A most promising anti-evolutionist [Archive I] - Page 3

Soralis

September 22, 2003, 04:33 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Excellent thoughts. And no, my point is not in the same category of your coin flipping analogy. Your final paragraph summarizes it better, though we'd need to add questions such as how many mutations are ever going to be helpful in getting to the giraffe; so that mutation rate alone is not sufficient. We'd need to consider how many mutations are harmful, or otherwise will never help get to the giraffe.

Thanks. :) Ahh.. but you see there's a problem with that. As soon as you include a specific endpoint, and the probability of mutations that lead to that endpoint, you're right back to the coin flipping problem agian.

For example, say you have an organism with a million base pairs, and say you have another organism, also with a million base pairs, but with only 1 base pair difference. Now, there are 3 million different point mutations that can happen in this (any one of the million base pairs has 3 different possibilities that it could be changed to). But only a single 1 of these changes would produce the second genome, making the probability 1/3,000,000. Which would also be the probability of a mutation happening at that point that wouldn't ever help get to the second genome. If you have 2 differences, then for the first change, there's a 2/3,000,000 chance of a mutatation changing to make it closer to the endpoint, and for the second mutation, it would be 1/3,000,000, leading to a probability of 1/4,500,000,000,000. It's the coin flip example, because you're assuming a specific result, and the probability that a specific change will lead to that specific result, rather then the probability of the mutation rate being sufficient to produce that result.

You could try to include something like that in probabilities of if it could work, in that a mutation may change another mutation to something else. Except what's being dealt with here is populations rather then individuals, so this would only make an impact if it happened with the offspring of the only individual with that allele remaining. And so, instead, selection would be what would really have an impact on this. But of course, factoring in selection into this could really make things complicated, because in doing so, you can no longer look at a mutation as simply a change, but have to look at what specifically that change would do. And not only that, but suddently the order, time, place, etc. of the mutations makes a difference, because the probability of mutation A surviving at setting A, and mutation B surviving at setting B will most likely be different then mustion B surviving at setting A and mutation A surviving at setting B. As well as the chance of a change surviving would at leastpartially, probably depend on what other changes exist at that time. Basically, you wouldn't just be able to use the two endpoints anymore, you'd have to factor in what the path would be.

Of course, that's a more detailed approximation. The one that I was originally mentioning was mainly more along the lines of the probability that the mutation rate with such conditions as I mentioned would be sufficient to lead to such a result. That could be used as a factor in how much selection would have to be biased toward these changes for them to survive, although that could be quite a more complex approximation.

Hmm.. although now that I think of it, there's a fairly simple way it could be represented. You could simply look at it as how often an allele involved in the end point, on average, was completely eliminated from a population, and had to have another mutation event to re-create it in the population. That would cover loss of alleles, and it would just be some factor >= 1 that could be multiplied by the number of mutations required in the first approximation. Where 1 would be that every mutation involved in the end product, once it happened, never got completely eliminated from the population. And something like 2 would be that on average every allele involved would go extinct within the population once, and re-created by a second mutation event.

Charles Darwin

September 22, 2003, 11:45 AM

Originally posted by Ken
Charles,

Thanks for sticking with this thread. It's fascinating to follow the exchange mostly as a sideliner. I've considered your approach more effective than that of many anti-evolutionists, though I have to say that my respect for your position has suffered greatly in learning that you do not consider blind cave fish to be descendants of seeing fish. When challenged with phenomena like blind fish and flightless birds, your approach seems to be simply, "And so?" Even "scientific creationists" admit the cave fish as a legitimate example of "devolution" or micro-evolution. It doesn't take any hand-waving to understand the reality that blind cave fish are descendants of seeing fish, any more than to accept that a human born blind has parents or ancestors that could see, without knowing anything of the person's actual ancestry. I can't give you a mathematical formula that proves this to be the case, but I would be dumbfounded if anyone demanded it. Frankly, I am dumbfounded that you cannot accept the reality that blind cave fish have seeing ancestors. Your "And so?" approach is exasperating. It demonstrates that you simply won't allow any evidence to convince you against your pre-established notions.

