Sunday, March 18, 2012

A Flower Adapted to Losing its Pollinator Almost Immediately and Evolutionists Claim it is an Example of Evolution

What happens when a plant loses its pollinator? Plants are known to make the transition and in a controlled experiment using the monkey plant, after struggling with low seed production for a few generations, the flower then recovered with seed production rising to almost normal levels. Amazingly evolutionists are calling this adaptation an example of evolution in action:

The populations without pollinators suffered greatly reduced fitness in early generations but rebounded as they evolved an improved ability to self-fertilize.

There were no long time periods with natural selection slowly acting on random mutations. If evolution is true then this is another example of how evolution must have created incredible mechanisms of adaptation, which when used evolutionists could claim as an example of, yes, “evolution.” Evolutionists are completely tone-deaf to their own glaring fallacies.

32 comments:

  1. Another example of you being dumb. When a new selective pressure arises, it is not the case that you have to wait for new mutations to occur from scratch. The first thing that will happen is that any relevant preexisting genetic variablity in the population will be subjected to selection. That is what happened here:

    The extent of phenotypic changes evident after only five generations indicates that rapid adaptation is possible if a population loses pollinators. Self-compatible, pollinator-reliant plants experiencing mounting human-induced environmental stress might adapt rapidly in the short term. However, the resulting decrease in genetic diversity may leave them vulnerable to extinction with further environmental alterations. We found that a substantial fraction of phenotypic change could be explained by large changes in allele frequency at two chromosomal polymorphisms; an intriguing observation in light of recent theoretical work on evolutionary rescue. The increase of genetic variance along with mean trait expression of self fecundity is consistent with a scenario in which rare alleles in the source population increased in frequency as populations evolved increased selfing. Finally, our results favor a sequential model for the evolution of the selfing syndrome. Traits essential to increasing selfing efficiency (e.g., anther–stigma separation) evolve first, followed by evolution of other characters (e.g., flower size) subsequent to mating system change.

    A huge amount of adaptation probably happens this way.

    Of course, if you don't know what the word "polymorphism" means, then you'll draw silly conclusions.

    A more informed creationist would have said this just microevolution, not macroevolution, and that of course they believe that microevolution happens and that it's quite easy actually, but you've just admitted the significance of this adaptation, so you've kind of sawed off that branch. Oh well...

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    1. Man, get a clue. Adaptation is not evolution. Adaptation is pre-programmed in the genetic code. It requires foresight, i.e., design. Evolution requires new codes to be written at random, i.e., new genes. This flower would have become extinct if it had to wait for evolution to happen. You people are stupid as ****.

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    2. Louis Savain Mar 18, 2012 05:19 PM

      Man, get a clue.


      says the man who clearly hasn't got one.

      Adaptation is not evolution.

      Newsflash, genius, adaptation is a part of evolution.

      Adaptation is pre-programmed in the genetic code. It requires foresight, i.e., design.

      According to Theodosius Dobzhansky, who knew a thing or two about evolution "Adaptation is the evolutionary process whereby an organism becomes better able to live in its habitat or habitats" No need for a designer or foresight.

      Evolution requires new codes to be written at random, i.e., new genes.

      Wrong again. If there's something that can be easily modified already lying around the genome then that could get pressed into service. Of course, if there's nothing handy then the organism will have to wait until something useful pops up. And, yes, it could go extinct before that happens. It's all part of evolution.

      This flower would have become extinct if it had to wait for evolution to happen.

      Well done! You got something right.

      You people are stupid as ****

      I always had the impression that four stars **** was a good score.

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    3. Melinda:

      I've never seen you post before. Have you ever read a post by Thorton? The liberal mind is completely unexplainable.

      This is just like Rush "implying" (not directly calling) Fluke a slut, and Maher directly calling Palin a . . . well, that really isn't a word used in "civilized debate". When your "side" uses the tactics, there is nothing wrong. But let the "other side" use the tactic, and, oh my, what a horrible state of affairs it is.

      Let an evolutionist say life appear "designed", and that's OK; but if you question evolution, and say that life appears "designed", oh, heavens, what troglodytes are these.

      An amazing thing this putative liberal mind.

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    4. Good PaV Lino, you're back!

      Now will you please give us the identity of the Designer that you claim to know? The one who deliberately created Ravine encephalopathy which kills the babies by destroying their brain matter.

