Tuesday, April 24, 2012

Evolution is Crumbling and Now Even Issuing its Own Disclaimers

The cell is not only profoundly complex in the inside, its outer surface is also incredible with its wide array of molecular machines and entities. One important type of molecule on the cell’s surface is the glycans—long carbohydrate molecules that come in phenomenal variety. In fact, this variety is not only tremendous, the trade secret is that it violates every rule of evolution. For instance, though the term “lineage-specific biology,” which is the exact opposite of evolutionary expectations, has been popular in recent years, it could have been used half a century ago for glycans when J.B.S.Haldane observed that “every species of mammal and bird so far investigated has shown quite a surprising biochemical diversity by serological tests. The antigens concerned seem to be proteins to which polysaccharides are attached.” In fact, as one recent paper explains, glycans show “remarkably discontinuous distribution across evolutionary lineages,” for they “occur in a discontinuous and puzzling distribution across evolutionary lineages.” This dizzying array of glycans can be (i) specific to a particular lineage, (i) similar in very distant lineages, (iii) and conspicuously absent from very restricted taxa only. The contradictions are so common even evolutionists are now issuing their own disclaimers.

In a section entitled, “Disclaimer about limitations of evolutionary research,” the trade secret is explained:

While we would certainly agree with the statement that “nothing in glycobiology makes sense, except in the light of evolution”, we must also realize that evolution only occurred once and that evolution does not follow well-defined rules

There you have it. The obligatory, utterly non scientific, secret handshake (“nothing makes sense except evolution … blah, blah, blah”) is always needed before any disclosure of the embarrassing, contradictory facts.

Evolution doesn’t make sense, therefore it simply “does not follow well-defined rules.” In other words, anything goes. Evolution must be true, no evolutionist can deny the prime directive. But they haven’t the slightest idea, beyond endless tautologies and speculation, how that could be.

Evolutionists live in their own world where what they are always right and you are always wrong, regardless of the scientific evidence. Religion drives science, and it matters.

115 comments:

  1. Might as well keep cranking out this drivel CH. Any last remnant of credibility you had in the science community vanished long ago.

    Tell us again how this anti-science crap has nothing to do with your employment by the professional liars of the Discovery Institute.

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  2. And for the record, here is the part of the paragraph you dishonestly snipped out

    "While we would certainly agree with the statement that “nothing in glycobiology makes sense, except in the light of evolution” (Varki 2006), we must also realize that evolution only occurred once and that evolution does not follow well-defined rules (Lewontin 2002). This situation is somewhat alleviated by the fact that after lineages diverge, more often than not they remain separated for good and, thus provide researchers with large numbers of iterations (“pseudo samples”) for which evolutionary processes have occurred independently. The study of these divergent lineages provides a good opportunity to elucidate evolutionary mechanisms."

    Which of course the paper does.

    Every time I think you can't possibly debase yourself any lower, you always find that extra gear.

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    1. Mr. Thorton, not to distract you from your busy work of insulting Dr. Hunter, (it must be tiresome, for someone who thinks as highly of himself as you do, to have to have to humble yourself so as to constantly remind less fortunate people, who don't buy your garbage, Oh I mean, don't buy your scientific theory, how worthless and ignorant they are), but I was hoping, if you could break away from such important work of reminding doubters of Darwin how worthless they are, that you could take time to address some empirical concerns I have with your religion, Oh I mean, with your scientific theory of neo-Darwinism? Perhaps you can help me with this little problem on the evolvability of proteins?

      Stability effects of mutations and protein evolvability. October 2009
      Excerpt: The accepted paradigm that proteins can tolerate nearly any amino acid substitution has been replaced by the view that the deleterious effects of mutations, and especially their tendency to undermine the thermodynamic and kinetic stability of protein, is a major constraint on protein evolvability,,
      http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/19765975

      The Evolutionary Accessibility of New Enzyme Functions: A Case Study from the Biotin Pathway - Ann K. Gauger and Douglas D. Axe - April 2011
      Excerpt: We infer from the mutants examined that successful functional conversion would in this case require seven or more nucleotide substitutions. But evolutionary innovations requiring that many changes would be extraordinarily rare, becoming probable only on timescales much longer than the age of life on earth.
      http://bio-complexity.org/ojs/index.php/main/article/view/BIO-C.2011.1/BIO-C.2011.1

      When Theory and Experiment Collide — April 16th, 2011 by Douglas Axe
      Excerpt: Based on our experimental observations and on calculations we made using a published population model [3], we estimated that Darwin’s mechanism would need a truly staggering amount of time—a trillion trillion years or more—to accomplish the seemingly subtle change in enzyme function that we studied.
      http://biologicinstitute.org/2011/04/16/when-theory-and-experiment-collide/

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    2. Batspit77, the next time you say something coherent will be the first.

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    3. Thorton, so is that how neo-Darwinian evolution overcomes the strict limits found for protein evolvability? By insulting people? And exactly has does insulting someone overcome that? Does the protein somehow sense that Thorton will insult it and evolves a new function? Could you please cite your experimental work on 'insulting people results in proteins of new functions'?

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    4. Might as well keep cranking out this drivel CH. Any last remnant of credibility you had in the science community vanished long ago. Tell us again how this anti-science crap has nothing to do with your employment by the professional liars of the Discovery Institute.

      Anti-science? Well it is universal for evolutionists that pointing out where the evidence contradicts theory is “anti-science” when the theory is evolution. Any criticism of the theory is routinely met with precisely this broad brush, conveniently ignoring the details. So we have glycans that are (i) specific to a particular lineage, (i) similar in very distant lineages, (iii) and conspicuously absent from very restricted taxa only. The response from evolutionists? That’s anti-science. Then add lies and personal insults, which again is routine with evolutionists.


      And for the record, here is the part of the paragraph you dishonestly snipped out … Every time I think you can't possibly debase yourself any lower, you always find that extra gear.

      Dishonestly snipped out? The evolutionists say that after lineages diverge they provide evolutionists with examples of how “evolutionary processes have occurred independently” providing opportunities to study all those different evolutionary mechanisms. This doesn’t “somewhat” alleviate the situation that the evidence is contrary to the theory. You don’t suddenly find the lineage-specific biology goes away because you have more examples of it. What the evolutionists are doing here is following the unspoken dogma of assuming evolution is true. Given the truth of evolution, then sure, more examples are always better. But that begs the question.

      So here we have yet another example of evidence going against the theory, and the evolutionist responds with the same types of broad-brush, meaningless attacks, throwing out every possible distraction from the evidence. And he’s the “scientist” and I’m the “anti-science” dogmatic one.

      This is a typical discourse. Everything is a lie. The theory, the truth claims, and the response.

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  3. Look batspit! Over there! A shiny thing!

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  4. OT: Dr Hunter, you may appreciate this experiment in quantum mechanics that was recently reported:

    Quantum physics mimics spooky action into the past - April 23, 2012
    Excerpt: The authors experimentally realized a "Gedankenexperiment" called "delayed-choice entanglement swapping", formulated by Asher Peres in the year 2000. Two pairs of entangled photons are produced, and one photon from each pair is sent to a party called Victor. Of the two remaining photons, one photon is sent to the party Alice and one is sent to the party Bob. Victor can now choose between two kinds of measurements. If he decides to measure his two photons in a way such that they are forced to be in an entangled state, then also Alice's and Bob's photon pair becomes entangled. If Victor chooses to measure his particles individually, Alice's and Bob's photon pair ends up in a separable state. Modern quantum optics technology allowed the team to delay Victor's choice and measurement with respect to the measurements which Alice and Bob perform on their photons. "We found that whether Alice's and Bob's photons are entangled and show quantum correlations or are separable and show classical correlations can be decided after they have been measured", explains Xiao-song Ma, lead author of the study.
    According to the famous words of Albert Einstein, the effects of quantum entanglement appear as "spooky action at a distance". The recent experiment has gone one remarkable step further. "Within a naïve classical world view, quantum mechanics can even mimic an influence of future actions on past events", says Anton Zeilinger.
    http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-physics-mimics-spooky-action.html

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  5. Evolution makes a huge amount of sense, and follows one simple rule only: if a variant confers increased probability of reproductive success in the current environment it will become more prevalent in the population.

    That rule is extremely "well-defined" and is the core of Darwin's theory. In fact, it is so self-evidently true, that it's more like a syllogism than a theory!

    What doesn't follow "well-defined rules" are the mechanisms by which variance is generated, and biologists (evolutionary biologists!) are constantly discovering new mechanisms, including horizontal mechanisms, that generate genetic diversity.

    But this doesn't alter the basic rule of evolutionary theory, which remains as well-defined as ever.

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    Replies
    1. Elizabeth, welcome to the discussion... I hope you will stay with the discussion.

      IF evolution is simply defined as change and equated with natural selection, then yes... lots of evidence exists. That's not debated. Ever.

      But, reproductive success is not evolution. Variation in a gene pool is not evolution. Changing bird beak sizes, peppered moth colors and such is not evolution. These are bounded changes within a gene pool. Bird beak sizes vary by the control of an existing protein... has nothing to do with evolution.

      What evolutionists do is equivocate bounded change with unbounded change of all life forms from a single ancestor. Evolution requires unbounded and directional change and this has never been observed.

      If all of these supposed new mechanisms of variance are sufficient why haven't we ever observed a clear example of animal speciation?

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    2. Evolution makes no sense whatsoever. You morons took something that hunters and farmers have known about for millenia (adaptation) and extrapolated from it a bunch of crap that is not warranted from the observation of nature.

      Everybody knows that a species can have a tremendous latitude for variance within a well-defined boundary. After all, a Chihuahua can easily be obtained from a wolf population after a number of generations through careful breeding. No Darwinian-style random mutations are needed in going from wolf to Chihuahua. Everything that makes up a Chihuahua was in the wolf from the beginning.

      The stuff about fish evolving into reptiles and reptiles evolving into birds and mammals is 100% unmitigated crap. It has never been observed. You liars made it all up. Why? Because you have a hidden agenda. Yet, you are transparent as crystal since your crap is clearly visible behind the veneer of scientific sounding jargon: you have a bone to pick with traditional religions. And yet, you want to replace them with your own crappy religion, the dirt worshiping religion. You weave lies and deception to promote your chicken shit religion. But not everybody is fooled. What you practice is chicken feather voodoo science.

      ahahaha... AHAHAHA... ahahaha...

      If you want to know how and why the species share so much in common, the only place to look is design. Species share many things in common for the same reason that different automobiles share designs. It's called object-oriented design. It can result in a nested tree-like inheritance structure or a structure that reuses features laterally. What can be simpler and more plausible?

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    3. Thanks for the welcome :)

      You wrote:

      "But, reproductive success is not evolution. Variation in a gene pool is not evolution. Changing bird beak sizes, peppered moth colors and such is not evolution. These are bounded changes within a gene pool. Bird beak sizes vary by the control of an existing protein... has nothing to do with evolution."

      Yes, they are all examples of evolution. What I think you mean is that they do not involve de novo variants, but merely shifting of frequencies of existing variants.

      But this is not the case. New variants are entering the gene pool of a population all the time, and disappearing from it. So those frequency shifts do not simply reflect shifts in the "existing" gene pool - what is in that pool is subject to constant replenishment and purging.

      You talk of "bounded" change, but do not cite evidence for any "bounds" - and we know that the change is not bounded. Every new offspring has some brand new variants.

      So there is no "equivocation" - on the contrary, I would argue, you are making a distinction where there is none.

      "If all of these supposed new mechanisms of variance are sufficient why haven't we ever observed a clear example of animal speciation?"

      Well, we have observed speciation, both in the field and in the lab, but speciation is a gradual process and hybridisation tends to continue even after two populations have largely ceased to interbreed.