If I were to present evidence that Spanish and Portuguese share a common ancestry, pointing out the geographical and linguistic proximity of the two, and were met at every point with this sort of "And so?" response with which you've answered the arguments for common descent on this thread, I would begin suspecting some sort of unexpressed agenda for rejecting my thesis. Perhaps I'm talking with a proud Portuguese citizen who does not want to admit his common linguistic and/or ethnic heritage with the Spaniards. Perhaps I'm talking with a super-Genesis-literalist who takes the Tower of Babel as the true explanation for the origin of all languages (even modern ones!). But it doesn't really matter: Spanish and Portuguese do in fact share a common ancestry, just as blind cave fish and seeing fish do, whether or not we can get into a time machine and see the development happen before our eyes. A skeptic would not be convinced if I showed him manuscripts progressively showing the divergence of Spanish and Portuguese from proto-Iberian or Latin, for example. I could present some general historical linguistic rules of thumb that are followed quite nicely in the progression of the two languages, but he would no doubt be able to dig into the manuscripts to show me how this or that word violates the rules. Something similar could be attempted to show that American English does not share common ancestry with British English. The English say "buttuh," the Irish say "butter," and Americans say "budder." Suddenly the picture gets murky, and laypersons could no doubt be confounded were such conundrums to be multiplied. But we all know that American English and British English ultimately share a common heritage.

So why do you reject the obvious conclusion that blind fish are descendants of seeing fish, a conclusion that even many scientific creationists accept? Is it that you recognize this as the top of a slippery slope that leads to a greater acceptance of common descent? If cave fish have seeing ancestors, then perhaps beetles with sealed wings have flying ancestors; deep-sea eye-stalk-toting blind crabs that withstand enormous water pressure may have seeing ancestors that cannot withstand such pressure; swift ostriches with powerful leg muscles may have flying ancestors that aren't as fleet of foot; and supremely capable swimmers like the penguins may have flying ancestors that can't match their diving abilities.

Evolutionists here touted the vestigial argument as being much stronger than it is. In fact, it seems to me that it falls apart on scrutiny. I have no particular problem with cave fish devolving from seeing fish. Though I would differ with you on it being a fact. "What happens when a function is discovered for the cave fish's 'rudiments' ?", is, I think, a valid question, even if such function is unlikely. But by asking the question I did not mean to imply that I believe that such function is inevitable, or required by creationism. Or that the cave fish could not have devolved from seeing fish.

Originally posted by Ken
Finally, I want to suggest that much of the discussion on this thread has been muddled by conflation of common descent and evolutionary theory. There are two distinct questions:

1) Do all living creatures share a common ancestry with each other, and

2) If so, what are the causal mechanisms that have led to (1)?

Michael Behe would provisionally say "yes" to question (1), but he rejects a thoroughly naturalistic explanation for (2). I respect Behe for taking seriously the arguments for (1). I see again and again in your posts an assumption that if you can cast in doubt a naturalistic explanation for (2), then (1) falls along with it. Not so! In fact, a theistic evolutionist (TE) could turn your arguments against common descent against you using this approach:

CD: A pseudogene shared by chimps and gorillas but not by humans casts doubt on the notion that the three species share a common ancestry.
TE: Who are you to say what an Intelligent Designer would or wouldn't do? Perhaps the Designer had good reasons for bringing this about. The evidence for common ancestry on other grounds is overwhelming.

My suggestion would be to focus first on the evidence for and against (1) before arguing about (2). The difficulty of explaining echolocation or the bacterial flagellum naturalistically is irrelevant to the discussion of common ancestry. If the evidence does not support common ancestry, then there is no need to go on to (2). But if (1) appears to be the best explanation of the facts, then we are free to discuss whether an Intelligent Designer had a hand in the process. In short, just as evolutionists sometimes bring theology into their science to support naturalistic evolution, anti-evolutionists bring probability into the discussion to argue against common descent. If you want theology to stay out of the debate about naturalistic evolution, then you must check probability at the door when discussing common descent. Probability has precisely zero to do with common descent, if we allow for the possibility of non-naturalistic elements. Fair enough?