      Why do you suppose your Designer wants to kill babies?

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    5. Thorton:

      Does it occur to you that the argument you're employing is the very reason this blog has the name that it does?

      Delete
    6. PaV Lino

      Does it occur to you that the argument you're employing is the very reason this blog has the name that it does?


      It occurs to me that you spend all of your time thinking up new, flimsy excuses for avoiding the tough questions about your IDiot claims, and none of your time on answers.

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    7. Nick:

      A more informed creationist would have said this just microevolution …

      Ah yes, those informed creationists. How we long for informed creationists, whom we can body slam around a few times after they fall for our foolish premises. Then we could go on fooling ourselves that alleles and chromosomes just happened to evolve, and the laws of genetics just happened to evolve, and so all kinds of designs are at the ready, latent and waiting just beneath the surface for the right time because, yes, they just happened to evolve.

      You see when we say that evolution creates evolution then we have a circular reference, and that’s a problem. And it doesn’t get any better when we discover that said evolution, which was supposed to have been created by evolution, is profoundly complex and shows precisely zero indication of having just happened to have happened, so that evolution could then happen to happen.

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  2. But, if it is simply adaptation - if the plant simply found the right alleles already existing in their genome and these got selected for, is this really evolution? There would be no new genes being produced. Just a reshuffling of what was already there. Even you said it is simply an example of microevolution as opposed to an example of macroevolution. Creationists do not have any problem with this kind of evolution. We can observe it, analyze it, and understand what happens, but nothing new is produced. Perhaps that is why Cornelius said it is not a true example of evolution. I agree.

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    1. "Creationists do not have any problem with this kind of evolution. We can observe it, analyze it, and understand what happens, but nothing new is produced. Perhaps that is why Cornelius said it is not a true example of evolution. I agree."

      You are saying this flower example is a form of evolution -- selection of preexisting genetic variability -- which is observable and easy to understand and accept, so easy that even creationists accept it. Cornelius, on the other hand, says that "incredible mechanisms of adaptation" must be required if evolution produced this adaptation. At least one of you has to be wrong.

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  3. Nick states;

    'The first thing that will happen is that any relevant preexisting genetic variability in the population will be subjected to selection. That is what happened here:'

    Yet your problem is not to explain preexisting information Nick, your problem is to explain the origination of information by purely material processes.

    The Law of Physicodynamic Insufficiency - Dr David L. Abel - November 2010
    Excerpt: “If decision-node programming selections are made randomly or by law rather than with purposeful intent, no non-trivial (sophisticated) function will spontaneously arise.”,,, After ten years of continual republication of the null hypothesis with appeals for falsification, no falsification has been provided. The time has come to extend this null hypothesis into a formal scientific prediction: “No non trivial algorithmic/computational utility will ever arise from chance and/or necessity alone.”
    http://www-qa.scitopics.com/The_Law_of_Physicodynamic_Insufficiency.html

    “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.(that is a net 'fitness gain' within a 'stressed' environment i.e. remove the stress from the environment and the parent strain is always more 'fit')
    http://behe.uncommondescent.com/2010/12/the-first-rule-of-adaptive-evolution/

    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

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    1. Have you *ever* heard of staying on-topic, ba77?

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    2. Nick since the 'topic' is ALWAYS whether or not neo-Darwinism is true, or whether or not Intelligent Design is true, I would say that the failure of material processes to generate functional information is ALWAYS on topic. In fact I would say your failure to honestly address this following rigid falsification of neo-Darwinism will be my topic with you every time I see you on any blog:

      Falsification Of Neo-Darwinism by Quantum Entanglement/Information
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1p8AQgqFqiRQwyaF8t1_CKTPQ9duN8FHU9-pV4oBDOVs/edit?hl=en_US

      Does Quantum Biology Support A Quantum Soul? – Stuart Hameroff - video (notes in description)
      http://vimeo.com/29895068

      Now Nick, the preceding is science on the cutting edge that leaves absolutely no wiggle room for the material processes of neo-Darwinism to posit convoluted scenarios in!! And despite whatever contrived hatred you may have towards God, to motivate to defend such a bankrupt theory so passionately, the fact that we now have in hand proof, and I use that in the full meaning of the word 'proof', that God created us is a VERY WONDERFUL thing for us to gain knowledge of. I have no idea what you have been through in life, but I assure you that whatever it is that drives you to such irrational extremes, it in no way justifies fighting tooth and nail against the One who created the entire universe and all life in it!!!