      Or are you using "speciation" to mean "sufficient longitudinal change that the descendents would not have been able to breed with their ancestors"?

      Adaptation is the word usually used for longitudinal evolution; "speciation" normally refers to when a population subdivides into two non-interbreeding populations, and adapt independently. Speciation is a branching event, in other words. Is that what you meant?

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    4. Elizabeth, natural selection has the potential to give expression to all the varieties that a genome is capable of producing and little more. To use a familar example, this is why we see a great variety of cat, dog, and cattle breeds, but they are all the same species. This is even true with highly adaptable prokaryotes like E.coli. Regarding finch beaks it is the regulation of the existing Bmp4 protein that produces beak variation.

      The burden of proof is certainly on the evolutionist to show why the only change we ever observe is bounded. By bounded, I do not mean that variants do not enter the gene pool, but that these variants when plotted over time will not show directional change that is unbounded.

      By animal speciation, I mean that two populations can't interbreed at all, but they are fertile within their respective groups. Isolation based on mating preference is not speciation, but mating preference.

      Do you have a definitive example of such a speciation having been observed?

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    5. Tedford the idiot

      Evolution requires unbounded and directional change and this has never been observed.


      Tedford the idiot is a disciple of the Ken Ham "were you there??? Did you see it???" School of Creationist Stupidity.

      For the umpteenth time - we don't have to see an even happen in real time to know that it occurred. All we have to see is the evidence the event left behind.

      Do you accept the theory of plate tectonics? We can see and empirically measure (with GPS) plate tectonics movement occurring today. We have a huge amount of evidence that the same processes working in the past produced the results we see today, i.e African and South America were once connected but split apart) But no one alive has ever seen those two continents touching each other.

      Evolution is no different. We can see and empirically measure evolutionary processes at work today (i.e. Lenski's LTEE), and we have a huge amount of evidence that the same processes working in the past produced the results (the fossil and genetic patterns) we see today.

      Tedford's scientific ignorance never ceases to amaze.

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    6. First of all, it is arguable, even now, whether, a chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same species.

      Secondly, the word "speciation" is not really appropriate (or at least does not mean the same thing) when applied to cloning species like E.coli, because they do not interbreed anyway.

      Thirdly, you have provided no evidence that "the only change we ever observe is bounded", so until you do, there is no "burden of proof" on anyone to show that it is :)

      Lastly, if you define speciation as two populations that "can't interbreed at all", then no, that has not been observed as far as I know, in anyone's lifetime. Indeed hybridisation between populations widely regarded as separate species is often possible (e.g. ligers). But that is not surprising. What has certainly been observed is incipient speciation, where mating preferences between populations is markedly less than within, and where offspring tend to be infertile.

      And to take your first point last:

      You write:

      "natural selection has the potential to give expression to all the varieties that a genome is capable of producing and little more."

      I'd say this assertion is too woolly to mean anything. How do you know what "varieties a genome is capable of"? And having listed all those varieties, what stops you tweaking one more nucleotide, or duplicating one more sequence? Why should there be any end to the variations on any one sequence?

      In short: what are the "bounds" you refer to, and why should I believe there are any at all?

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    7. Bonobo face:

      Tedford's scientific ignorance never ceases to amaze.

      Neither does your stupidity. Your lies and deceptive arguments are so transparent, only you fall for them.

      ahahahaha...

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    8. Elizabeth said, "Lastly, if you define speciation as two populations that "can't interbreed at all", then no, that has not been observed as far as I know, in anyone's lifetime."

      That appears to be the concensus. I could take it further, that a definitive example of animal speciation has never been observed and documented in the history of mankind. If any evolutionists reading this have a definitive example of animal speciation being observed, then by all means tell us.

      But this lack of definitive examples of observed animal speciation does strongly suggest that change is bounded. By bounded, I mean that the genetic variation of a large population size if plotted over time will show an overall clustering pattern not an accumulation of variants leading to a srong directional pattern continuing to move away from the mean. There will be an ebb and flow to the extreme ranges of the variation. A good example of this is the finch beaks of Galapagos fame.

      No one has ever shown me an example of an observed species that has not stuck to this pattern.

      Evolution is not bird beak variation that ebbs and flows about a mean but definitive speciation again, and again and again millions of times from a supposed ancient ancestor to every animal we see in the world.

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    9. Neal -

      No one has ever shown me an example of an observed species that has not stuck to this pattern.

      I can do so right now:

      http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CEtnyx0Yo9I

      Ring species perfectly demonstrate the process you seem to claim does not happen - a population begins the messy business of speciation. It takes a long time and the process is rarely clean-cut, but the bottom line is that if there is no gene flow between two groups of the same species for long enough, they will eventually become different species. They will not merely ebb and flow around a static mean.

      The example you keep getting wrapped up in is the finches' beaks. You constantly insist that just because, the following year, the average beaksize returned to normal, this demonstrates an 'ebb and flow about a mean'. The point you keep missing is that the beaksize returned to normal because THE RAINFALL returned to normal. The genepool follows its environmental conditions. If the dry spell had continued, or got even more pronounced, the finches beaks would logically have continued to grow in average size.

      Do you think it was a mere coincidence that the growth in beak size happened to coincide with the dry spell?

      In short, the Galapagos finches do not at all demonstrate elastic variation about a mean. They demonstrate the very opposite - genetic traits being selected for based on environmental factors. Natural selection. Evolution.

      In other words you have not answered Elizabeth's question at all. What are these 'bounds' you refer to and why should we believe there are any? Give me even one example of a genetic trait reaching such a bound.

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    10. Elizabeth Liddle said:
      "First of all, it is arguable, even now, whether, a chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same species. "

      Well if x cannot (biologically, not preferentially) interbreed and produce offspring with y, then it is not a new species by definition. Mere physiology is not an indicator of a new species, although Darwinists have no problem advocating "new species found" without any testing whatsoever.

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    11. Computerist -

      Lions and tigers are capable of interbreeding. As are horses and donkeys. Are they not different species?

      It is not a completely clear-cut threshhold between 'able to interbreed' and 'not able to interbreed'. It works by degree. Yes, the non-ability to readily and successfully interbreed is taken as a rough criteria for establishing two animal groups as seperate species, but it is still a little imprecise and the details are arguable.

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    12. Ritchie said:

      "Lions and tigers are capable of interbreeding. As are horses and donkeys. Are they not different species?"

      Well I would say no, they are not a different species. They are a "sub-class" of the same kind ie: another race.
      Its equivalent to different races between the human population.
      Are dwarfs (ie: dwarfism) another species?
      Clearly they are not.
      The only sound way to distinguish between species is if they are capable of producing offspring or not, not simply based on their preference to interbreed.
      Of course Darwinists really don't care, as long as they can make the claim a "new species was found" they are doing science.

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    13. computerist -

      Well I would say no, they are not a different species. They are a "sub-class" of the same kind ie: another race.

      And yet genetically humans are as closely related to chimpanzees as horses are to donkeys:

      http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/sci/tech/3042781.stm

      ... or horses and zebras:

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

      Should we be considered 'sub-classes' of the same species?

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    14. computerist

      Elizabeth Liddle said:
      "First of all, it is arguable, even now, whether, a chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same species. "

      Well if x cannot (biologically, not preferentially) interbreed and produce offspring with y, then it is not a new species by definition.


      That is not the scientifically accepted definition of species. Two populations are considered different species if they no longer exchange genetic material between their respective gene pools, either through naturally occurring morphological differences, behavioral differences, or geographic separation. That is why tigers and lions are considered different species. Not that they can't breed, but that they don't naturally.

      Speciation is not binary but happens slowly as one population splits into two. The level of genetic mixing slowly decreases until it finally ceases altogether. That's the reason there is often ambiguity as to which species a particular individual specimen belongs, because there is no clear dividing line. It's like trying to decide where orange stops and yellow starts on a color spectrum.

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    15. Thorton and Ritchie, both of you seem to be on the same page:

      "That is why tigers and lions are considered different species. Not that they can't breed, but that they don't naturally."

      For a new distinct and legitimate species to be claimed, one has to show they are indeed incapable of producing offspring. Humans have a preferential/natural tendency to produce offspring within their kind/race for various reasons (physiological, cultural etc...).
      If tigers and lions are considered different species, then we have a great deal of un-categorized human "species".
      Either that, or we have another form of failed Darwinian logic/thinking.

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    16. "http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Humanzee

      Should we be considered 'sub-classes' of the same species?"

      Are you implying a tiger and a lion split the same way a human and a chimp did?

      Look at the chromosomes of a tiger and lion, the ability to produce a http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Liger.
      The failed ability to produce a humanzee based on mere genetic similarity.
      They are quite different scenarios.
      Its comparing apples to oranges.
      What type of "split" occurs is what determines a new species.

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    17. Computerist -

      For a new distinct and legitimate species to be claimed, one has to show they are indeed incapable of producing offspring.

      I don't think that's true. That seems a very strict definition. Lions and tigers can interbreed, and yet they are officially different species (Panthera leo and Panthera tigris respectively).

      If tigers and lions are considered different species, then we have a great deal of un-categorized human "species".

      Do we? What do you mean?

      There have, in fact, been many human species in the past. Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis to name but a few. It is a quirk of history that only Homo sapiens remains. Though whether we were capable of interbreeding with any of these other 'species' is beyond me to say.

      (actually, with the exception of Homo neanderthalis: http://news.nationalpost.com/2011/07/18/research-confirms-it-were-part-neanderthal/)

      Are you implying a tiger and a lion split the same way a human and a chimp did?

      Why not? They 'split', and that is all that matters. Why should it matter precisely how/why they split?

      They are quite different scenarios.

      Are they really? Why? Just because no 'humanzee' has so far been created/discovered? I would imagine that is more than partly to do with the ethical questions and taboos which prevent such experiments.

      Genetically there appears to be no good reason why such a creature should be impossible. Creatures more distantly related to each other than humans are to chimpanzees have been successfully crossbred. There is no essential difference here.

      What type of "split" occurs is what determines a new species.

      Pardon? How many types of 'split' are there? What are they? How does a species 'split' into two without forming two new species?

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    18. Ritchie:

      "Lions and tigers can interbreed, and yet they are officially different species (Panthera leo and Panthera tigris respectively)."

      Its officially flawed.

      "There have, in fact, been many human species in the past. Homo habilis, Homo ergaster, Homo heidelbergensis, Homo erectus and Homo neanderthalis to name but a few. It is a quirk of history that only Homo sapiens remains."

      Again, I am questioning the way a "species" is defined/categorized "officially".

      "Though whether we were capable of interbreeding with any of these other 'species' is beyond me to say."

      We don't even know if they are a different "species" for that matter. We happened to given them names. Are "Asians" or "Africans" considered different species?

      The closest objective way to tell is by the number of Chromosomes.

      "Are they really? Why? Just because no 'humanzee' has so far been created/discovered? I would imagine that is more than partly to do with the ethical questions and taboos which prevent such experiments."

      Its not so much an ethical problem as it is a question of profit. Forseen profit has a tendency to maneuver ethical barriers. Is there no profit in the Darwinist camp?

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    19. Computerist -

      Its officially flawed.

      Says who? You?

      Are all clocks in town wrong but yours?

      Again, I am questioning the way a "species" is defined/categorized "officially".

      And you are right to do so. This is, in fact a very grey area. 'Able to interbreed' and 'unable to interbreed' are not clear-cut and easily distinguished. Pinpointing the moment when two sub-species become distinct species is like selecting the exact shade on the colour wheel that distinguishes red from orange.

      We don't even know if they are a different "species" for that matter. We happened to given them names. Are "Asians" or "Africans" considered different species?