CD: An HERV shared by chimps and gorillas but not by humans casts doubt on the notion that the three species share a common ancestry.
TE: Who are you to say what an Intelligent Designer would or wouldn't do? Perhaps the Designer had good reasons for bringing this about. The evidence for common ancestry on other grounds is overwhelming.
CD: Overwhelming?
TE: Yes. Look at all the similarities between the species.
CD: Why does this surprise you? Do you think the species comes from different worlds? Of course not; they operate within a common environment, with the same energy sources, subject to the same natural laws, etc. They even consume each other.
TE: Yes, yes. But that doesn't explain all the needless similarities. The pentadactyl pattern for example. Why should different species have the same pattern for so many different uses? That's powerful evidence for common descent, though an Intelligent Designer makes it all possible.
CD: Why is it that you think your Designer would not use archetypes, such as the pentadactyl pattern?
TE: Because they are not necessary.
CD: Not necessary for what?
TE: They are not optimal. Surely, the 5-bone pattern is not the optimal design for all those different uses.
CD: Not optimal in what sense? What is your criteria that you believe the Designer ought to optimize?
TE: Function, fitness, and all that, of course.
CD: How would you redesign the bat's wing to make it better?
TE: I haven't the foggiest, but surely you're not saying all those pentadactyl patterns are optimal for their respective functions?
CD: I haven't the foggiest. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. My point is that you are not making much sense.
TE: How so?
CD: You claim there is overwhelming evidence for common descent.
TE: Yes, overwhelming.
CD: But, in fact, this "evidence" is based on your claim of off-optimal designs which you cannot prove.
TE: But ...
CD: Wait, that's not the worst of it. Even if you were able to prove some designs are not optimal for function, you are ignoring the bigger picture. Remember, your Designer is designing a network of species. If one species is too "optimal", to use your word, maybe it will gobble up too many of its prey.
TE: Hmmm ...
CD: But we're still not to the worst of it. Even if you were able to prove that the bigger picture is not optimal, you must first assume some criteria for your judgement. You say there is overwhelming for common descent, but this "evidence" is contingent on your assumption that the Designer ought to maximize function and fitness. Where did this come from?
TE: Umm, evolution?
CD: That's right. Of course, evolution does not say that under their theory, designs must be optimized for reproductive fitness. It is a blind process so it settles for designs that are good enough. The point is that this is their criterion, and their only criterion. Not only is it the only criterion for evolution; it becomes the only criterion for a Designer as well.
TE: So when evolutionists say the proof of evolution lies in what they deem to be bogus designs, they are begging the question.
CD: Right. And likewise, that evidence for common descent you cite is also circular. You see, you began by asking me the question: "Who are you to say what an Intelligent Designer would or wouldn't do?" But, in fact, it is you who are saying what the Designer would or would not do. You don't like what you observe in nature, so you believe God wouldn't have make it that way. This is your evidence for common descent. But since evolution is ludicrous, you invoke your Designer to step in, being careful to keep him at a distance from those designs you don't like.

Dr Rick

September 22, 2003, 11:57 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
What is astronomical is the number of possible DNA modifications possible. My point was that your random biological variations must find their way through an enormous space of alternatives.

Those extant variations that confer a survival and reproductive advantage tend to survive and replicate ("find their way through"), and those alternatives that don't tend to die-off. New variations, called mutations, are subjected to the same selective pressures as the old ones, and face the same dichotomy that determines if they will "find their way through an enormous space of alternatives" or not.

I'm asking, what is the probability that this evolution could occur assuming reasonable numbers?

That's like asking, "what is the probability that the Titanic would hit an iceberg on its maiden voyage and sink assuming reasonable numbers?"

Well, CD; what is it? Since you can't possibly provide the numbers, should we assume that the event couldn't have occured?

Translation: When all else fails, fall back on the "fact" of evolution. You've got to be kidding me?, no good evidence? Do I have to repeat 20 posts? But then again, what does evidence have to do with it? After all, I'm merely questioning an event that "is occurring." The probability is one! See, this is where evolution has taken us. This is not science.