      Centrality of Each Individual Observer In The Universe and Christ’s Very Credible Reconciliation Of General Relativity and Quantum Mechanics
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/17SDgYPHPcrl1XX39EXhaQzk7M0zmANKdYIetpZ-WB5Y/edit?hl=en_US

      General Relativity, Quantum Mechanics, Entropy, and The Shroud Of Turin - updated video
      http://vimeo.com/34084462

      Condensed notes on The Authenticity of the Shroud of Turin
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/15IGs-5nupAmTdE5V-_uPjz25ViXbQKi9-TyhnLpaC9U/edit

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    3. Melinda

      They are on topic.


      They would be, if the topic was "brain dead C&Ped Creationist crap, non-sequitur references to non-applicable scientific papers, and links to soul-killing Fundy Christian music videos."

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  4. To make it more 'personal':

    Genetic Entropy - Dr. John Sanford - Evolution vs. Reality - video
    http://vimeo.com/35088933

    The evidence for the detrimental nature of mutations in humans is overwhelming for scientists have already cited over 100,000 mutational disorders.

    Inside the Human Genome: A Case for Non-Intelligent Design - Pg. 57 By John C. Avise
    Excerpt: "Another compilation of gene lesions responsible for inherited diseases is the web-based Human Gene Mutation Database (HGMD). Recent versions of HGMD describe more than 75,000 different disease causing mutations identified to date in Homo-sapiens."

    I went to the mutation database website cited by John Avise and found this stated in 2009:

    HGMD®: Now celebrating our 100,000 mutation milestone!

    I really question their use of the word 'celebrating'. (Of note, apparently someone with a sense of decency has now removed the word 'celebrating')

    further notes:

    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/

    The Frailty of the Darwinian Hypothesis
    "The net effect of genetic drift in such (vertebrate) populations is “to encourage the fixation of mildly deleterious mutations and discourage the promotion of beneficial mutations,”
    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2009/07/the_frailty_of_the_darwinian_h.html

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  5. For the sake of criticism, let's take the assumption that this plant did adapt because it was pre-programmed, seriously. That is, we'll assume it was it was true, in reality, therefore *all* observations should conform to it.

    This would mean the genome must contain the knowledge to determine when an organism should adapt, what specific adaptation to employ, and the knowledge of how to build each adaptation, such as self-fertilization in the case of this plant.

    How does ID explain how this knowledge was created?

    Also, why don't all organisms adapt?

    For example, if someone finds themselves in a vitamin-c deficient environment, their genome doesn't adapt by enabling our ability to synthesize vitamin-c. Instead they die a painful death from scurvy. If one's genome did adapt, it would because they were a geneticist that had the knowledge of which genres would allow them to synthesize vitamin-c, the knowledge of how to enable just those genes, while leaving the remainder unchanged, etc.

    In other words, the sort of transformations represented by adaptations occur when the requisite knowledge is present. So, the origin of these adaptations would also be the origin of the knowledge used to build or perform them.

    ID has no explanation for this knowledge. Rather, it merely pushes the problem into some unexplainable realm. On the other hand, evolutionary theory explains this knowledge as being created by a form of conjecture and refutation.

    In addition, if our genome is specifically and intentionally pre-programmed to adapt in specific conditions, then apparently our genome was intentionally designed not to adapt in vitamin-c deficient environments.

    So, assuming your theory is true, for the sake of criticism, it would seem that death in the case of vitamin-c deficient environments was pre-programed into our genome.

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  6. Scott -

    I appreciate your willingness to take the argument seriously. However, your conclusions do not follow.

    A few notes:

    1) If organisms have information to do X, that is not the same as saying they have information to do anything. For example, your body has information to generate mutations in response to new antigens. This information guides the mutational mechanisms to focus on the right half of the right gene for mutations. This is a specific function. This does not mean that organisms are pre-coded to adapt for *anything*, but rather that we must investigate to see what specific situations organisms are designed to adapt for. Therefore, if an organism doesn't do Y, that doesn't mean that they had to be specially programmed NOT to do Y, it just means that of all the things worth including in the program (with the program itself bearing a metabolic cost), doing Y was not sufficiently beneficial for inclusion.

