were considered to be part of the "Lipotyphla," along with shrews, hedgehogs, moles, and solenodons... Recently, ... a wide array of DNA sequence data has been interpreted to support a close relationship between African insectivorans and elephants, sea cows...

    The inclusion of fossils and morphological data increases support for an elephant-sea cow clade within Paenungulata and identifies ancient, northern elements of a clade whose living members in contrast suggest an historically Gondwanan distribution. In addition, maximally congruent topologies support the position of Afrotheria as well-nested, not basal, within Placentalia. This pattern does not accord with the recent hypotheses that the divergence of placental mammals co-occurred with the tectonic separation of Africa and South America.


    Only one reasonable classification?
    Tell that to the researchers quoted above.
    Biogeographical hypotheses are contradicted by fossil and molecular evidence... The molecular evidence is so diffuse that using supercomputers for analysis, and making theory-laden decisions to determine weighting, we only get suggestions that we may interpret to favor one branching hypothesis over another.

    There may not even be one plausible evolutionary classification; as for a clear, objectively-determined winner among the proposed hypotheses, there is not one to be found. One may be favored now, but that particular hypothesis is only a few years old.

    This story is repeated over and over and over if you look at cladistic hypotheses. E.g. http://evolutionarynovelty.blogspot.com/2008/07/box-jellies-and-red-herring-of-eye.html
    Did eye components opsin and melanin evolve independently or just once? If only one lineage is reasonable, then Zachriel has dismissed a lot of highly-credentialed evolutionists as unreasonable.

    Thus the evolutionary apologetic is exposed as distorting the data to make it appear to conform to expectations better than it actually does. In reality, organisms do not fit a nested hierarchy any better than shoes or cars. Clad diagrams are full "parallel and convergent evolution", each of which is an epicycle explaining why the data that doesn't fit a nested hierarchy can be accommodated. We could use the same techniques to show that shoes and cars really *do* fit a nested hierarchy... wherever the data doesn't seem to fit, we can make it fit via ghost lineages, and convergent or parallel evolution. In fact we can make it fit in so many different ways, we have to use supercomputers to figure out which tree has the least number of implausibilities.

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  64. Lars:http://evolutionarynovelty.blogspot.com/2008/07/box-jellies-and-red-herring-of-eye.html
    Did eye components opsin and melanin evolve independently or just once? If only one lineage is reasonable, then Zachriel has dismissed a lot of highly-credentialed evolutionists as unreasonable.


    From Oakley's blog: "Based on these data, Kozmik and colleagues favor the conclusion of parallel evolution – the separate assembly of homologous (“the same”) components to form eyes. In other words, they argue that box jellies and vertebrates separately evolved eyes, but happened to use the same components in each case, opsin and melanin. "

    "Homologous" implies that opsins and melanin evolved once. It's the structure of an "eye" that evolved multiple times. Opsins, for certain, are inferred to have evolved only once in metazoans.

    That convergence occurs is not a violation of the nested hierarchy for eukaryotes; the nested hierarchy to which Zachriel refers is based on order of branching descent. Shoes don't have a pattern of branching descent, although we could shoehorn anything to try to fit a nested hierarchy of traits. The differences among researchers in the field here arise from the fact that they are using traits to infer branching pattern of ancestry. This works well enough for scientists to keep at it, but does yield some snags. Not just convergence (arising in physical traits due to common function or mode of life after divergence from common ancestry, and also in sequences due to the limitations of a four-letter alphabet) but also a spotty fossil record and highly limited molecular data from fossils, and all that comes of it. All the splits of macroevolution are microevolutionary events, so we get further complications of hybridization of incompletely diverged lineages and incomplete lineage sorting.

    Convergence in the shoe world is very different, as different manufacturers can get inspiration from one another, rather than all examples being pulled out by the environment and/or chance.