Yours is still an argument from ignorance; we do not and may never know all of the probabilities involved in either evolution or the sinking of the Titanic by hitting an iceberg on its first voyage, but that doesn't mean that either event didn't or couldn't happen, and that does not mean that studying either one of them "is not science."

Sorry, I don't follow. What fallacy is this? Let's see, evolution claims that the most complex things we know of arose all by themselves. They have no actual details showing how this happened. The DNA code and echolocation are supposed to have arisen by themselves. How? Well, we don't know, but it is a fact. And now *I* am the one guilty of a fallacy by questioning this claim?

It's the fallacy of the argument from ignorance into which you then insert the god of gaps.

And your assertion is wrong: we do have actual details of evolution, including observing mutations and witnessing speciation, unlocking the genetic code that revealed similarities and homologies exactly as evolution predicts them, and seeing some species die while others flourish both now and in the fossil record.

...we'd need to add questions such as how many mutations are ever going to be helpful in getting to the giraffe; so that mutation rate alone is not sufficient. We'd need to consider how many mutations are harmful, or otherwise will never help get to the giraffe.

Those questions do not make "getting to the giraffe" impossible or even improbable, because those mutations are acted upon by the forces of selective pressures which would have the effect of eliminating those organisms with harmful mutations while conserving those with beneficial ones.

...the idea of such complexity arising all by itself is ludicrous.

You keep asserting that, but never explain why when the mechanisms of mutation and natural selection are so obvious.

IYour are VERY skeptical of the hypothesis that a single designer was responsible for all those conflicting designs. That is fine, I can't argue with you. For you evolution is a fact.

Your belief is not an hypothesis because it is not testable; your only proposed verification of it would be the falsification of another, separate one (evolution), which is no verification at all.

Evolution is verifiable, predictive, and potentially falsifiable. Much evidence supports it, and none to date refutes it. Your argument against it has been one from ignorance built upon not knowing the probabilities, but that is not a scientific rebuttal any more than it would be a scientific rebuttal to any other event whose total probablities remain unknown.

If you had been following this thread you would know that what I have "mustered" is scientific problems with evolution.

Arguing that we don't know the probabilties of the events that had to occur is an argument from ignorance, not a scientific refutation. A scientific refutation would be presenting evidence of life that couldn't have evolved through the path of descent with modification defined by evolution: examples would be a horse with feathered wings, or finding a rabbit fossilized in Pre-Cambrian strata.

What would pose a problem for creationism. I've already answered this several times. One more time: A compelling scientific theory of the naturalistic origins of the species.

What you propose is not science.

The belief of creationism is not falsifiable that way, because the possibilty (actually it's a fact, though you deny it) of "naturalistic origins" wouldn't make creationism any more or less false. It would provide no evidence that creationism didn't occur, just that it or "natural origins" could have.

You are not proposing a scientific theory with creationism, as it is not verifiable, predictive, or falsifiable.

The only way I know [to scientifically put special creation to the test] is to show that evolution is compelling.

That is not the way to test a scientific theory. You can't scientifically test creationism because creationism is not a scientific theory. It can not be tested on its own; you are relying on the veracity of another theory to discredit creationism, but that is not a potential falsification of creationsim, because you have no way to show that creationism didn't occur, and because it makes no testable predictions, it can't be disproven.

There is no question that ID is asking a scientific question and using scientific means to get at the answer.

You've just shown us that it is not, because, like creation, it is not testable. :banghead:

lpetrich

September 22, 2003, 01:46 PM

CD: An HERV shared by chimps and gorillas but not by humans casts doubt on the notion that the three species share a common ancestry.

Actually, it's no difficulty -- that gene was lost by the ancesstors of Homo sapiens after they split off from the ancestors of the chimps and gorillas.

TE: ...The evidence for common ancestry on other grounds is overwhelming.
CD: Overwhelming?
TE: Yes. Look at all the similarities between the species.
CD: Why does this surprise you? Do you think the species comes from different worlds? Of course not; they operate within a common environment, with the same energy sources, subject to the same natural laws, etc. They even consume each other.