    2) As mentioned, even when there is information about where mutations need to occur, it is not 100% information. It is semi-specific. Therefore, mutations do not hit their targets 100% even when it is within the domain of adaptations. It may be possible that there are in fact mutational spectrums in humans that, if they are vitamin C deficient for long enough periods, mutational mechanisms will kick into gear to help. We simply haven't studied it that long to know.

    Now, you did make a valid point on this: "ID has no explanation for this knowledge. Rather, it merely pushes the problem into some unexplainable realm." The fallacy here, though, is that all explanations must occur in such a way that you find fitting. There is nothing in philosophy or science which indicates that the universe must answer questions in terms that we desire. You seek a mechanistic answer to the question of the origin of information. What if there isn't one? What if intelligence - both in humans and in larger scales - isn't based on mechanism? If this were true, then asking for a mechanical explanation would be like asking about the sound of the color green.

    For more on mechanism vs agency, you should check out this post:

    http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/id-foundations-a-definition-of-materialism/

    For the practical implications of a non-mechanistic world, you should check out the engineering and metaphysics conference this summer:

    http://www.eandm2012.com/

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  7. "Faith: No one word personifies the absolute worst and most wicked policies of religion better than that. Faith is mind-rot -- it's a poison that destroys critical thinking, undermines evidence, and leads people into lives dedicated to absurdity. It's a parasite that's regarded as a virtue. I speak as a representative of the scientific faction of atheism here -- it's one thing we simply cannot compromise on. Faith is wrong, and at the same time faith is a central tenet of just about every religion on the planet. We can't ignore that -- that's the thing we are interested in fighting."--P.Z. Myers

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  8. Crevo: This does not mean that organisms are pre-coded to adapt for *anything*, but rather that we must investigate to see what specific situations organisms are designed to adapt for.

    I'm not quite sure I follow, as the problem evolutionary theory addresses is the complexity across different species in the biosphere.

    For example, the ability to synthesize vitamin-c is absent in the least complex forms of life. Rather it's estimated to have appeared roughly 500 million years ago in the plant kingdom. Again, if we take this theory seriously, in that *all* observations should conform to it, the observed ability to synthesize vitamin-c in organisms would be the result of one of these adaptations, right?

    IOW, there would be knowledge in the genome that decides when specific adaptations should occur, which ultimately determines which specific features appear in each species. This would also indicate that the genome would include the knowledge of how to build all adaptations that are supposed to appear in each species, including those in the future. Otherwise, this would represent the spontaneous generation of knowledge, or "magic".

    So, I'd suggest this objection doesn't take the theory seriously, or it's parochial in that it only takes into account a narrow scope of observations.

    Otherwise, it seems you're suggesting a designer specifically designs each organism to adapt in some cases, but not others based on some mysterious criteria. But this isn't sufficiently differentiated from evolution, which posits the knowledge of how to build these adaptations was created via a form of conjecture and refutation. Specifically, it's conjecture in regard to fitness of an organism in it's specific environment. So, we would expect some of these mutations to result in useful adaptations, but the majority would not.

    In other words, the key difference is an explanation as to how the knowledge to perform these adaptations is created which takes into account the particular adaptations we observe *across different species*. "That's just what the designer must have wanted", its a bad explanation, as it's shallow and easily varied.

    On the other hand, the explanation that this knowledge was created via a specific form of conjecture and refutation is a good explanation because it's based on a long chain of hard to vary explanations, based on separate, independent fields. In addition, the types of adaptations we do observe strongly collaborate this type of knowledge creation.

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    1. "So, I'd suggest this objection doesn't take the theory seriously, or it's parochial in that it only takes into account a narrow scope of observations. "

      All science is parochial and only takes into account a narrow scope of observations.

      "Otherwise, it seems you're suggesting a designer specifically designs each organism to adapt in some cases, but not others based on some mysterious criteria."

      I'm not suggesting this specifically, but I don't have any problem with the conception. It is certainly a workable one.

      "But this isn't sufficiently differentiated from evolution"

      Why not? Evolution says that the information arose by happenstance coupled with selection. This theory says that it arose through teleology, and that the most important parts of the information preceded the stress.