      No. The differences between Homo sapiens and, say, Homo neanderthalis are much more pronounced than those of mere race. There is no question of modern humans all being the same species - and genetically a distinctly uniform species at that.

      Its not so much an ethical problem as it is a question of profit. Forseen profit has a tendency to maneuver ethical barriers. Is there no profit in the Darwinist camp?

      I wonder how you came to the conclusion it was all about profit. A humanzee would surely be the very epicentre of worldwide attention its whole life long. I imagine the scientists who discovered/created it would have their places in scientific history assured - overnight celebrities. This would be truly incredible news. Why WOULDN'T it be a profitable venture?

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  6. Elizabeth Liddle said:
    "if a variant confers increased probability of reproductive success in the current environment it will become more prevalent in the population."

    "biologists (evolutionary biologists!) are constantly discovering new mechanisms, including horizontal mechanisms, that generate genetic diversity."

    And based on this we have to a accept as a fact that all the living forms evolved from an UCLA trough RM+NS.

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    Replies
    1. No, not at all. But nor do I have to accept that because variance generation is complicated and multifarious that evolutionary theory is "crumbling" or that it's rules are not "well-defined". It's rule (singular) is extremely well-defined.

      And you need to persuade me that self-replication heritable variance in reproductive success in the current environment is not enough to generate the diversity of life we see from simple beginnings.

      The interesting question (to me) is where that variance comes from.

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    2. Elizabeth claims;

      'And you need to persuade me that self-replication heritable variance in reproductive success in the current environment is not enough to generate the diversity of life we see from simple beginnings'

      No Elizabeth, as much as I have seen you dance around this, Darwinists have the burden of proof to empirically demonstrate that neo-Darwinism (RV & NS) can do what is claimed. The burden is not on us to prove it is absolutely impossible to whatever your imagination thinks may be possible! That is absurd. Who made you final arbiter? Neo-Darwinism is notorious for its lack of falsification criteria, and such lack of falsification criteria even led Lakatos to label Darwinism as a pseudo-science!

      ‘Before you can ask ‘Is Darwinian theory correct or not?’, You have to ask the preliminary question ‘Is it clear enough so that it could be correct?’. That’s a very different question. One of my prevailing doctrines about Darwinian theory is ‘Man, that thing is just a mess. It’s like looking into a room full of smoke.’ Nothing in the theory is precisely, clearly, carefully defined or delineated. It lacks all of the rigor one expects from mathematical physics, and mathematical physics lacks all the rigor one expects from mathematics. So we’re talking about a gradual descent down the level of intelligibility until we reach evolutionary biology.’
      David Berlinski

      Science and Pseudoscience – Imre Lakatos
      “nobody to date has yet found a demarcation criterion according to which Darwin can be described as scientific” – Imre Lakatos (November 9, 1922 – February 2, 1974) a philosopher of mathematics and science, , quote as stated in 1973 LSE Scientific Method Lecture

      In fact, by the criterion laid out by Lakatos in the following audio lecture, Darwinism is found, in reality, to be a ‘degenerate science program’, i.e. a ‘pseudoscience’;

      Science and Pseudoscience – Lakatos – audio
      http://richmedia.lse.ac.uk/philosophy/2002_LakatosScienceAndPseudoscience128.mp3

      The following evidence shows Darwinism to be a ‘degenerate science program’ using Lakatos’s criteria
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1LpGd3smTV1RwmEXC25IAEKMjiypBl5VJq9ssfv4JgeM/edit

      Further notes:

      Many instances of Darwinism avoiding falsification from the empirical data, by ad hoc models (rationalizations, epicycles), are found in this following site:

      Darwin’s Predictions – Cornelius Hunter PhD.
      http://www.darwinspredictions.com/

      -------

      Where’s the substantiating evidence for neo-Darwinism?
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1q-PBeQELzT4pkgxB2ZOxGxwv6ynOixfzqzsFlCJ9jrw/edit

      Predictions of Materialism compared to Predictions of Theism within the scientific method:
      https://docs.google.com/Doc?docid=dc8z67wz_5fwz42dg9

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

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    3. Blas

      And based on this we have to a accept as a fact that all the living forms evolved from an UCLA trough RM+NS.


      No one is science claims that is a fact. However, you should at least have the intellectual honesty to accept there is a quite large and growing body of scientific evidence which indicates that is what happened.

      Delete
  7. Here are just a few false assumptions in Cornelius' post.

    - If evolution is deterministic, then it must be highly predictable: False. That's like assuming someone in the 1900s should have been able to predict how nuclear power or the internet would effect future outcomes. However, it's not that we considered nuclear power or the internet likely or unlikely, rather we hadn't even conceive of them at all. As such, we couldn't factor the effect they would have on the future, despite them being deterministic in nature.

    In other words, the idea that "a designer did" is that best explanation because, otherwise, evolution would be highly predictable, is based on a number of false assumptions about unknowability.

    - In the case of evolution, everything goes: false. The "prime directive" of evolutionary theory is that the knowledge of how to build the biosphere, as found in the genome, was created by a process of conjecture and refutation. As such, it most certainly couldn't "go" that the most complex and least complex organisms appeared at the same time. Nor could it most certainly "go" that organisms would appear in the order of most complex to least complex.

    - We haven't the slightest idea of how this knowledge was created: false. The idea behind evolutionary theory is a form of conjecture and refutation, which is a form of how we create knowledge. However, only people are universal explainers. As such, evolutionary processes create non-explanatory knowledge. Cornelius has yet to acknowledge this explanation, let alone criticize it.

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    1. Exactly. Weather is highly deterministic and not designed (well, I don't see many people claiming that it is), but that doesn't mean we are any good at predicting it more than a few days in advance, despite knowing a great deal about its "rules".

      Delete
    2. Elizabeth claims 'Weather is highly deterministic and not designed'

      And to which foundational principles of physics did you refer to make this judgment? Was it the recent quantum experiment I listed earlier in this post where the observer effected the past? Or is, as is much more likely, this just you putting forth your personal opinion, without citation, as if your personal opinion carried any weight in empirical science?

      Delete
    3. Do you think that the only unpredictability in weather derives from quantum-level uncertainty?

      Delete
    4. Elizabeth, it is you who made a claim ''Weather is highly deterministic and not designed' without citation. Show me which foundational principles of physics you are appealing to, as 'not designed' so as to make the claim! Show me how exactly how you determined they were 'not designed' so that you can make such a proclamation!

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    5. ba77, please observe the comment I made in parenthesis following the claim to which you object.

      Delete
    6. Elizabeth, consensus? You jest! I want to know your scientific reason! Tell you what, since water plays a extremely important role in the weather on Earth, let's look at water and see if perhaps it is water that leads you, and others, to conclude that weather is 'not designed';

      Water's quantum weirdness makes life possible - October 2011
      Excerpt: WATER'S life-giving properties exist on a knife-edge. It turns out that life as we know it relies on a fortuitous, but incredibly delicate, balance of quantum forces.,,, They found that the hydrogen-oxygen bonds were slightly longer than the deuterium-oxygen ones, which is what you would expect if quantum uncertainty was affecting water’s structure. “No one has ever really measured that before,” says Benmore.
      We are used to the idea that the cosmos’s physical constants are fine-tuned for life. Now it seems water’s quantum forces can be added to this “just right” list.
      http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg21228354.900-waters-quantum-weirdness-makes-life-possible.html

      Water's remarkable capabilities - December 2010 - Peer Reviewed
      Excerpt: All these traits are contained in a simple molecule of only three atoms. One of the most difficult tasks for an engineer is to design for multiple criteria at once. ... Satisfying all these criteria in one simple design is an engineering marvel. Also, the design process goes very deep since many characteristics would necessarily be changed if one were to alter fundamental physical properties such as the strong nuclear force or the size of the electron.
      http://www.evolutionnews.org/2010/12/pro-intelligent_design_peer_re042211.html

      Anomalous life enabling properties of water
      http://www.lsbu.ac.uk/water/anmlies.html

      Well, it certainly ain't water that is 'not designed'!!!

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    7. Elizabeth,

      FYI: Born doesn't have a firm grasp of the implications of the references he sites.

      For example, on one hand, Born will demand "empirical evidence" that proteins can be created by "material process". However, on the other hand, if quantum mechanics "proves" consciousness proceeds material reality, as he claims, then observations of any experiment wouldn't be evidence that material process could create proteins, but would merely be evidence of those observations themselves took place.

      So, Born regularly demands evidence of evolution that, according to his own claims, wouldn't actually be evidence of evolution.

      Delete
    8. Well Scott, perhaps I would be hurt by your criticism that I don't have a firm grasp on quantum mechanics, but,,,:

      'I tentatively accept the consequences of such a theory, including that I would also be a multiversal object, which includes at least 10^500 versions of myself' - Scott - Many Worlds proponent
      http://darwins-god.blogspot.com/2012/04/neuroscientist-most-seamless-illusions.html?showComment=1334583967799#c7217305678409346277

      Thus 10^500 Scott, I am rather satisfied with my grasp on QM:

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

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    9. Scott, you state;

      'then observations of any experiment wouldn't be evidence that material process could create proteins'

      Well, at least you get it. I've tried to point out to numerous atheistic Darwinists that the falsification of reductive materialism (the 'naive classical world view' as Anton Zeilinger puts it), by quantum mechanics, has falsified neo-Darwinism as it is currently formulated to a reductive materialistic foundation. You seem to readily understand this implication and perhaps that is why you, being of atheistic persuasion, have sought remedy in the absurd Many Worlds model, for Many Worlds appears to, at least for the 1 you I see, of the 10^500 versions of you that there are, resolve the crushing difficulties you readily apprehend for your atheistic worldview:

      Delete
    10. footnote, though quantum mechanics shows reality to be Theistic in its foundational basis, this still does not relieve the atheistic materialist from his burden to show that a single protein can form by what he perceives to be purely random material material processes;

      notes:

      Einstein's 'Biggest Blunder' Turns Out to Be Right - November 2010
      Excerpt: By providing more evidence that the universe is flat, the findings bolster the cosmological constant model for dark energy over competing theories such as the idea that the general relativity equations for gravity are flawed. "We have at this moment the most precise measurements of lambda that a single technique can give," Marinoni said.
      http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/dark-energy-cosmological-constant-101124.html

      A 'flat universe', which is actually another very surprising finely-tuned 'coincidence' of the universe, means this universe, left to its own present course of accelerating expansion due to Dark Energy, will continue to expand forever, thus fulfilling the thermodynamic equilibrium of the second law to its fullest extent (entropic 'Heat Death' of the universe).

      The Future of the Universe
      Excerpt: After all the black holes have evaporated, (and after all the ordinary matter made of protons has disintegrated, if protons are unstable), the universe will be nearly empty. Photons, neutrinos, electrons and positrons will fly from place to place, hardly ever encountering each other. It will be cold, and dark, and there is no known process which will ever change things. --- Not a happy ending.
      http://spiff.rit.edu/classes/phys240/lectures/future/future.html

      The End Of Cosmology? - Lawrence M. Krauss and Robert J. Scherrer
      Excerpt: We are led inexorably to a very strange conclusion. The window during which intelligent observers can deduce the true nature of our expanding universe might be very short indeed.
      http://genesis1.asu.edu/0308046.pdf

      Psalm 102:25-27
      Of old You laid the foundation of the earth, And the heavens are the work of Your hands. They will perish, but You will endure; Yes, they will all grow old like a garment; Like a cloak You will change them, And they will be changed. But You are the same, And Your years will have no end.