The similarities are far beyond what is necessary to survive.

Also, there are lots of differences, and the pattern of similarities and differences fits a treelike pattern remarkably well. Why don't we find some creature with a bird's beak, a bat's wings, insect-like antennae on its head, and hemocyanin as its blood oxygen carrier? A designer that liked variety can surely create something like that -- especially an omnipotent one.

CD: Why is it that you think your Designer would not use archetypes, such as the pentadactyl pattern?

A very powerful designer concerned with creating good adaptations would create a new one specially suited for some job rather than kludging an old one. I know that from my own experience as an intelligent designer.

TE: They are not optimal. Surely, the 5-bone pattern is not the optimal design for all those different uses.

It's 5 digits, not 5 bones. And it is indeed suboptimal for the extremities of hoofed animals. Many of them have various numbers of extra digits alongside their main weight-bearing ones; extra digits that have no apparent function and that are often much narrower than the main weight-bearing digits.

Present-day equines have a single hoof on each foot and two splints, one on each side of the main digit. However, these splints occasionally become extra side digits, and most extinct equids had similar extra side digits.

Furthermore, some artiodactyl hooves like cow hooves converge on the overall shape of a horse hoof, looking like a horse hoof split in the middle. This seems like a kludgy workaround -- especially for some alleged superbeing that can easily give cows single hooves.

CD: Wait, that's not the worst of it. Even if you were able to prove some designs are not optimal for function, you are ignoring the bigger picture. Remember, your Designer is designing a network of species. If one species is too "optimal", to use your word, maybe it will gobble up too many of its prey.

That's Walter ReMine's favorite argument. However, an equilibrium would still be reached. Pandas extract only 1/6 of the nutrients that they could from bamboo; WR had argued that this was a good way of keeping pandas from eating all the bamboo. However, if pandas were given 100% of possible efficiency, then the same grove of bamboo would be able to support 6 times as many individual pandas; each one would need to eat only 1/6 as much bamboo to survive.

CD: ... You say there is overwhelming for common descent, but this "evidence" is contingent on your assumption that the Designer ought to maximize function and fitness. Where did this come from?

From this designer being celebrated as the designer of high-quality adaptations.

Muad'Dib

September 22, 2003, 08:17 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Moorehead, Kaplan [Ed.s], *Mathematical Challenges to the Neo-Darwinan Interpretation of Evolution,* 1967. Keep in mind that my point was not the challenge itself, but the circular response. Thanks for that. I'll look it up in the library this weekend. To be honest though, I was also interested in references to the responses by biologists (the ones you refer to as circular). Are all such replies covered in subsequent editions of the book (if any)?

Also, would it be useful or interesting to you if I were to write a rebuttal to the book's claims, if I think such a response is appropriate? Or are you more interested in making evolutionists look suspicious?

Regards,
Muad'Dib

Charles Darwin

September 22, 2003, 10:34 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no question that ID is asking a scientific question and using scientific means to get at the answer.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Dr Rick
You've just shown us that it is not, because, like creation, it is not testable. :banghead:

I realize these distinctions may not be important to you, but what I was arguing against was TE, not ID.

Charles Darwin

September 22, 2003, 10:48 PM

Originally posted by Muad'Dib
Thanks for that. I'll look it up in the library this weekend. To be honest though, I was also interested in references to the responses by biologists (the ones you refer to as circular). Are all such replies covered in subsequent editions of the book (if any)?

Also, would it be useful or interesting to you if I were to write a rebuttal to the book's claims, if I think such a response is appropriate? Or are you more interested in making evolutionists look suspicious?

Regards,
Muad'Dib

What I am primarily interested in is science, and in this instance, how it bears on evolution. Whether that makes evolutionists look good or not is not my concern. I'm sorry if I've given any impression otherwise. In any case, yes, I'd be interested you hear your assessment of the mathematical challenge. Again, my interest was in the circular response that they received, which, if memory serves, you will find in that same volume.