      "So, we would expect some of these mutations to result in useful adaptations, but the majority would not."

      Why would you expect that? It's kind of an arbitrary expectation, unless you are presuming its efficacy to begin with. If the question is, what can evolution do, and the answer is, anything it has sufficient pre-existing information to do, then positing that without such an information base you would still get beneficial mutations is conjecturing without any real evidence.

      ""That's just what the designer must have wanted", its a bad explanation, as it's shallow and easily varied."

      It's a bad stopping point, but it isn't a bad starting point. If there is evidence of pre-existing information wherever we find interesting adaptations (which is almost always the case), then to suppose that information is a natural requirement is not a far fetch. If information usually comes through teleology, it isn't a far fetch to say that the information was designed to be there. Once those two things are established, a different question pops up - for what reason was this information put in, and not some other information? This is an excellent question, and I totally agree that stopping before it is answered would be foolish. But the fact that it can't be answered today doesn't mean that the direction is invalid.

      "In addition, the types of adaptations we do observe strongly collaborate this type of knowledge creation."

      Actually, they don't. You should check out a previous discussion of this here:

      http://www.uncommondescent.com/intelligent-design/responding-to-merlin%E2%80%99s-defense-of-darwinism-introduction/

      Or a short video on the topic here:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJwWhhpua_o

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    2. Crevo: All science is parochial and only takes into account a narrow scope of observations.

      An observation that my car is low on gas isn't taken into account because we have no explanation as to my car being low on gas has an effect on biological evolution. As such, we discard it, along with a near other infinite possibilities. (See people as universal explainers below)

      I'm referring to parochial in the sense of falling to take itself seriously, in that it's true in reality, along with our current, best explanations at the time we make those observations. At best, this would be a form of instrumentalism, or at worse, irrationality.

      Scott: Otherwise, it seems you're suggesting a designer specifically designs each organism to adapt in some cases, but not others based on some mysterious criteria.

      Crevo: I'm not suggesting this specifically, but I don't have any problem with the conception. It is certainly a workable one.

      Then how does knowledge of how to build these adaptations into your theory? I'm getting a sense that it doesn't. At all. Does the knowledge of how to perform these adaptions spontaneously appear the genome merely because the designer intended it to? How this this different from "magic"?

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    3. Scott: "So, we would expect some of these mutations to result in useful adaptations, but the majority would not."

      Crevo: Why would you expect that? It's kind of an arbitrary expectation, unless you are presuming its efficacy to begin with.

      The underlying explanation behind evolutionary theory is that the knowledge of how to build the biosphere, as found in the genome, is created by a form of conjecture and refutation. Specifically, conjecture, in the form of generic variation, and refutation, in the form of natural selection. As such, it falls under out explanation of how knowledge is created, in general. For example, we also create knowledge using conjecture and refutation.

      However, unlike natural processes, people are universal explainers. And we use explanations as a criteria for what possibilities we should test.

      For example, it's unlikely that anyone has performed research to determine if eating a square meter of grass each day for a week would cure the common cold. Why is this? Is it because it's logically impossible? No. Is it because it's unfalsifiable? No, this would be trivial to test. Is it because it's a non-natural? No. Why then is it unlikely to be the subject of research? Because we lack an explanation as to how eating a square meter of grass each day for a week would cure the common cold. As such, we discard it, a priori, even before we bother to test it.

      Furthermore, we explain our ability to make progress, in that the truth about the physical world exists in hard to vary, long chains of explanations about reality. As such good explanations, which are deep, hard to vary and based on independent conclusions in different fields of study, bring us closer to reality, while bad explanations, which are shallow, easily varied and are related to the phenomena only as a integral part that same theory itself, do not. This is collaborated in that the progress we've made comes to us in the form of deep, hard to vary explanations,

      Furthermore, we explain our relatively recent, rapid increase in the creation of knowledge through our relativity recent post-enlightenment approach to knowledge in general.

      Arguments that ignore these explanations, or doesn't provide a good arguments of its own, are parochial.

      (Of course, I'm open to an alternative explanation for our relatively recent and rapid increase the creation of knowledge, should you actually have one.)

      However, natural processes are incapable of creating explanations, let alone good explanations. As such, they end up testing all conjectured genetic variations. So we'd expect the majority of conjectured genetic variations, in the case of natural processes, to range from neutral to detrimental, rather than being beneficial. This explains why over 98% of all species that have ever existed have gone extinct.