      Big Rip
      Excerpt: The Big Rip is a cosmological hypothesis first published in 2003, about the ultimate fate of the universe, in which the matter of universe, from stars and galaxies to atoms and subatomic particles, are progressively torn apart by the expansion of the universe at a certain time in the future. Theoretically, the scale factor of the universe becomes infinite at a finite time in the future.
      http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_Rip

      Thermodynamic Argument Against Evolution - Thomas Kindell - video
      http://www.metacafe.com/watch/4168488

      Blackholes- The neo-Darwinists ultimate ‘god of randomness’ which can create all life in the universe (according to them)
      https://docs.google.com/document/d/1fxhJEGNeEQ_sn4ngQWmeBt1YuyOs8AQcUrzBRo7wISw/edit?hl=en_US

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    11. Scott

      FYI: Born doesn't have a firm grasp of the implications of the references he sites.


      FYI: Born doesn't have a firm grasp of reality.

      Delete
    12. So Thorton is that how you prove that your reductive materialistic view of reality is not falsified? Insult anybody who points out that it is falsified? At least Scott, to his credit, makes the conscientious effort to try to address the evidence against his position and resolve the conflict, but from what I see of your actions you make no effort at all to even understand the overwhelming evidence against your atheistic materialism but resort to childish insults when evidence is presented as if this somehow absolves you of your duty to address it as best you can. Perhaps insults is the best you can do, but I would hope that you at least would have the integrity to try to do better than the manners of a grade school bully.

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    13. Born: Thus 10^500 Scott, I am rather satisfied with my grasp on QM.

      If you're satisfied with your grasp on QM, then why do you keep asking for evidence that material processes can create proteins?

      Again, if quantum mechanics "proves" consciousness proceeds material reality, as you claim, then observations of any experiment wouldn't "prove" unintelligent, material process could create proteins, but would merely be evidence of those observations themselves took place.

      Both of these claims are at odds with each other. Yet you keep asking regardless.

      So, it would seem that you do not have a firm grasp of one of these claims, or that you do not actually take the contents of the links you post seriously as selectively accept them only when you think they support your view.

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

      Delete
    15. Scott, you seem to think that since consciousness is primary, and that material is derivative (Max Planck), that this somehow contradicts the consistent history we witness for space-time in the universe and absolves the atheistic materialists of his burden. Yet that is just not so, as you seem to be drawing a fairly arbitrary line in your thinking as to evidential burden, for, regardless of how reality is actually constructed, atheists, by and large, still refuse to accept the evidence for Theism from quantum mechanics, and indeed, as with Darwinism, go to great lengths to obfuscate the clarity of the evidence as you have shown in your '10^500 Scotts' absurdity. Thus the atheist, since he refuses to budge, is still under the burden of proof to prove his claim for evolution, and as you mention in passing, one functional protein generated by purely material processes would be a excellent starting point in the right direction for the atheists so as to even have a minimal respectable empirical basis in science in which to try to make his case. Until then neo-Darwinists are 'not even wrong!'

      Delete
    16. Born,

      My point is, even if gave you the evidence you demand, you could retreat using this very same claim that, since consciousness precedes material reality, something non-material was at work, which would not count as a "pure material process".

      So, your demand for experimental data is irrational. Nor would this be limited to just evolutionary theory.

      In other words, you're appealing to a general purpose means to deny absolutely anything, yet selectively applying it to theories that conflict with your personal theological views.

      To quote from a previous comment..

      For example, there is the rival interpretation that fossils only come into existence when they are consciously observed. Therefore, fossils are no older than human beings. As such, they are not evidence of dinosaurs, but evidence of acts of those particular observations.

      Yet I'm guessing you do not think that dinosaurs are just an interpretation of fossils?

      Delete
    17. Scott, what does it matter, Atheists will never generate a protein by material processes anyway since God has subjected this space-time to entropic decay. Thus, unlike Darwinists, I will NEVER be shamed into retreating. Now Scott, what is interesting is that you are assuming your hypothetical protein generated by purely material processes as a given, in order to accuse me of a hypothetical retreat I may have to make in the face of such hypothetical evidence. The 'problem is simply conjectured from your imagination in the first place. Perhaps you would do well to deal with actual evidence instead of inventing problems in your imagination?

      Delete
    18. Born,

      Are dinosaurs merely an interpretation of fossils? Yes or no?

      Delete
  8. Scott, do you know where your process of conjecture and refutation originated? Please spare the philosophical categories. If you don't know or don't care just say so.

    Secondly where do you observe this process as having been sufficient to orginate a definitive speciation event of animals?

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    1. Neal, have you heard of Karl Popper? Do you know who Popper's influences were?

      In other words, Popper's theory, along with all explanatory theories about how we create knowledge, was itself created by using conjecture to create a theory about how knowledge is created, criticizing that theory and discarding errors.

      So, the question of how to better solve problems is itself a form of problem to be better solved though criticism.

      Delete
    2. Scott, Why does asking you about an definitive example of speciation lead to an introduction to Popper? Can't you answer a simple question?

      Delete
    3. Tedford the idiot

      Can't you answer a simple question?


      Tedford, what mechanism produces your claimed "bounds" to evolution that makes it impossible for microevolutionary changes to accumulate into macroevolutionary ones?

      Can't you answer a simple question?

      Delete
    4. Neal, you asked me where the explanation of conjecture and refutation originated, did you not?

      On of the things that makes people unique is that we are universal explaners. The explanation for how we create knowledge was itself created by people - most notably Popper.

      Neal: Why does asking you about an definitive example of speciation lead to an introduction to Popper?

      Apparently your not familiar with Popper's work.

      Conjecture and refutation is our best explanation as to how we create knowledge. Our explanation as to how evolutionary process create the knowledge of how to build the biosphere is also a form of conjecture and refutation. However, unlike people, evolutionary process cannot create explanations. So, the knowledge they create is non-explanatory.

      For example out of a near infinite number of logical possibilities, we only test those for which we have conjectured explanations.

      If I had a genetic disease, I would expect my doctor to base my treatment based on a conjectured explanation for why one specific sequence, out of all other possible chemical sequences, would actually be successful. This would be explanatory knowledge.

      On the other hand, if the doctor to based my treatment on conjecturing absolutely any genetic sequences that had a mere a logical possibility of improving my condition, this would be non-explanatory knowledge.

      Do you see the difference? Which treatment would you want?

      So, it's not that I'm not taking what we know about designers into account, as commonly claimed. Rather it's you who is taking an parochial approach by not taking our best expansions about how designers create knowledge seriously.

      Again, the central flaw in creationism is the same flaw found in pre-enlightenment views of how human beings receive and create knowledge, in that they are either irrational, supernatural or completely absent.

      Delete
    5. Scott, okay. Now name a definitive example of animal speciation that has been observed.

      Delete
    6. Neal,

      The problem is, you're appealing to a general purpose method to deny absolutely anything. So, even if I gave you an example, you could always use some other general purpose method to deny that as well.

      For example, you could always say we cannot prove that a designer did not intervene in the process in some way we could not detect, just as some designer supposedly intervened in some way that we could not detect in the past.

      Until you recognize that the sort of appeals you're making are general purpose ways of denying absently anything, I don't think we're going to make much progress.

      Delete
  9. Elizabeth Liddle

    "And you need to persuade me that self-replication heritable variance in reproductive success in the current environment is not enough to generate the diversity of life we see from simple beginnings."

    No, not at all, you have to persuade me that it is only a matter of time and E. Coli will become a whale.

    "The interesting question (to me) is where that variance comes from."

    For all the evolutionist I know it is clear: chance, as for all the universe is just chance. The reason they need to immagine the multiverse.

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    Replies
    1. Well, I suggest that is a misreading of the evolutionists you know :)

      Certainly variance generation is a stochastic process, but that doesn't mean that it isn't governed by perfectly good natural chemical and physical laws. No need to invoke a multiverse to explain mutations.

      You might want to invoke a multiverse to explain why we have carbon, but that's a quite different argument, and nothing to do with evolutionary theory.

      Delete
    2. Elizabeth Liddle
      "Well, I suggest that is a misreading of the evolutionists you know :)"

      May be, they are always changing the words. evolution is a fact but UCLA to whale by RM+NS no or vice versa.

      "Certainly variance generation is a stochastic process, but that doesn't mean that it isn't governed by perfectly good natural chemical and physical laws."

      Well, the reason a base is substituted is because spatially they are very similar and can by chance fit one in the place of the other, like a cube can pass trough the basketball hoop if you make many attempts.
      What kind of physical law do you expect to discover there.

      "No need to invoke a multiverse to explain mutations."

      Not to explain mutations by multiverse I mentioned it to explain just the universe by chance.

      Delete
  10. Evolutionists cover all their bases ensuring that their myth is UNfalsifiable. It's not a scientific theory, it's a religious worldview....they WANT it to be true, so it is. I just don't have that kind of faith.

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    1. Except, this is false, as we keep pointing out.

      Again, The "prime directive" of evolutionary theory is that the knowledge of how to build the biosphere, as found in the genome, was created by a process of conjecture and refutation. As such, it most certainly couldn't "go" that the most complex and least complex organisms appeared at the same time. Nor could it most certainly "go" that organisms would appear in the order of most complex to least complex.

      So, again, it's unclear how evolution is a theory that is unfalsifiable.

      Delete
  11. Elizabeth,

    "First of all, it is arguable, even now, whether, a chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same species."

    Any breed of dog can mate with another as long as the female is the larger dog.


    "Thirdly, you have provided no evidence that "the only change we ever observe is bounded..."

    Mules.

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    Replies
    1. Nic

      Elizabeth: "First of all, it is arguable, even now, whether, a chihuahua and a Great Dane are the same species."

      Any breed of dog can mate with another as long as the female is the larger dog.


      Nic, are lions and tigers the same species?

      Delete
    2. Why is an example of an infertile hybrid (a muyleevidence that adaptive change is bounded?

      A mule is not an example of adaptive change. It is an example of unsuccessful (from a reproductive point of view) hybridisation between members of two diverging lineages.

      And because hybrids are unsuccessful reproductively, that ensures that in the wild, donkeys and horses would no longer interbreed, and both lineages will continue to adapt independently. What is to stop one of those lineages (say the donkey) one day adapting to, say, an aquatic environment? Their inability to breed successfully with horses is no barrier to that outcome.

      Speciation and adaptation are quite different concepts, and I think you may be confusing them.

      Dogs will not evolve into a cats, but they may well evolve into aquatic mammals.

      Delete
    3. First sentence should read:

      "Why is an example of an infertile hybrid (a mule) evidence that adaptive change is bounded?"

      oops.

      Delete
  12. Nicely designed night sky tonight BA, tell the the Designer much thanks. If the quantum ness of water indicates that weather is designed,does that mean the Grand Canyon was also designed through quantum means?

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    1. Vel, you may appreciate this paper that came out today. It proves the quantum wave function is real from, of all things, weather forecasting:

      Does the quantum wave function represent reality? April 2012 by Lisa Zyga
      Excerpt: there are two prominent interpretations of the wave function dating back to its origins in the 1920s. In one view, the wave function corresponds to an element of reality that objectively exists whether or not an observer is measuring it. In an alternative view, the wave function does not represent reality but instead represents an observer's subjective state of knowledge about some underlying reality.The scientists' claim relies on two seemingly opposite statements: First, any information contained in the system's complete list of elements of reality (the list is complete if it contains all possible predictions about the outcome of an experiment performed on the system) is already contained in the system's wave function. That is, the wave function includes all the elements of reality. The physicists formulated this statement in a paper last year. The second statement, which the physicists present here, is that a system's list of elements of reality includes its wave function. Taken together, the two statements imply that a system's wave function is in one-to-one correlation with its elements of reality. By showing that the wave function fully describes reality, the argument also implies that quantum mechanics is a complete theory.
      “Take again the analogy to a meteorologist's work,” Renner said. “In this analogy, the data and models used by the meteorologist take the place of the wave function, and reality corresponds to the current weather. If there was a one-to-one correspondence between the meteorologist's data and the weather, we would be in a very favorable situation: the forecast would then be as accurate as it can possibly be, in the sense that there does not exist any information that has not been accounted for.
      “Similarly, our result that there is a one-to-one correspondence between the wave function and the elements of reality means that, if we know a system's wave function then we are exactly in such a favorable situation: any information that there exists in nature and which could be relevant for predicting the behavior of a quantum mechanical system is represented one-to-one by the wave function. In this sense, the wave function is an optimal description of reality.”
      http://phys.org/news/2012-04-quantum-function-reality.html

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    2. I'll check it out. The iPad does not like to copy links in this software, so even if I am inclined to follow the link I have to use a different machine .