    The squabbling researchers would agree with Zachriel that there is one true tree of animal life (if not all life); they just disagree over the topology of that tree, and most understand that full elucidation of that topology will likely not occur in our lifetimes, if ever.

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  65. Zachriel: With biological organisms, across most taxa, there is only one reasonable classification.

    Lars: Whooo, that one can go down in the record book for evolutionary whoppers.

    That's sort of like saying a tree doesn't have a branching shape because it is difficult to discern some of the individual branches from a distance.

    Lars: In reality, organisms do not fit a nested hierarchy any better than shoes or cars.

    In fact, the nested hierarchy is strongly supported, and leads to very specific empirical predictions. For instance,

    If an organism has mammary glands, we can predict it will have a complex eukaryote cell structure with organelles, ingest other organisms for nourishment, have bilateral symmetry, integument, an alimentary canal, a bony head at one end with an array of sense organs, vertebrae protecting a nerve cord, jaws, ribs, four limbs during at least at some stage of life, neck, neocortex, endothermic, internal fertilization, four-chambered heart, lungs with alveoli and a muscular diaphragm, two eyes, three ear bones in each of two ears, hair or at least hair follicles at some stage of life, sebaceous glands, most will have heterodont dentition, etc.

    All that from teats. It's not a trivial correlation, but one of the most important patterns in biology.

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  66. Zachriel: Let's make sure we understand the data. There is a clear phylogenetic tree for many taxa, including vertebrates. Okay so far?

    Blas: Exclude the data that allow to construct this tree the possibility of not common descent?

    It means including the unambiguous data that we do have, which supports Common Descent of vertebrates.

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  67. Sory for my english Zachirel I will re write my question to better understanding.

    Shows the data that allow to construct the monophiletic tree the impossibility of a polyphiletic tree of life?

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  68. 27th Comrade: John says: “Cultural "evolution" is not the same thing as biological evolution.” I am talking about the evolution of culture—Chinese or English, not specified; just culture—and that is decidedly something that evolved.

    What makes you so sure of that (culture as a biologically evolved trait)? Have you isolated a gene for it? There are specific genes expressed in the brain as it grows, so we can certainly say that the brain has evolved biologically. Culture, not so much.

    Anyway, to remove ambiguity:

    Do you believe that you can find human culture along the evolutionary ladder?

    That is, did it not exist prior to some “mutation”, and then began to exist? Is culture—Chinese or English—a result of evolution?
    In short (even easier question), is writing and reading the result of evolution?


    Culture certainly is not the result of a mutation, but a novel use of the brain that had earlier evolved to substantial size and flexibility to help survival and reproduction of its owner, through procurement of food, securing alliances, avoiding predators and attracting mates. There is no ladder of evolution (that's a holdover from Aristotlean thinking). On the cladogram (branching bush) of life, we would have to note that a brain capable of producing culture must have evolved prior to our split with chimpanzees, since they are certainly capable of learning from one another, and probably much deeper than that. Reading and writing are the result of clever individuals noting that if etched symbols could stand for numbers used in accounting, they could also stand for animals, people, and ultimately concepts just as spoken words do. Only very indirectly could you say writing is a result of evolution. There are no reading and writing genes. There are genes for brain development that if mutated, might disallow reading and writing.

    Now, here's the tricky part. Once a cultural product develops, it can have a part to play in the biological evolution of the acculturated. Groups of early humans that were proficient at making stone tools, and more importantly teaching the stone tool industry to one another, were ultimately more likely to leave descendants than were luddite australopiths. But English and Chinese language and culture were taught (memetics rather than genetics).

    If not, then I am going to shout “Zachriel!” and biy you had better hide very far! Zachriel seems to be very knowledgeable about biology (among other things); I doubt he would disagree with me on this.

    (continued below)

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  69. 27th Comrade: You are really blaspheming, now. You mean that evolution—the blind mutations and natural selection—did not give us (even deterministically) the very history—genetic and otherwise—that led directly to Love’s Labours Lost? What did? Please make more-precise what force it is that generates the dramatic music of the Mali empire, if not these self-same mutations and selection.