      This represents the creation of non-explanatory knowledge.

      On the other hand, if we take the ID seriously, in that a supposed designer actually did posses the requisite knowledge to intentionally build what we observe, in reality, then we'd expect the majority of genetic variations it conjectured to be beneficial. This is because an intelligent designer would qualify as person capable of creating explanations, using them as a criteria as to what conjectures to test, etc.

      As such, this would represent explanatory knowledge.

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    4. Crevo: It's a bad stopping point, but it isn't a bad starting point.

      It's a bad explanation, in that it's similar to the Greek myth of the seasons: they are both shallow and easily varied, the cast of characters are only connected to seasons, or are defined as designers, though the myth itself, and the roles they play could be varied without significantly reducing it's ability to explain seasons, or the biosphere, respectively.

      This is in contrast to our current explanation of the seasons, which represents a long chain of hard to vary explanations across multiple fields. The earth's rotation is titled in respect to it's orbit around the sun. A spinning sphere retains it's tilt. Surfaces titled away from radiant heat are headed less. Along, with out theories of photons, the origin of star light (nuclear fusion), etc. There is no easy way to vary this explanation without significantly impacting it's ability to explain the seasons. If one of these links were falsified, there would be no easy way to variety this expiation. Its proponents would have no where go.

      So, our explanation for the seasons is good not only because it's falsifiable, but because it's hard to vary, which makes the key difference.

      However, 98% of all species went extinct because, "that's just what the designer must have wanted", is a bad explanation.

      Crevo: If information usually comes through teleology, it isn't a far fetch to say that the information was designed to be there.

      But you're appealing to a logical possibility, not an explanation. And, as I've pointed out, we discard an infinite number of mere possibilities every day, in every field of science. It's unclear why your designer should be any different.

      Crevo: Once those two things are established, a different question pops up - for what reason was this information put in, and not some other information? This is an excellent question, and I totally agree that stopping before it is answered would be foolish. But the fact that it can't be answered today doesn't mean that the direction is invalid.

      Except, I'm not the one claiming it cannot be answered. You are. I've already provided an explanation for the sort of just good enough designs we observe.

      Scott: In addition, the types of adaptations we do observe strongly collaborate this type of knowledge creation.

      Crevo; Actually, they don't. You should check out a previous discussion of this here:

      First, you mean the discussion that includes this?

      To recap, the entire point of Darwinism was to frame biology as to extricate itself from final causes. Therefore, any mode of genetic adaptation which fails to do so is non-Darwinian.

      Second, if the knowledge of how to build the biosphere was created via conjecture and refutation, then this would necessarily rule out the most complex forms of life appearing simultaneously with the least complex. And it would also rule out an order of appearance from the most complex to the least complex. More complex adaptations cannot be built until the knowledge of how to build them is first created. This is a hard to vary explanation.

      We can say the same about an organism that exhibited only, or mostly, favorable mutations, as predicted by Lamarckism, or if they spontaneous appeared, in the absence of knowledge. Or if an organism's offspring was observed with new, complex adaptations, for any purpose, for which there were no precursors in it's parent. Or if a organism was born with a complex adaptation that is useful for it's survival today, but was not selected by selection pressure in it's proposed ancestry, such as the ability to detect and utilize internet weather forecasts to determine when to hibernate.

      All of these things would falsify evolutionary theory, in that a fundamentally new explanation for knowledge used to build these adaptations would be required.

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    5. On the other hand, ID is left with, "That's just what the designer must have wanted", since an abstract designer - which has no defined limitations - that "just was" complete which the knowledge of how to build the entire biosphere, could have built them at any time and in any order. This is an easily varied explanation.

      The central flaw of bad explanations for the biosphere, such as creationism and Lamarckism, is also the same flaw of pre-enlightenment, authoritative conceptions of human knowledge. In both cases, the account of how this knowledge could be created is either supernatural, illogical or completely absent. In fact, some types of knowledge, such as cosmology, morality or other rules of human behavior, are the same as they are both spoken to early human beings by supernatural beings. In other cases, such as the rule of monarchies or the existence of God, they are protected by taboos or taken for granted to the degree that they go uncriticized, and therefore go unrecognized as being ideas.