      Perhaps I misunderstood your weather comment. When you say weather is designed
      1. The physics of weather systems was designed, it follows that pattern?
      2. Or weather patterns are being actively interacted with beyond perceived natural forces?

      Delete
  13. Ritchie, you pasted the link to the spooky ring species/abortion youtube video again?

    Anyways, its highly inaccurate and not an example of evolution.

    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/sorry_ring_spec058261.html

    Regarding the bird beaks, what is it about the bmp4 protein regulation that has evolved?

    She was unable to mention an observed example of definitive speciation, only speculated future speciation. You mention ring species. Three strikes and your out.

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    1. Only because within a single person's lifetime, speciation to the point where hybridisation between the two diverging lineages cannot occur is extremely unlikely.

      But I did not "speculate" about "future speciation". I noted that there are observed examples of incipient speciation, i.e. subpopulations from the same ancestral population, that do not readily interbreed and/or produce fertile offspring.

      This is exactly what speciation is.

      Do you think that lions and tigers are different species? Or horses and donkeys? Both can interbreed, but do not readily do so, and the offspring are often infertile.

      In other words, they have speciated.

      Delete
  14. 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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  15. Elizabeth said, "Only because within a single person's lifetime, speciation to the point where hybridisation between the two diverging lineages cannot occur is extremely unlikely"

    That's pretty weak... science research is not limited to one individual's lifetime. As much as we like to think we are irreplacable that's not so.


    Eliszabeth said, "Do you think that lions and tigers are different species?"

    That's a good question. That is how they are normally classified. I would go with the definition of species as a group of organisms capable of interbreeding and producing fertile offspring. Which leaves the liger a bit difficult. Since the males are said to all be sterile I would go with the answer of different species.

    You may be on to something with "incipient speciation" but it could be completely nothing. As of now incipient speciation is not evidence for evolution. What could happen is not to be confused with evidence.

    You may find this interesting...

    http://www.evolutionnews.org/2012/04/natural_limits058791.html

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    1. No, science is not limited to one individual's lifetime. But my point should be clear - if you are asking for speciation to the point where interbreeding is not possible, even with fruitflies you will have to wait a very long time, because, as we know, even lions and tigers, normally considered quite separate species, are still capable of interbreeding.

      But I expect in a few more decades, some long-running fruitfly studies may well have produced divergent populations that cannot interbreed. Indeed, I do not know that this has not happened already.

      Speciation (the divergence into two non-interbreeding lineages from an ancestral population) is [postulated to be] a gradual event, and, in the early stages, it can reverse - populations that had begun to inbreed more readily than to interbreed can begin to interbreed again. At some point, the divergence becomes irreversible.

      And incipient speciation is certainly evidence for evolution. Not definitive evidence, but an important piece of the puzzle, precisely because we can observe it happening, as predicted by theory.

      But again, I think it's important not to confuse speciation with adaptation, or even morphological and genetic change down a lineage by drift alone. Despite Darwin's title, his book is really about adaptation not speciation in the usual sense of the word. Adaptation can (and does) occur without speciation (as in divergence).

      Speciation can even occur without adaptation! (e.g. if an ancestral population is separated by some geophysical barrier into two sub-populations, and both populations remain well-adapted to the the ancestral environment which remains unchanged, and then, after a while the geophysical barrier is breached, the two populations may nonetheless have speciated, and be unable to interbreed, despite having experienced no adaptive pressure).

      In the article you link to, Richard Lenski is quoted as saying:

      "Speciation occurs when a population changes sufficiently over time that it becomes convenient to refer to the early and late forms by different names."

      Which is confusing, because it is not the normal usage of the word. It's justified a little if there is a divergent population that changes and another that remains very similar to the ancestral population, retaining the same name, and, indeed, characteristics. But taxonomy is not a good guide to evolutionary theory! And Lenski works primarily with bacteria, which don't "speciate" in the normal sense of the word anyway.

      But confusion about terminology needn't confuse our thinking. What we want to explain is how populations change over time, whether they diverge into two separately evolving lineages, or remain in a single lineage, and, in particular, how they adapt to their environment.

      My case is that there is no reason to think (nor evidence to suggest) that such a process should be bounded in the longitudinal direction, although clearly it is severely bounded laterally (as I said, dogs won't evolve into cats, or reptiles, although they may well evolve into aquatic mammals).

      And in that quote, Lenski also says:

      "Speciation also occurs when one population splits into two distinct forms that can no longer interbreed. Reproductive isolation does not generally happen in one generation; it may require many thousands of generations; when, for example, one part of a population becomes geographically separated from the rest and adapts to a new environment. Given time, it is inevitable that two populations that live apart will diverge by mutation, drift, and selection until eventually their genes are no longer compatible for successful reproduction."

      Which is the more standard (and rigorous) definition.

      Delete
  16. "as I said, dogs won't evolve into cats, or reptiles, although they may well evolve into aquatic mammals"

    What principle of evolution leads you to believe it is less likely for a dog to evolve to be more like a cat than to be more like an aquatic mammal? Doesn't "convergent evolution" indicate that since cats and dogs are now in very similar niches, that they will be more likely to evolve similar "strategies"?

    Which version of evolution is right here?

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    1. Oh, a dog could easily evolve to be more "like" a cat, but it won't evolve into a feline, any more than it will evolve into a dolphin or a penguin.

      Its descendents will always be mammals, always canine, but could well be aquatic, i.e. adapted to aquatic life.

      There are strick lateral bounds on evolution, but no clear longitudinal bounds.

      Delete
  17. John

    EL: "as I said, dogs won't evolve into cats, or reptiles, although they may well evolve into aquatic mammals"

    What principle of evolution leads you to believe it is less likely for a dog to evolve to be more like a cat than to be more like an aquatic mammal? Doesn't "convergent evolution" indicate that since cats and dogs are now in very similar niches, that they will be more likely to evolve similar "strategies"?

    Which version of evolution is right here?


    Important distinction:

    Dogs could certainly evolve into something that is extremely similar to extant cats, but they wouldn't be cats. To be a cat you have to have all the cat ancestry going back to when the family Felidae first appeared some 30MYA.

    Similarly, dogs could evolve into aquatic mammals extremely similar to extant seals, but they wouldn't be seals.

    Hope that helps.

    ReplyDelete
  18. Thorton,

    "Nic, are lions and tigers the same species?"

    No, but they are of the same genus and can breed. Look up ligers and tigons.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Nic

      Thorton: "Nic, are lions and tigers the same species?"

      No, but they are of the same genus and can breed. Look up ligers and tigons.


      Then you agree Tedford's claim that "species" must mean two groups of animals which can never interbeed and produce viable offspring is wrong. In which case there are lots of empirically observed examples of speciation.

      Could you please explain that to Tedford? He still doesn't get it.

      Delete
  19. Elizabeth,


    "Dogs will not evolve into a cats, but they may well evolve into aquatic mammals."

    If dogs were to be capable of evolving into aquatic mammals, an event you cannot even remotely demonstrate - why not into a cat? Fewer biological changes would be required for dogs to evolve into cats than to evolve into aquatic mammals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. No, this is not true. Cats (felines) share DNA sequences that are not shared by canines.

      The probability that DNA sequences unique to felines would coincidentally appear in the canine lineage is vanishingly unlikely.

      However, the probability that DNA variants that lead to aquatic adaptations is much more likely, although they are unlikely to be the same variants as those in other aquatically adapted animals. This is because there are far more sequences that will tend to produce aquatic adaptations than there are lineages that have found those sequences.

      There is no one-to-one matching between DNA sequences and phenotypic adaptations that enhance reproductive success in a given environment.

      Delete
  20. Really, how many for each? Labadors are close to being aquatic now,webbed feet,at ease in the water, able to dive under to retrieve. An undercoat which insulates.

    ReplyDelete
  21. Velikovskys,


    "Really, how many for each? Labadors are close to being aquatic now,webbed feet,at ease in the water, able to dive under to retrieve. An undercoat which insulates."

    None of which demonstrates evolution. It's 100% conjecture that these characteristics are evolutionary steps.

    Labrador Retrievers are not even remotely an aquatic animal. They are simply a land animal which is comfortable going into the water to do what they were intentionally bred to do - retrieve.

    Lots of dog breeds have webbed feet such as the German Shepherd, which is not a water dog. Most dogs are bred to have specific features to suit the breeders intentions. Insulating undercoats are also common among many breeds which are not water dogs. Therefore, the presence of such features are in no way indicators of the possible evolution of a dog into an aquatic creature.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. On the contrary, the evidence you cite is precisely evidence that indicates the possible evolution of a dog into an aquatic creature.

      Indeed, it's evidence that some populations have already done so! The fact that the selective pressure was breeding by humans rather than breeding by which animals managed to make use of aquatic resources is irrelevant. The fact that they have developed aquatic adaptations, without any genetic engineering, is clear evidence that DNA sequences that promote those aquatic adaptations are accessible by mutation and selection.

      Delete
    2. What will happen if all the golden retriever are let to interbreed freely with any kind of dog? Will they keep the adaptation to water life?

      Delete
    3. You mean would the descendents of hybrids have aquatic adaptations?

      Who knows, but probably not, if there was no selective advantage to those features in the environments in which they lived.

      Put a pack of golden retrievers on an island with no other dogs, though, where the only meat sources were aquatic animals, then sure, you'd possibly find aquatic adaptions not only retained but enhanced.

      Extinction would be another outcome.

      Delete
    4. Then evolution needs a constant selective pressure in one direction in order to fix a change?

      Delete
    5. Elizabeth,

      "On the contrary, the evidence you cite is precisely evidence that indicates the possible evolution of a dog into an aquatic creature."

      You must provide more than your assertion this is the case. You must demonstrate evidence which shows this to be a fact.


      "The fact that they have developed aquatic adaptations, without any genetic engineering, is clear evidence that DNA sequences that promote those aquatic adaptations are accessible by mutation and selection."

      With some breeds of dogs such as Golden Retrievers and Nova Scotia Duck Trolling Retrievers it is known these traits were desired by the breeders. Can you demonstrate that other breeds which possess these traits were not designed that way but indeed came to possess them via mutation and natural selection? This would require knowledge of dogs all the way back to their origin. Good luck with that.

      You're simply making another assertion with nothing more than wishful thinking, conjecture and assertion to support your argument.

      Delete
  22. EL: "Its descendents will always be mammals, always canine, but could well be aquatic, i.e. adapted to aquatic life.

    There are strick lateral bounds on evolution, but no clear longitudinal bounds."


    I think it is amazing that you claim to know all this. Certainly you are the person that has the evolutionary answers I've been looking for. So they will ALWAYS be mammals? Really? Why? And canines in particular? Incredible! But you foresee life in the water as likely... Which evolutionary theory gave you the mechanisms and tools you needed to divine all this?