    The ability to compose and make music is an emergent property of the brain, just as a brilliant, fiery luster is an emergent property of carbon atoms arranged just so to form a diamond. You can't read it in a DNA sequence. That said, music evolves through its own kind of mutation and selection (again nonbiological aside from the fact that the animals doing the mutating and selecting of music are biological). We end up with music that people like to hear or like to produce. That you would view this as some kind of blasphemy means you have a strange conception of evolutionary biology. There is no blasphemy in science. The science is not a priesthood; when I said you needed relevant knowledge to be a relevant critic; that's a pragmatic issue. The days when you could produce a major scientific advancement without consulting prior findings ended hundreds of years ago. Rather than blasphemy, the ideas put forth by the IDists are just unsubstantiated, so they go in the same bin as the schematics for the perpetual motion machine.

    Sir Charles Darwin was the first to use his theory to explain music; are you dissenting?
    Are you opposed to ID (or did I presume wrong)?



    1. Unlike Paul McCartney, Darwin was never knighted.
    2. I would have to read the passage to see if I agree or disagree with Darwin.
    3. Every biologist dissents from Darwin on some point or another. He had a piddling of evidence to work from compared to what we know now and got many things wrong as a result. Importantly he got common descent right and the significance of natural selection in explaining adaptation right. Some scientists think Darwin got more things wrong than others do. But biologists and scientists generally will rally around Darwin if they sense a religious threat to the manner in which science is conducted and scientific knowledge is taught in the public schools. Between the Wedge Document and "Why I Went for a Second Ph.D." the cat is really out of the bag on this one.
    4. All evidence indicates that Beethoven's 9th was the product of intelligent design but that Beethoven himself was not. Whether I'm opposed to either statement for personal reasons is irrelevant to science.

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  70. 27th Comrade Content yourself with knowing that, if neo-Darwinian theory did in fact explain life’s diversity, I would have seen it multiple times by now. Have you spent a lot of time looking? I have. (Incidentally, I and my friends leap when we see a distant semblance of it—“industrial melanism! different beaks! different eating patterns!”—but we are blind to the rest of the cases that we beat aside as we seek the one case.)

    Most evolution is genetic drift, rather than natural selection. But that which drifts in, just as well drifts out. Long conserved homology, selective sweep, experimental studies of predatory ecology, functional morphology, and convergence are all strong evidence of natural selection having an important, if not the quantitatively most important, place in evolution.

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  71. Blas: Shows the data that allow to construct the monophiletic tree the impossibility of a polyphiletic tree of life?

    That data includes the data for vertebrates, which you keep avoiding.

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  72. Can you shear with me why it is impossible to think a polyphiletic tree of life with vertebrates?

    Thanks

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  73. Blas: Can you shear with me why it is impossible to think a polyphiletic tree of life with vertebrates?

    It's not impossible to consider. But the vast bulk of the evidence supports a monophyletic tree for vertebrates; in particular, the nested hierarchy, and the succession of fossil forms. Note that the Theory of Common Descent makes specific predictions, such as cetaceans with hind limbs.

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  74. So if there is no one proof inside the vast bulk of evidence that rule outs the polyphiletic tree, How could you call the Common Descent a fact? is just only teory more possible than the other, which are the chances for one an the other?

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  75. Blas,

    The difference in likelihood between the hypothesis of a single origin of life and hypotheses of multiple origins is immense. In one explicit calculation, the researcher found that a single origin of life is more probable than multiple origins by a factor of 10^(2,860).

    At that point, scientists are sufficiently convinced to call the universality of common ancestry a fact.

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  76. "At that point, scientists are sufficiently convinced to call the universality of common ancestry a fact."