      So, I'd again suggest you're appealing to pre-enlightenment assumptions about knowledge.

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  9. Crevo:The fallacy here, though, is that all explanations must occur in such a way that you find fitting. There is nothing in philosophy or science which indicates that the universe must answer questions in terms that we desire. You seek a mechanistic answer to the question of the origin of information. What if there isn't one? What if intelligence - both in humans and in larger scales - isn't based on mechanism? If this were true, then asking for a mechanical explanation would be like asking about the sound of the color green.

    You're confusing the question of if we exist in a finite bubble of explicably, with pointing out that ID lacks an explanation that evolutionary theory provides.

    A designer "just was", complete with the knowledge of how to build these adaptations, already present, serves no explanatory purpose. This is because one could more economically state that these organism "just appeared" compete with the knowledge of how to build these adaptations, already present.

    However, evolutionary theory does provide an explanations, in that it's a form of conjecture and refutation.

    Furthermore, if we do exist in a finite bubble of explicably, which exists in a universe of inexplicability, the inside cannot be explicable either. This is because the inside is supposedly dependent what occurs in this inexplicable realm.

    Any assumption that the world is inexplicable leads to bad explanations. That is, no theory about what exists beyond this bubble can be any better than "Zeus rules" there. And, given the dependency above, this also means there can be no better expiation that "Zeus" rules inside this bubble as well.

    In other words, what's inside this bubble would only appear to explicable if we carefully avoided asking specific questions - questions such as, how knowledge used to build the biosphere was created.

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    1. I think you are confusing topics here. I am not referring to inexplicability. Instead, I am referring to a type of explicability which materialists tend to reject. I think that teleology is itself an explanation. Part of the explanation of Creation *is* the logic and purpose themselves. That is, one need not lean entirely on historical causes. The organization and purpose of the organism may be a cause in and of itself.

      So, for instance, perhaps if we ask the question, why do certain phylogenetic patterns occur? The answer may not lie in history - X to Y to Z, but perhaps the answer lies in the logic of the design itself - these patterns occur because they uphold design Y.

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    2. What does it mean to say someone is a "materialist", and how might this result in one rejecting design?

      Also, what does it mean to say something appears designed?

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  10. I wrote: A designer "just was", complete with the knowledge of how to build these adaptations, already present, serves no explanatory purpose. This is because one could more economically state that these organism "just appeared" compete with the knowledge of how to build these adaptations, already present.

    To clarify, the reformulation of "organisms 'just appeared', compete with the knowledge of how to build these adaptations", would also represent a decision to carefully avoid asking how the knowledge was created.

    As such, they would both represent refraining from asking questions so the inside of this bubble appears explicable. The only difference is where the boundary of this bubble falls.

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  11. Evos have to ape the amazing internal abilities of individuals to change with the environment as "evolution." This is because they can't find actual examples of "evolution" in the field. But I thought only populations evolved...? which is it evos?

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  12. Unknown

    Evos have to ape the amazing internal abilities of individuals to change with the environment as "evolution." This is because they can't find actual examples of "evolution" in the field. But I thought only populations evolved...? which is it evos?


    Another Creationist with impaired reading skills.

    From the article and again quoted in the OP:

    "Abstract: Anthropogenic perturbations including habitat loss and emerging disease are changing pollinator communities and generating novel selection pressures on plant populations. Disruption of plant–pollinator relationships is predicted to cause plant mating system evolution, although this process has not been directly observed. This study demonstrates the immediate evolutionary effects of pollinator loss within experimental populations of a predominately outcrossing wildflower. Initially equivalent populations evolved for five generations within two pollination treatments: abundant bumblebee pollinators versus no pollinators. The populations without pollinators suffered greatly reduced fitness in early generations but rebounded as they evolved an improved ability to self-fertilize. All populations diverged in floral, developmental, and life-history traits, but only a subset of characters showed clear association with pollination treatment. Pronounced treatment effects were noted for anther–stigma separation and autogamous seed set. Dramatic allele frequency changes at two chromosomal polymorphisms occurred in the no pollinator populations, explaining a large fraction of divergence in pollen viability. The pattern of phenotypic and genetic changes in this experiment favors a sequential model for the evolution of the multitrait “selfing syndrome” observed throughout angiosperms."

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