Ken

September 22, 2003, 10:53 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
TE: They are not optimal. Surely, the 5-bone pattern is not the optimal design for all those different uses.
CD: Not optimal in what sense? What is your criteria that you believe the Designer ought to optimize?
TE: Function, fitness, and all that, of course.
CD: How would you redesign the bat's wing to make it better?
TE: I haven't the foggiest, but surely you're not saying all those pentadactyl patterns are optimal for their respective functions?
CD: I haven't the foggiest. Maybe they are, maybe they aren't. My point is that you are not making much sense.
TE: How so?
CD: You claim there is overwhelming evidence for common descent.
TE: Yes, overwhelming.
CD: But, in fact, this "evidence" is based on your claim of off-optimal designs which you cannot prove.
TE: But ...
CD: Wait, that's not the worst of it. Even if you were able to prove some designs are not optimal for function, you are ignoring the bigger picture. Remember, your Designer is designing a network of species. If one species is too "optimal", to use your word, maybe it will gobble up too many of its prey.
TE: Hmmm ...
CD: But we're still not to the worst of it. Even if you were able to prove that the bigger picture is not optimal, you must first assume some criteria for your judgement. You say there is overwhelming for common descent, but this "evidence" is contingent on your assumption that the Designer ought to maximize function and fitness. Where did this come from?
TE: Umm, evolution?
CD: That's right. Of course, evolution does not say that under their theory, designs must be optimized for reproductive fitness. It is a blind process so it settles for designs that are good enough. The point is that this is their criterion, and their only criterion. Not only is it the only criterion for evolution; it becomes the only criterion for a Designer as well.
TE: So when evolutionists say the proof of evolution lies in what they deem to be bogus designs, they are begging the question.
CD: Right. And likewise, that evidence for common descent you cite is also circular. You see, you began by asking me the question: "Who are you to say what an Intelligent Designer would or wouldn't do?" But, in fact, it is you who are saying what the Designer would or would not do. You don't like what you observe in nature, so you believe God wouldn't have make it that way. This is your evidence for common descent. But since evolution is ludicrous, you invoke your Designer to step in, being careful to keep him at a distance from those designs you don't like.

Speaking for myself, in my move from old-earth creationism to divinely guided evolution and then to naturalistic evolution roughly three years ago, it was not primarily the kinds of considerations you attribute to evolutionists that led me to my current perspective. Yes, the apparent sub-optimality and "nastiness" of many aspects of nature did play a small part, but I had previously as a creationist been fully aware that this planet is far from Edenic, and my faith had ways of accommodating this fact.

What convinced me that common descent was inescapable was its explanatory power. When comparing special creation with common descent, the latter neatly explained too many phenomena that the former could only take ad-hoc stabs at. Certainly, an all-powerful Intelligent Designer could do anything s/he/it decided to do, e.g., give five fingers to a dolphin and amorphous cartilage to a shark for much the same function. Or give humans sparse body hair that rises on end in the face of cold or fear, just as apes have fur that stands out to insulate from cold or make the body appear larger when threatened. Or place apparent tooth-making genes in modern birds. Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees. Or put a telomere in the middle of the second human chromosome, suggesting the fusion of two ancestral telomeres (which must have happened in one of the first generations if humans are specially created, since we all have these telomeres).

Yes, the Intelligent Designer could have done all these things, and many more, and if we are to follow your counsel, we should refrain from making any conclusions from these phenomena. Yes, s/he/it may have had reasons we cannot comprehend. Yet, if the Designer is not impotent, s/he/it could have created in any of an infinite number of other ways without so much as offering the slightest suggestion that common descent was at play. It wasn't the brutality of nature that concerned me as I contemplated God's role in creation, but rather the sense that s/he/it began to appear deceitful if s/he/it had not in fact used evolution as a tool of creation. In denying evolution, I began to feel like the proverbial creationists who suggested that God deliberately planted fossils of extinct fauna in the earth to test our faith. This was the crux for me: If God, who could have created in any way s/he/it saw fit, chose to create in such a way that common descent made sense, when in fact common descent did not happen, then how could I possibly trust God in any other matter? As E.O. Wilson put it:

"Perhaps God did create all organisms, including human beings, in finished form, in one stroke, and maybe it all happened several thousand years ago. But if that is true, He also salted the earth with false evidence in such endless and exquisite detail, and so thoroughly from pole to pole, as to make us conclude first that life evolved, and second that the process took billions of years. Surely Scripture tells us He would not do that. The Prime Mover of the Old and New Testaments is variously loving, magisterial, denying, thunderously angry, and mysterious, but never tricky [with the possible exception of the story in which God sent a lying spirit to the prophets--Ken] (Consilience, p. 141).