    So if you calculate the probabilities for a ramdom formation of a specific 300 aminoacids protein and is very slow, Would you consider the existance of a Creator for that protein a fact?

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  77. Blas,

    No, because nobody postulates that amino acids in a protein assembled randomly. Natural selection is a nonrandom process that will yields proteins adept at specific jobs if that improves fitness.

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  78. Pastor Neal offered a testable hypothesis:
    "If more scientists were to adopt the view that life was intelligently designed, it would have a positive influence on researchers actively going after the technology that can be learned and copied from nature."

    Yet when we actually look at the scientific and technological accomplishments of those who believe that life was intelligently designed, we see a negative influence on productivity.

    For example, has Cornelius Hunter produced a single new datum since he was a graduate student in biophysics, Pastor Neal?

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  79. "No, because nobody postulates that amino acids in a protein assembled randomly. Natural selection is a nonrandom process that will yields proteins adept at specific jobs if that improves fitness."

    But Natural selection choose the best protein already assembled. ¿How did the proteins got assembled to be natural selected?

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  80. But Natural selection choose the best protein already assembled. ¿How did the proteins got assembled to be natural selected?

    Natural selection was guiding the process ever since RNA transcripts became long enough to experience mutation. But ultimately RNA assembles amino acids together. That's one of the things that RNA does chemically. New research has shown that some RNA can be assembled under realistic early Earth conditions. The origin of life hasn't been fully solved yet, but much progress has been made since the 1950s.

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  81. John asserted:

    "Natural selection was guiding the process ever since RNA transcripts became long enough to experience mutation."
    =======================

    John, how can blind pointless pitiless indifference without purpose, intent or undirectedness guide anything ??? This is the same exact dilema when an Atheist starts off with a comment like, "Evolution predicts . . " In reality Evolution is incapable of directing, selecting or predicting anything unless you believe there is some blind force intelligence (Aliens) that is doing the selecting.

    The actual act of selecting comes from an intelligent living thing, be it human or all the way down to a tiny bacteria. To the extent that a bacteria is self aware of it's existance, is specifically programmed (designer instinct) to live within a certain environment and consume and recycle specific elements, then it is capable of selecting something to consume and forage for. Other than that, all you have is a type of Nature Selection which is nothing more than Tinker bell in a fairy outfit waving a magic wand picking and choosing as she goes along.

    Maybe a new terminology needs to be created here to replace the word/term "Natural Selection". How about "Unspecified Natural Magic" ???

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  82. Eocene : John, how can blind pointless pitiless indifference without purpose, intent or undirectedness guide anything ??? This is the same exact dilema when an Atheist starts off with a comment like, "Evolution predicts . . " In reality Evolution is incapable of directing, selecting or predicting anything unless you believe there is some blind force intelligence (Aliens) that is doing the selecting.

    Common misconception here. Natural selection has no higher purpose or intent, but it is not undirected. It is directed toward forms that yield survival and reproductive success. Differential survival and reproduction.

    Go back to the first polar bear cub receiving a genetic combination yielding white fur. If you work for the forest service, you must know something about the ecology of predation, correct?

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  83. John said:

    "Common misconception here. Natural selection has no higher purpose or intent, but it is not undirected. It is directed toward forms that yield survival and reproductive success. Differential survival and reproduction.

    Go back to the first polar bear cub receiving a genetic combination yielding white fur. If you work for the forest service, you must know something about the ecology of predation, correct? "
    ==========================

    I understand there are ecological checks and balances built into every ecosystem on the planet. Unfortunately at this moment most of these systems are failing. I also understand the simple Darwinian term, "Survival of the Fittest". The child easy definition = The fittest Redwood Seedlings make it and the others all die. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. Often ALL the seedlings are perfectly fit and the checks and balances of root pathogens (damping off), deer, squirrel or other animal grazing are necessary componants for a healthy ecosystem. Take any of those engineered componants out of the machinery and we never see an old growth forest ever again. Actually if the system continues on anyway, we still won't see them ever again, but that's about to quickly change soon. All we would have is a dense undergrowth of stunted trees that don't even hold value to other life within the system.