    And as for the boundaries, please state what principle would prevent a dog from mutating over time to end up with the identical genome as a cat living today. Yes, it's more likely they would become not cats than cats, but I don't see why it is more likely that they would become any other particular thing than cats, for example, aquatic mammals.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. John

      And as for the boundaries, please state what principle would prevent a dog from mutating over time to end up with the identical genome as a cat living today.


      It seems you're still be unclear on the concept.

      Such changes to an animal still wouldn't make it a cat, only extremely cat-like. It still wouldn't have all the cat ancestry going back to when the family Felidae first appeared. It would still be a member of the family Canidae.

      You can't go backwards in time and undo the family history.

      Delete
    2. John:

      "I think it is amazing that you claim to know all this. Certainly you are the person that has the evolutionary answers I've been looking for. So they will ALWAYS be mammals? Really? Why? And canines in particular? Incredible!"

      Of course they will be, just as snakes are tetrapods even though they have no legs. "Tetrapod", "mammal" and "canine" are names given to lineages, so, by definition once a population lineage has ceased to interbreed with another population, its descendents will always have the ancestry of that lineage!

      The only way a canine could evolve into a feline would be if you mated canines with felines somehow, or otherwise introduced specifically feline genetic material into the canine line.

      The lateral bounds of evolution are simply those of speciation - once a lineage has speciated from another, then by definition no more genetic exchange takes place (apart from the odd bit of horizontal transfer via viruses).

      "But you foresee life in the water as likely... "

      No, not especially. But I don't see why it shouldn't happen. Even flight is possible.

      "Which evolutionary theory gave you the mechanisms and tools you needed to divine all this?"

      It doesn't require divination, just standard evolutionary theory. Actually, just standard biology of reproduction and inheritance. and taxonomy.

      "And as for the boundaries, please state what principle would prevent a dog from mutating over time to end up with the identical genome as a cat living today."

      Overwhelming combinatorial odds.

      "Yes, it's more likely they would become not cats than cats, but I don't see why it is more likely that they would become any other particular thing than cats, for example, aquatic mammals."

      Because "cat" is the name we give to a lineage, from which dogs have diverged. All cats contain genetic material exclusive to cats. Because dogs do not exchange genetic material with cats, then the chances of any dog descendents ending up with cat genetics would be comparable to the billion monkeys typing Shakespeare.

      On the other hand, dog descendents will always have genetic material common to mammals because they will be descended from a mammal.

      "Aquatic" however is not a word that describes a lineage (i.e. not like "feline" or "tetrapod" or "canine" or "mammal") but a word that describes an adaptation.

      Mammals, reptiles, and birds all include animals with aquatic adaptations.

      Delete
    3. Elizabeth,

      "Of course they will be, just as snakes are tetrapods even though they have no legs."

      As the definition of a tetrapod is any vertebrate possessing four limbs I fail to see how a snake is a tetrapod. Now I understand most will argue the term applies to snakes as they had a four legged ancestor, but again this is only evolutionary presupposition. You must demonstrate the ancestor of snakes was a four legged creature.


      "Aquatic" however is not a word that describes a lineage (i.e. not like "feline" or "tetrapod" or "canine" or "mammal") but a word that describes an adaptation.

      Mammals, reptiles, and birds all include animals with aquatic adaptations.

      As an adaptation is not evolution how does this help your argument?

      Delete
    4. "As the definition of a tetrapod is any vertebrate possessing four limbs I fail to see how a snake is a tetrapod. Now I understand most will argue the term applies to snakes as they had a four legged ancestor, but again this is only evolutionary presupposition. You must demonstrate the ancestor of snakes was a four legged creature."

      It's not an "evolutionary presupposition". It would be true whether or not you believed in evolution, or even in common descent. If you map the morphological characteristics of living things you find they are distributed as a nested hierarchy. Whether you attribute that to a tidy-minded creator, common descent, or evolutionary theory, that's how the characteristics map, as Linnaeus noted - as a branching tree.

      Common descent is not a "presupposition" for the nested hierarchy; common descent is the theory that explains the observed nested hierarchy. And in that nested hierarchy, snakes clearly fall into the tetrapod clade. In some snakes you can even find the vestigial pelvic girdle.

      "As an adaptation is not evolution how does this help your argument?"

      Adaptation is evolution. Or rather, because even unbiased drift can cause changes in allele frequency in a population over time, adaptation is what results from Darwinian evolution i.e. when the sampling of genetic information in each generation is biased by what works best in that environment.

      Adaptation is the very essence of evolutionary theory.

      So, yes, it helps my argument :)

      Delete
    5. Elizabeth,

      "Common descent is not a "presupposition" for the nested hierarchy; common descent is the theory that explains the observed nested hierarchy."

      Common descent may be "a" theory which explains nested hierarchy, but that does not make it "the" explanation. Nested hierarchies can be be explained by common design as well, if not better, than by evolution.

      "Adaptation is the very essence of evolutionary theory."

      Maybe in your mind. However, to claim adaptation is the 'very essence" of evolution, is simply again a reliance on wishful thinking and conjecture, based on unobservable extrapolation as you cannot in any way demonstrate adaptation inevitably leads to evolution. These are simply facts you refuse to face because of your adherence to the evolutionary mindset.

      If you would be so kind please provide an instance of adaptations resulting in a new life form.

      Delete
    6. "Common descent is not a "presupposition" for the nested hierarchy; common descent is the theory that explains the observed nested hierarchy."

      Common descent may be "a" theory which explains nested hierarchy, but that does not make it "the" explanation. Nested hierarchies can be be explained by common design as well, if not better, than by evolution."

      And that was exactly my point. The nested hierarchies are an observation, not the result of some "presupposition" as you suggested.

      That pattern is what demands an explanation. The patterns aren't an artefact of the explanation. Whether you believe that common descent is a explanatory model or not, snakes fall into the tetrapod clade.

      "Adaptation is the very essence of evolutionary theory."

      "Maybe in your mind. However, to claim adaptation is the 'very essence" of evolution, is simply again a reliance on wishful thinking and conjecture, based on unobservable extrapolation as you cannot in any way demonstrate adaptation inevitably leads to evolution."

      You misunderstand me: adaptation is what is proposed by evolutionary theory. You may dispute that it happens (I don't know) but adaptation is the name we give to darwinian evolution. It doesn't "lead to" Darwinian evolution. It's Darwinian evolution action.

      "These are simply facts you refuse to face because of your adherence to the evolutionary mindset."

      No, they are not "facts". They are, I suggest, misunderstandings on your part as to what evolutionary theory actually proposes. What it proposes is that populations adapt because of the simple mechanism proposed by Darwin: those variants that reproduce best in the current environment are those that obviously, leave the most copies of themselves in the next. And so if the environment favours a beak of 6 mm more than 5 mm or 7mm, then individuals with 6mm beaks will leave more of their 6mm beak promoting genes in the next generation than those with 7mm or 5mm beaks. This has been observed, in the field, in the lab, and in computer models. It is a fact. And we call that phenomenon "adaptation" because by this means the population "adapts" to the current environment (in this case seeds optimally accessed by 6mm beaks).

      I'm not saying adaptation "leads to" evolution. I'm saying this is what evolution is. You might call it "micro-evolution" but it is evolution nonetheless.

      "If you would be so kind please provide an instance of adaptations resulting in a new life form."

      Why? I don't think adaptations do result in "new life forms" only in incremental changes over time, to the point where, looking at the descendents and comparing them with their remote ancestors, you might call them "new life". Or comparing them with descendents via a different lineage, you might call both "different life". Or if the descendents on the other lineage looked more like the common ancestor of both than the one you are interested, you might call that one "new", but there would be no one point at which it was so. All offspring, as far as we know, are extremely similar to their parents. You don't suddenly jump "adapted old life" to "new life". It's a continuum, just as there are no clean lines between the colours of the spectrum.

      Delete
    7. tbh, Neal, in my experience 90% of the objections to evolutionary theory are based on a misunderstanding of its claims. Another 5% are based on fear of its implications which I consider completely unfounded (it doesn't imply no divine creator, for instance). The remaining 5% I'd say were on the one hand bad but sciencey sounding arguments, and on the other, those sciencey sounding arguments being assumed valid by people who quite reasonably don't have the backgroundn to evaluate them,

      That's harsh, but I think its true. I find the scholarship of ID papers appalling.

      To be fair, I should probably have saved a few percent for the bad arguments made by a few pro-evolution defenders who themselves get the science wrong, and for those who seem persuaded that science does necessarily entail atheism. In my view that's just bad theology, even though I would call myself an atheist. But I'm not an atheist because science tells me there's no God. It doesn't.

      Delete
  23. So you both acknowledge that a dog COULD evolve to have the same DNA as a cat and even interbreed, but at least Thorton is sure that you would have to stop calling that kitten a feline because it would be unclear as to which percentage of it's DNA was from which lineage?

    And since when did "overwhelming combinatorial odds" pose a problem for evolution? Did you forget that monkeys typing out Shakespeare given enough time was a certainty? Why do you find that objectionable now to the point that you use the analogy yourself? What makes evolving a cat's DNA less likely now than before you knew the configuration to be possible?

    EL: "dog descendents will always have genetic material common to mammals"

    Why? What is to keep it's DNA from mutating beyond all recognition? in fact, what is to keep all the genomes on earth from keeping even one structure similar to ANY that exist now? I mean, can you tell which structures now resemble the types of RNA that must have existed in the RNA world? Or is it all just too smoky to be sure?

    EL, let me show you something in your own words...

    EL: "It doesn't require divination, just standard evolutionary theory"
    right after this;
    EL: "No, not especially. But I don't see why it shouldn't happen."

    You see, this is exactly what I think "standard evolutionary theory" really is. But just to be sure, what or what part of "standard evolutionary theory" are you using to assess the likely hood of ANY of this? Or is it just your imagination as you have now said?

    ReplyDelete
  24. "So you both acknowledge that a dog COULD evolve to have the same DNA as a cat and even interbreed, but at least Thorton is sure that you would have to stop calling that kitten a feline because it would be unclear as to which percentage of it's DNA was from which lineage?"

    No, I didn't acknowledge that. I said it couldn't, because it would have to be completely coincidental, which is not worth thinking about.

    "And since when did "overwhelming combinatorial odds" pose a problem for evolution? "

    Never, because evolutionary theory doesn't posit overwhelming combinatorial odds.

    "Did you forget that monkeys typing out Shakespeare given enough time was a certainty? Why do you find that objectionable now to the point that you use the analogy yourself?"

    I don't find it "objectionable", merely irrelevant. Evolutionary theory does not posit that evolution is improbable. It posits that it is almost inevitable, given an initial population of self-replicators that replicate with variance.

    But that's OOL, not evolution.

    "What makes evolving a cat's DNA less likely now than before you knew the configuration to be possible?"


    The Texas Sharpshooter.

    EL: "dog descendents will always have genetic material common to mammals"

    "Why? What is to keep it's DNA from mutating beyond all recognition? in fact, what is to keep all the genomes on earth from keeping even one structure similar to ANY that exist now? I mean, can you tell which structures now resemble the types of RNA that must have existed in the RNA world? Or is it all just too smoky to be sure?"

    Because we inherit DNA from our parents. What prevents it from "mutating beyond all recognition" is the constraint of viability.

    "You see, this is exactly what I think "standard evolutionary theory" really is. But just to be sure, what or what part of "standard evolutionary theory" are you using to assess the likely hood of ANY of this? Or is it just your imagination as you have now said?"

    The opposite of "likelihood" is not "imagination". I'm not assessing the "likelihood" at all. I'm assessing the limits of the possible, based on what we observe.

    ReplyDelete
  25. EL: "No, I didn't acknowledge that. I said it couldn't, because it would have to be completely coincidental, which is not worth thinking about."