Are you willing to give up truthfulness as an attribute of the Intelligent Designer in an effort to paint evolutionists as theologically motivated? You are willing to put apparent evil on the table; what about deceit? I'd like a straight answer from you on this.

In what ways could God have pre-empted the appearance of common descent, and by so doing, nipped any possible theory of evolution in the bud? In other words, what kinds of show-stoppers could s/he/it have planted? Here are a few:

1) By creating the universe with the appearance of youth, thereby unmistakably denying evolution the time it needed to happen. Instead, we witness supernova explosions up to 9 billion light years away.
2) By making the fossil record follow any of millions of possible sequences other than the one that it in fact follows, with complex forms appearing in only the higher layers.
3) By taking care not to introduce apparent atavisms like hen's teeth and horse toes (to quote the title of a Gould book).
4) By not putting morphologically similar (but significantly different) extinct species in the same geographical location as extant creatures.
5) By creating an inseparable gap between humans and the creatures most closely allied with them genetically. As it is, we share between 95 and 99% of our genome with chimps, and the fossil record provides morphologically intermediate forms between the chimps and us. If cows or dogs were the most similar creatures to us, modern evolution could never have gotten off the ground.
6) By using similar forms (e.g., cartilaginous fins) for similar functions (aquatic maneuvering), rather than different forms (e.g., a pentadactyl structure) for similar functions, differentiated by lines of descent proposed on other independent grounds.
7) By tightly constraining the variability of populations within species such that, for example, the striking variety of dog breeds developed within human history, or human races themselves, could not have arisen.
8) By taking care not to introduce any of the other 29+ evidences of macroevolution discussed in the article of the same title (sans any real theological considerations).

The list could be endless. That things are the way they are does not prove macro evolution, but note that evolution could not be true if reality were significantly different than it in fact is. The world didn't have to be old. It is. Dolphins didn't have to have five fingers. They do. Complex forms could have been found in the lower strata. They haven't been found, nor will they be. If a rabbit skeleton is some day found in the pre-Cambrian, then we can all give up this debate and take a rest, acknowledging the creationists were right all along.

You may protest that none of these phenomena really prove common descent, and that we only come to our conclusions by "connecting the dots." Granted. But this isn't about mathematical proof. For me, it's about looking at the data and thinking, "What really happened?", regardless of what I want to be true, or how capable I might be in highlighting the difficulties in the theory. It's not a game! It's about truth.

The predictive power of evolution impressed me the more I learned of the facts. For example, Nikishimi searched for and found an apparently non-functional vitamin C-producing gene in primates based on the fact that primates do not produce their vitamin C like other mammals. Here is my take on how the discovery proceeded:

1) It was discovered that most mammals do not need vitamin C in their diet;
2) Therefore, there must be a gene that produces vitamin C;
3) Based on (2), we've looked for and found the gene
4) Other mammals, i.e., guinea pigs, primates and humans, require an external source of vitamin C in their diet
5) These mammals therefore must not be able to produce vitamin C on their own.
6) On the theory of common descent, humans and primates share a common ancestor
7) On the theory of common descent, that common ancestor was a mammal
8) On the theory of common descent, that common ancestor or a predecessor, like other mammals, must have a vitamin C gene similar to that shared by other mammals.
9) On the theory of common descent, primates and humans (the descendants of primates) would be expected to have a non-functional vitamin C gene at the same location in the genome as that in other mammals.
10) On the basis of (6) thru (9), we look for that gene and find it in both primates and humans. Furthermore, we discover that this non-functional gene varies among species (humans, chimpanzees, orangs, macaques, etc.) in proportion to the distance between them in the standard phylogenetic tree.