    The problem I have with the Word/Term "Natural Selection" is it's mystical unexplained blind force intelligent (tho considered non-god) influence on the magical undirected lucky manufacture of otherwise clearly engineered and planned ecosystems. Most science never pursues such an outlook, hence we have a global planetary system of function that is failing all over the place because of a Marxian viewpoint.

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  84. Eocene incoherently rants:

    "The problem I have with the Word/Term "Natural Selection" is it's mystical unexplained blind force intelligent (tho considered non-god) influence on the magical undirected lucky manufacture of otherwise clearly engineered and planned ecosystems. Most science never pursues such an outlook, hence we have a global planetary system of function that is failing all over the place because of a Marxian viewpoint."

    A Marxian viewpoint? The irony is probably lost on you, but your concept of "engineered and planned ecosystems" sounds remarkably similar to Marxist-Leninist-style planned economy.

    In reality, of course, ecosystems have come and gone without any need for a helping hand from "above", driven mostly by climate fluctuations.

    Why you blame science for the current man-made environmental disasters is beyond me. Nearly all biologists I know, and I know very many, share your concerns about the current problems and quite a few actively support conservation efforts. Your scorn should be directed to the anti-science activists.

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  85. Troy ranted in reply:

    "Why you blame science for the current man-made environmental disasters is beyond me. Nearly all biologists I know, and I know very many, share your concerns about the current problems and quite a few actively support conservation efforts. Your scorn should be directed to the anti-science activists."
    =====================

    Yes I do blame most in science for the current global ruination being caried out presently. These are individuals who self promote themselves as genius' who are going to save the planet and that is exactly what is NOT taking place.

    But you conveniently left out that I also blame Religion and Politics as being responsible as well, with religion in the number one spot. These are the ones who should know better, but they refuse. Most of Christendom, despite great vociferous claims of faith & praising the glories of God's creation, actually believe God's going to destroy it all anyway. This is a lie. They actually take the lead politically by associating with Right-wing extremists Political parties of any country in denouncing everything that has been researched about the dangers of Global Warming and it's manmade consequences. I only credit field scientists who actually get off there rearends as opposed to the usual lazy internet researchers and lab work slaves to bigbiz, for their passion of the natural world. Most of science is Big-Business driven for profit. It has nothing to do with helping their fellow human, only self motivation and rewards. Our planet cannot afford a production and consumption mentality X 10,0000.

    Next time, acknowledge that I criticize the other gang as well.

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  86. I also understand the simple Darwinian term, "Survival of the Fittest". The child easy definition = The fittest Redwood Seedlings make it and the others all die. Unfortunately it doesn't always work that way. Often ALL the seedlings are perfectly fit and the checks and balances of root pathogens (damping off), deer, squirrel or other animal grazing are necessary componants for a healthy ecosystem. Take any of those engineered componants out of the machinery and we never see an old growth forest ever again.

    Natural selection does not reduce to "survival of the fittest" or nature "red in tooth and claw". If cooperation within the species, or among several species, leads to mutual survival and reproduction, then this pattern of cooperation will persist and organisms that compete but do not cooperate may be squeezed out.

    Ecosystem stability and collapse is part of nature, has a huge impact on evolutionary history, and is indeed beyond natural selection, working at a higher level.

    I think your anger with evolutionary biology is partly due to your simplified view of it.

    Natural selection is not simply survival of the fittest, and evolution is not simply natural selection.

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  87. John said:

    "Ecosystem stability and collapse is part of nature, has a huge impact on evolutionary history, and is indeed beyond natural selection, working at a higher level."


    "I think your anger with evolutionary biology is partly due to your simplified view of it.