    I thought it was coincidental in the first place.

    EL: "Never, because evolutionary theory doesn't posit overwhelming combinatorial odds"

    You realize that if I asked you which evolutionary theory you were referring to that posited odds of any type it would be the third time asking you for anything concrete? Judging by our conversation, "evolutionary theory" doesn't really posit anything besides "things change" or as Coppedge puts it "stuff happens".

    EL: "But that's OOL, not evolution."

    I'm starting to agree that if all the protein configurations popped into existence during OOL, then evolution is much more probable.

    EL: "Because we inherit DNA from our parents. What prevents it from "mutating beyond all recognition" is the constraint of viability."

    Booooo!! You know that since I reference RNA world, I wasn't talking about what could happen in just a few generations.

    ReplyDelete
  26. "I thought it was coincidental in the first place."

    Well, that would depend on your philosophical or theological viewpoint I guess.

    The point however, is that evolutionary theory doesn't posit that vanishingly improbable events happened, but that what happened wasn't vanishingly improbable. The probability of two completely independent lineages ending up with vast stretches of DNA in common, when those stretches had not been in common earlier in the lineage, with no hybridisation or genetic engineering to account for it, is vanishingly improbable.

    However, the probability of two independent lineages adapting to similar environments with comparable adaptations (webbed feet, flippers, sleek surface, etc) is clearly quite high, as it would be driven by common factors.

    "You realize that if I asked you which evolutionary theory you were referring to that posited odds of any type it would be the third time asking you for anything concrete? Judging by our conversation, "evolutionary theory" doesn't really posit anything besides "things change" or as Coppedge puts it "stuff happens"."

    Well, I'm not going to give you a primer in evolutionary theory, but it certainly posits a great deal. I've given the basic principle either in this thread or some other on this blog, can't remember which, which is that if a population of self-replicators replicates with heritable variance in the probability of reproductive success, then the more successful variants will become more prevalent in the population.

    That is self-evidently true (it's a syllogism more than a theory) and has been directly observed to happen, in lab, field and in computer simulations.


    "I'm starting to agree that if all the protein configurations popped into existence during OOL, then evolution is much more probable."

    Sure. Once you have the basic population of self-replicators replicating with heritable variance, evolution is virtually inevitable. The big OOL question is: how simple did that basic population have to be? And, from I guess an ID perspective, were they simple enough that not improbable chemical conditions would have made them likely to emerge? We don't know that yet, so if you like, feel free to posit that the earliest Darwinian-capable self-replicators were too complex to have arisen "by chance". But that would be inferring design from the lack of knowledge of OOL, not from the inadequacy of Darwinian evolution.

    Darwinian evolution can only occur once you have a population of self-replicators that replicate with sufficient fidelity to be self replicators, but sufficient variance that some variants will out-perform their parents in the current environment. Once you have that, you have the ingredients for Darwinian evolution.

    "Booooo!! You know that since I reference RNA world, I wasn't talking about what could happen in just a few generations."

    I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm not talking about "in a just a few generations" either.

    ReplyDelete
  27. Elizabeth,

    "common descent is the theory that explains the observed nested hierarchy."

    This is only further evidence of the presupposition. It is not "the theory" that explains nested hierarchy, it is only one theory which attempts to explain hierarchies. It is only those who blindly adhere to evolutionary doctrine which claim it as "the" explanation.


    "Whether you believe that common descent is a explanatory model or not, snakes fall into the tetrapod clade."

    Snakes do not "fall into the tetrapod clade," they are placed there working again on the assumption of common descent. Those who adhere to evolution must prove snakes arose from an ancestor with legs. This claim has never been demonstrated, like virtually every other claim of evolution.


    "adaptation is the name we give to darwinian evolution. It doesn't "lead to" Darwinian evolution. It's Darwinian evolution action."

    This is only a re-wording of your previous assertion. Adaptation IS NOT evolution, it is simply adaptation. Neither you or any evolutionist can demonstrate that adaptation is evolution in action. Please, give me one example of adaptation resulting in a new creature. Not a new species of an existing creature, but a uniquely new creature. This is the standard required to adhere to a belief of common descent of all life. You cannot do it, no one can and that is why evolutionary science is bankrupt.

    "All offspring, as far as we know, are extremely similar to their parents. You don't suddenly jump "adapted old life" to "new life"."

    No one is claiming it must be a sudden jump. The fact is you cannot even demonstrate it is an extremely gradual process. All claims to this process happening are only wishful thinking based on conjecture. It has never and can never be demonstrated.


    "They are, I suggest, misunderstandings on your part as to what evolutionary theory actually proposes."

    Oh please, not the old 'you don't understand evolution' canard. I do understand it, that is why I came to reject it.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "This is only further evidence of the presupposition. It is not "the theory" that explains nested hierarchy, it is only one theory which attempts to explain hierarchies. It is only those who blindly adhere to evolutionary doctrine which claim it as "the" explanation."

      OK, fine, I didn't mean it was the only one.

      "Snakes do not "fall into the tetrapod clade," they are placed there working again on the assumption of common descent."

      No, they are placed there because of their morphological characters. The distribution of morphological characters forms a nested hierarchy. You do not need to assume common descent to derive that hierarchy. Linneaus made no such assumption, yet he derived it.

      "Those who adhere to evolution must prove snakes arose from an ancestor with legs."

      Or demonstrate that the evidence strongly suggests it. But, as you say, common descent is not the only theory that could account for the nested hierarchy. It is possible that the reasons snakes fall into the tetrapod clade is that tetrapods were what God was working on at the time he came up with the idea of snakes. That's exactly what baraminologists work on - figuring out what the nested hierarchy means if it doesn't mean common descent.

      "Adaptation IS NOT evolution, it is simply adaptation."

      It has been definitively demonstrated to be a result of heritable variance in the probability of reproductive success, which is the principle of evolution. Are you disputing this? Or merely whether we should use the term "evolution" for this mechanism?

      "Please, give me one example of adaptation resulting in a new creature. Not a new species of an existing creature, but a uniquely new creature."

      Firstly, you'd have to say what criterion you used for "new". Secondly, no, because it is a principle of the theory of evolution that there are no entirely new creatures that each creature is a close variant of its parent(s).

      "No one is claiming it must be a sudden jump."

      I agree. So why are you demanding a completely new creature? Nobody claims that completely new creatures ever appear.

      (more below

      Delete
    2. continued...

      "The fact is you cannot even demonstrate it is an extremely gradual process."

      Yes, we can. We can demonstrate what ID proponents usually call "micro-evolution" (although not you, apparently, because you don't accept that adaptation is evolution at all).

      "All claims to this process happening are only wishful thinking based on conjecture. It has never and can never be demonstrated."

      And yet, when I point you to evidence that it has been demonstrated, you merely respond "that's not evolution".

      "Oh please, not the old 'you don't understand evolution' canard. I do understand it, that is why I came to reject it."

      Well, on the evidence of your statements here, no you don't. You don't seem to understand what "adaptation" means, that it has been demonstrated, and that it involves darwinian mechanisms. And while you accept that no creature is completely new, you nonethless seem to think that to demonstrate evolution we would have to point to a "completely new" creature. Even though this is the reverse of what evolutionary theory posits.

      It is creationism that posits "completely new" creatures, created in 6 days, often called "special creation". Evolutionary theory posits that no creatures are "completely new", and that each is extremely like its parents. Only gradually do populations adapt to their environment, and some populations adapt down different lineages, leading to descendent populations that not only no longer resemble their ancestral population, but even each other. But neither is "completely new" and were you to trace the lineage of each population backwards, you would find increasing resemblance to each other and to that ancestral population.

      That is the theory. So to demonstrate it we look for evidence of a nested hierarchy (check) and gradual adaptive change down each branch (check).

      Delete
    3. Nic

      Oh please, not the old 'you don't understand evolution' canard. I do understand it, that is why I came to reject it.


      If you really do understand it, then you're doing a heck of a job hiding the fact by faking pitiful ignorance.

      Delete
    4. Thorton,

      "If you really do understand it,..."

      You're the self proclaimed genius, why don't you tell me all about it.

      You constantly claim vast amounts of knowledge but yet we never see anything but bluster and insults.

      Delete
  28. EL: "Well, that would depend on your philosophical or theological viewpoint I guess."

    So you think the first time an organism became a cat, it was destiny, and only the second time would be coincidence?

    EL: "The point however, is that evolutionary theory doesn't posit that vanishingly improbable events happened, but that what happened wasn't vanishingly improbable."

    I also believe the chance of survivors surviving is very probable, seemingly 100%!

    EL: "However, the probability of two independent lineages adapting to similar environments with comparable adaptations (webbed feet, flippers, sleek surface, etc) is clearly quite high, as it would be driven by common factors."

    I don't see why it is clear that the probability is high. How did you calculate the probability? Are you sure you didn't just look at existing organisms and say, "more of that"?

    EL: "Well, I'm not going to give you a primer in evolutionary theory, but it certainly posits a great deal."

    Yes, I'm quite sure already that it posits everything in the universe. Stuff does happen after all.

    EL: "which is that if a population of self-replicators replicates with heritable variance in the probability of reproductive success, then the more successful variants will become more prevalent in the population.

    That is self-evidently true (it's a syllogism more than a theory) and has been directly observed to happen, in lab, field and in computer simulations."

    So is that like 49% a theory, or not really a theory at all? Does it really predict anything it doesn't already define, or not? Can you illustrate how you used it to arrive at any of your claims?

    EL: "We don't know that yet, so if you like, feel free to posit that the earliest Darwinian-capable self-replicators were too complex to have arisen "by chance". But that would be inferring design from the lack of knowledge of OOL, not from the inadequacy of Darwinian evolution."

    It would seem that orphan genes dwarf the number of proteins that would be required just to replicate so I don't think the problem just goes away once you get a replicator. Besides, then you have the context problem, ie. why would genes be so interconnected if they only had billions of years to mutate?

    EL: "Darwinian evolution can only occur once you have a population of self-replicators that replicate with sufficient fidelity to be self replicators, but sufficient variance that some variants will out-perform their parents in the current environment. Once you have that, you have the ingredients for Darwinian evolution."

    So I guess the genes were either there at the beginning or they arrived afterward. Is there another possibility?

    EL: "I'm not sure what you mean here. I'm not talking about "in a just a few generations" either."

    I'm saying that if you want to claim ignorance about configurations in the RNA world or OOL in general when you have at your disposal all the genes of their descendants, but then claim that "dog descendents will always have genetic material common to mammals" then you have roundly refuted yourself. Which story should I believe? Or what reason is there for me to believe both?

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. "So you think the first time an organism became a cat, it was destiny, and only the second time would be coincidence?"

      No.

      I'm saying the probability that a dog lineages that terminated in cat-like populations would independently arrive at their cat-likeness by such similar DNA sequences that one could mistake them for members of a completely different lineage (the cats) is vanishingly improbable.

      For instance, air-breathing marine creatures include birds and mammals. Both the birds (e.g. penguins) and the mammals (e.g. seals) look quite similar. Both are sleek, flightless, have pectoral flippers, have legs that serve as tail fins, and are quite clumsy on land. Both live in large colonies and mate on shore, while getting most of their food from the sea. Both incubate their young with their own bodies, and feed them with fluids ejected from their own bodies.

      But they are different lineages, and no-one would mistake a seal for a bird on close inspection, nor would anyone mistake a penguin for a mammal.

      And their DNA is radically different, as you would expect.

      It is quite common for different lineages to converge on similar "solutions" to survival in similar habitats, but the chances that two separated lineages will do so by converging on the same DNA sequences is as unlikely as the bridge hand you win today with will be the bridge hand you win tomorrow with. There isn't a one-to-one mapping between phenotypic solution and genotypic recipe.