    Natural selection is not simply survival of the fittest, and evolution is not simply natural selection."
    ========================

    We at least we can both agree that there are built in engineered componants that make life in any ecosystem cooperate and work together and function properly, but where the word/term "Natural Selection" is most important is when not of these engineered regulating componants ever existed in the beginning. That's why the ONLY real important discussion is about the origin of the Informational coding system of DNA (NOT ANY MATERIAL SUBSTRATE) which began the whole process in the first place. Life, be it by creation or evolution demands replication. DNA has instructions for replication and evolution or creation doesn't happen without specific detailed instructions for replication. So where did all that brilliantly encrypted encoded information in that tiniest of know informational compression storage system come from that is etched into that first DNA protein molecule ???

    It's unfortunate that everytime this subject comes up we run into the usual definition shell games and goal post moving of what really is a CODE. The usual "it's only fractals-patterns and not a real language" insistance raises it's ugly head each and every time. But it is there at the origin of the creation of the codes where interestingly a "Natural Selection" idea should be explained as to who or what was doing all the just right selecting for building a brilliant informational system if that first simple bacteria , which we now know was not so simple after all, but rather complex.

    Now as far as getting angry ??? Admittedly yes I find the dogma of evolution itself to be offensive in the God dishonoring sense, but then I also find most of the doctrines of Christendom to be God dishonoring and offensive as well. You all apparently avoid my position here since not one of you has paid any attention to that or acknowledged it. But back to evolution, what is frustrating are some of the other posters in any of these forums inserting the usual faith based statements (of which they deny), changing on a whim defintions of words/terms, goalpost movements and then calling it facts.

    But again, back to natural selection, who or what it was that did the selecting when putting all the codes together for all that intelligent precision functioning system for life is where it most counts. At the present, there are no ecosystems that are truly functioning properly anymore or very little at best. No amount of excuse making by either side here changes this fact. The one thing that both sides seem to be in agreement with is that it isn't a human cause. The answer from both camps is that it's nature taking it's course or God is doing it. Both answers are just completely dead wrong.

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  88. Eocene: The one thing that both sides seem to be in agreement with is that it isn't a human cause. The answer from both camps is that it's nature taking it's course or God is doing it.

    Many field ecologists are documenting damage to ecosystems caused by humans: global warming / desertification, hunting and poaching, overfishing, timber harvesting, pollution, municipal encroachment due to overpopulation.

    Because they see it in the field, these scientists would be the first to tell you that natural selection is an important agent of change and that the evidence for common descent is overwhelming.

    If you polled America, you would find very good correlation between acceptance of evolution and acceptance of man's role in poisoning the Earth.

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  89. Eocene: But again, back to natural selection, who or what it was that did the selecting when putting all the codes together for all that intelligent precision functioning system for life is where it most counts.

    Natural selection doesn't need a who or what. It just needs mutation (which we see even in nonliving crystal replication) and variable success among replicators. RNA is a simple replicator, and some forms of it have been produced under natural conditions.

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  90. John said:

    "Natural selection doesn't need a who or what. It just needs mutation (which we see even in nonliving crystal replication) and variable success among replicators."
    ====================

    Sure why not John, and everybody who's anybody knows a Code belonging to a Microsoft Windows 7 CD is nothing more than a fractal and pattern anyway.

    Linguistics Analysis indeed!

    *eyes rolling*

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  91. John had a vision:

    "Because they see it in the field, these scientists would be the first to tell you that natural selection is an important agent of change and that the evidence for common descent is overwhelming."
    ======================

    Seriously, do you just making this up on the fly as you go along or did somebody claiming to be Genius teach it to you ???

    *shocked*

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  92. Eocene: Seriously, do you just making this up on the fly as you go along or did somebody claiming to be Genius teach it to you ???

    Actually, I learned this by reading the biological literature and by talking to ecologists themselves. They never claimed to be geniuses, though.

    Here is an example of a research group in evolutionary ecology.

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