      Delete
    2. "I don't see why it is clear that the probability is high. How did you calculate the probability? Are you sure you didn't just look at existing organisms and say, "more of that"?"

      From the frequency with which it occurs.

      We know species that are very different genetically can be very similar phenotypically, in features that help them to survive similar environments.

      "Yes, I'm quite sure already that it posits everything in the universe. Stuff does happen after all."

      Obviously it doesn't. Are you serious about this conversation?

      That is self-evidently true (it's a syllogism more than a theory) and has been directly observed to happen, in lab, field and in computer simulations."

      "So is that like 49% a theory, or not really a theory at all? Does it really predict anything it doesn't already define, or not? Can you illustrate how you used it to arrive at any of your claims?"

      The theory part is that it accounts for observed adaptation in biology. The syllogism part is that it is demonstrably true given a population of self replicators that replicate with heritable variance in reproductive success.

      As a theory, it predicts that if you have a population of organisms (let's say guppies, we've had enough of finches) that replicate with variability, say in the pattern of their spots, and you put them in a tank with a gravel bottom and introduce predators, that over several generations, the population will be dominated by guppies with spot patterns that maximise their camouflage against the gravel. It also predicts that if you then remove the predators, after a few generations, the guppie population will be dominate by guppies with spot patterns that make them stand out from the gravel, enabling them to be noticed by potential mates.

      And this has in fact been observed. So it supports the theory that the self-evident principle that variants that replicate most successfully in a given environment will be replicated most often does in fact apply to biological populations.

      Which in any case was, and is well known, and exploited by children trying to grow the tallest sunflowers, and of course by breeders of all organisms.

      More in a minute :)

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    3. "It would seem that orphan genes dwarf the number of proteins that would be required just to replicate so I don't think the problem just goes away once you get a replicator. Besides, then you have the context problem, ie. why would genes be so interconnected if they only had billions of years to mutate?"

      I'm not understanding your point here. Could you rephrase?

      "So I guess the genes were either there at the beginning or they arrived afterward. Is there another possibility?"

      "Genes" is a convenient post hoc label for sequences of DNA that do something that affects the whole organism in some way. The very earliest self-replicators may not have had anything we would call a "gene" at all - just a sequences of some polymer that were more readily reproduced than others, possibly simply because the materials they required were more abundant. The first thing you might call a "gene" could have been a sequence that catalysed some compound that enhanced the probabilty that the proto-organism's chance of self-replicating faithfully. But we simply don't know, and may never know, for sure, although there are plenty of testable hypotheses.

      "I'm saying that if you want to claim ignorance about configurations in the RNA world or OOL in general when you have at your disposal all the genes of their descendants, but then claim that "dog descendents will always have genetic material common to mammals" then you have roundly refuted yourself. Which story should I believe? Or what reason is there for me to believe both?"

      OK, I see what you are saying. Yes, I guess that it's possible that over billions more years, the DNA of the descendents of today's organisms may be so altered that there is no way of figuring out, should there still be biologists, of what was descended from which.

      But one reason that is unlikely is that some sequences are highly conserved (because they do something useful for that lineage), and while they may vary a bit, the variations are likely to remain trackable, just as we can insert hox genes from one lineage into another and get a comparable (if different) result.

      So I'll rephrase: If there are still dog and cat descendents a few billion years hence, I expect them to share some of the DNA sequences with their present day ancestors that today distingish each population from the other.

      But it is possible (but unlikely for the reasons I've given) that those sequences will be unrecognisable by then.

      What is vanishingly unlikely (and we could do the math on this) is that they would look more closely related genetically than they do now.

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  29. Elizabeth,

    "It has been definitively demonstrated to be a result of heritable variance in the probability of reproductive success, which is the principle of evolution."

    What has not been definitively demonstrated is that heritable variance is anything more than that. It is pure conjecture that such variance leads eventually to new life forms in the nature demanded by evolution through common descent.

    "So why are you demanding a completely new creature? Nobody claims that completely new creatures ever appear."

    And you say I do not understand evolution. No, new life forms don't suddenly appear, but the basic premise of the theory is that all life comes from a common ancestor. If that's true there has been billions of "new" life forms develop gradually over the millions of years of claimed by evolution. That is unless you think there is no difference between humans and an earthworm.

    "Yes, we can. We can demonstrate what ID proponents usually call "micro-evolution" (although not you, apparently, because you don't accept that adaptation is evolution at all)."

    Micro-evolution is a synonym for adaptation and nothing more. You still are only extrapolating with no supporting observations that adaptation leads to full scale evolution. Evolution can provide no demonstrable proof that whales evolved from a land mammal for example. All that can be presented is conjecture based on presupposition.
    "Micro-evolution - adaptation" does absolutely nothing to support the idea of common descent.

    "And yet, when I point you to evidence that it has been demonstrated, you merely respond "that's not evolution"."

    You have not provided any evidence whatsoever. All you've done is spout the party line about adaptation leading inevitably to full scale evolution.

    "Well, on the evidence of your statements here, no you don't. You don't seem to understand what "adaptation" means, that it has been demonstrated, and that it involves darwinian mechanisms. And while you accept that no creature is completely new, you nonethless seem to think that to demonstrate evolution we would have to point to a "completely new" creature. Even though this is the reverse of what evolutionary theory posits."

    Adaptation in no way demonstrates evolution, it is simply adaptation which science is now finding is built in to the genetic code. And yes, to demonstrate evolution you must point to adaptation resulting in a new creature. To say the emergence of new creatures is exactly the opposite of evolutionary theory only demonstrates it is you who does not understand what evolutionary theory teaches. If all living things arose from a single common ancestor there had to be an emergence of countless "new creatures" to account for all life throughout the history of the earth.

    Please, explain to me what you mean by "Darwinian mechanisms." I sure hope you're not going to argue for random mutation and natural selection.

    "So to demonstrate it we look for evidence of a nested hierarchy (check) and gradual adaptive change down each branch (check)."

    So again you are assuming the presence of hierarchies is only explained by evolution, and the process of adaptation results in full scale evolution. Again, these are simply assertions for which you nor anyone else who adheres to evolution can demonstrate. Both are totally based on presupposed conjecture.

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  30. "Micro-evolution is a synonym for adaptation and nothing more."

    Well I'm glad you agree that adaptation is the same as micro-evolution at least. Someone else was claiming that adaptation wasn't evolution at all.

    But you don't say what "more than that" means. More than what? You talk about "new creatures" and yet agree that the theory posits only incremental change, not "new creatures" at all. How much evolution, in your view, would be "more than" mere "micro-evolution"?

    Unless you can give these criteria, your question is meaningless.

    "You still are only extrapolating"

    In a sense, although it's more like interpolation than extrapolation - the big picture preceded the small. Darwin had no idea that we would actually be able to observe his predicted processes happening in real time, but of course we do.

    "with no supporting observations that adaptation leads to full scale evolution."

    We have a vast amount of "supporting observations" in the genetic and fossil record.

    "Evolution can provide no demonstrable proof that whales evolved from a land mammal for example. All that can be presented is conjecture based on presupposition."

    Science never "proves" anything. We test hypotheses. A hypothesis is not a "presupposition". The hypothesis that whales evolved from land mammals well-supported by a great deal of palaeontological, morphological and genetic data.

    ""Micro-evolution - adaptation" does absolutely nothing to support the idea of common descent."

    No, it doesn't. What supports common descent is distribution of morphological and genetic characters into nested hierarchies. What micro-evolution supports is the mechanism postulated to account for the longitudinal change implied by the theory of common descent.

    "Adaptation in no way demonstrates evolution, it is simply adaptation which science is now finding is built in to the genetic code."

    Observed adaptation does demonstrate evolution, very clearly, albeit over a short time scale. We know that allele frequencies in populations undergo change that is biased in favour of traits that promote reproductive success, exactly as Darwin predicted. This is what is called "adaptation". Of course it is "built in" to the genetic code in the sense that the mechanism of variance-generation is alterations (mutations) of the DNA sequence, but there is no evidence that the appearance of such mutations have any correlation with environmental change, merely evidence that those that promote reproductive success become (as you would expect, and as Darwin predicted) more prevalent in the population.

    "And yes, to demonstrate evolution you must point to adaptation resulting in a new creature. To say the emergence of new creatures is exactly the opposite of evolutionary theory only demonstrates it is you who does not understand what evolutionary theory teaches."

    Not unless you define "new creature". At what point in a process of gradual change do you say a "new" creature has emerged? At what point in the colour spectrum does "red" change to "yellow"?


    "Please, explain to me what you mean by "Darwinian mechanisms." I sure hope you're not going to argue for random mutation and natural selection."

    By "Darwinian mechanism" I mean exactly what Darwin proposed - that heritable variance in reproductive success would lead to the "natural" (i.e. not artificial) selection of those variants that reproduced best.

    We now know, as Darwin didn't, that the mechanism of heritability is genetic, and that phenotypic variance arises from small variations in genetic sequences.

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  31. Elizabeth,


    "Well I'm glad you agree that adaptation is the same as micro-evolution at least. Someone else was claiming that adaptation wasn't evolution at all."

    You completely misunderstand, the term micro-evolution is referring only to adaptation and can no more be used as evidence of common ancestry than can adaptation.

    "You talk about "new creatures" and yet agree that the theory posits only incremental change, not "new creatures" at all."

    Evolutionary theory uses the idea of incremental changes to extrapolate wholesale changes which would require the development of new creatures over the course of time. You seem to posses some weird idea that all life forms are the same and are simply some variation of what has gone before. That is simply bizarre. Do you or do you not believe that earthworms and humans have common ancestor?

    "We have a vast amount of "supporting observations" in the genetic and fossil record."

    Provide them.

    "What supports common descent is distribution of morphological and genetic characters into nested hierarchies."

    Do you really not see this is circular reasoning? Nested hierarchies are used as evidence for evolution and in turn evolution is used to explain nested hierarchies. This is truly elementary logic.

    "At what point in a process of gradual change do you say a "new" creature has emerged?"

    Let me again ask you a question I asked earlier. Do you believe an earthworm and a human are the same creature? If not, at what point did the common ancestor process diverge to eventually evolve into earthworms on one hand and humans on the other?

    "By "Darwinian mechanism" I mean exactly what Darwin proposed - that heritable variance in reproductive success would lead to the "natural" (i.e. not artificial) selection of those variants that reproduced best."

    "We now know, as Darwin didn't, that the mechanism of heritability is genetic, and that phenotypic variance arises from small variations in genetic sequences."

    So you are going to argue for natural selection, but not random mutation, is that correct?

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  32. According to darwinists all that's needed is self-replication. Once you have self-replication powered by an energy source and incremental changes along the way, in a biochemical context the net effect will be "positive", ie: leading to an eventual increase in information and specification. Natural selection will make sure via "survive or not" that the "best" information with respect to an environmental context will be preserved while the "worst" of it will be filtered out.
    Seems reasonable at first.
    Then of course we examine the details of this process we find that a system such as this is extremely volatile (ie: it can quickly lose even a "well adapted" state, never mind a state which hasn't yet "adapted" or formed)
    Take RM's which is indiscriminate; that is it doesn't "care" about the current state of the system. The next incurred (via RM) state of the system all depends on whether the current state survives or not with respect to the environment. This dynamic environment in turn acts as another indiscriminate factor with respect to the current state of the system, adding to the volatility. We find that internal and external dynamics are acting "adjacently" against the possible increase in net information and specification but the "wheels keep on turning".
    What "keeps the wheels turning" and why? Error-detection and correction mechanisms?

    Will continue soon...

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