My point here is to show how integral the theory of common descent was to the reasoning that led to the discovery in (10). The kicker is not that humans and primates share some genes in common (like they share many other features), but that the existence of a non-functional (at least in respect to the production of vitamin C) gene could be predicted ahead of time before knowing whether it existed in either primates or humans. It is that specific prediction that sets apart the theory of common descent from its competition. Note that I am not making any of the metaphysical claims you accuse evolutionists of. I am simply saying that, in this case, and in many others, the theory is productive.

From an ID or creationist standpoint, there is no reason to predict that primates should have a vitamin C pseudogene without already knowing it. From an evolutionary perspective, we would think it likely that the genetic remnants of a functional vitamin C-producing gene should exist in the primates if the primates are descended from mammals that have a functional vitamin C-producing gene. What evolutionary theory predicts is the simple existence of the vitamin C pseudogene in primates (before even looking for it under the microscope), not its underlying mechanism. And ID could never have predicted its existence by any non-ad-hoc principle. If it could have, let me know.

As a former missionary linguist-to-be-Bible translator in Africa, I was impressed by the similarities and differences between the language I studied and a neighboring related language. I often thought about the principles I had learned in my one historical linguistic class, and I was fascinated by the patterns I could uncover, and puzzled by the instances that ran counter to the rules. But I never once doubted that the two languages shared a common ancestor. The geographical and morphological proximity of the two languages made it impossible to argue otherwise, in spite of the puzzles. What really happened? In broad lines, they descended from a common ancestor. Exactly how it happened, I have no clue.

You are gifted at drawing out puzzles and challenging the logical basis for our conclusions. But your attempts at undermining common descent ring hollow, simply because nature makes sense when seen through the lens of evolution. For all your prowess, effort and sincerity, you cannot change the facts, and the facts as a whole testify to the veracity of common descent.

By the way, if you do accept the possibility of blind fish having descended from seeing fish, where in my list do you draw the line between what probably did happen and what probably did not happen, keeping open the possibility of an Intelligent Agent to bridge any probability gaps?

If cave fish have seeing ancestors, then perhaps beetles with sealed wings have flying ancestors; deep-sea eye-stalk-toting blind crabs that withstand enormous water pressure may have seeing ancestors that cannot withstand such pressure; swift ostriches with powerful leg muscles may have flying ancestors that aren't as fleet of foot; and supremely capable swimmers like the penguins may have flying ancestors that can't match their diving abilities.

I really would like to know where you draw the line and why...

greenbear

September 22, 2003, 11:58 PM

Drawing lines? Wouldn't help for one such as CD. Reading this thread highlights a common defect of Evolution deniers. They are immune to heaps of credible scientific evidence but are receptive to the point of absurdity to any harebrained, evidentially unsupported, "crossing over" type pseudo-science promulgated in popular literature as long as it doesn't exclude God. :eek: :eek:

Charles Darwin

September 23, 2003, 12:07 AM

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
To show that a giraffe had a fishy ancestor is not all that straightforward, so let�s break it down into smaller steps.

Could a giraffe not be derived from a, say, okapi-shaped creature, by the extent of �microevolution� that can give cave-critters useless eyes?

Could that creature not be derived from a more generalised artiodactyl, again by cumulative microevolution?

Could the artiodactyls not share an ancestor with other ungulates?

Could ungulates not share an ancestor with other mammals? If they did, what should we find?

Could mammals not be derived from reptiles, such as the cynodont therapsids?

Could reptiles not be derived from amphibians? And amphibians from osteolepiform fish?

During all those changes, could the (what is now the) laryngeal-vagus nerve not have been �dragged� down into the chest?

If your answer is �not� to any of those, please explain why not. And at each stage, what might we expect to find?

Come on Charles, what counts as �macro�?

And why can cumulative �micro� not cause it?

Please explain the nature of the impenetrable barrier between �kinds�.

In fact, since, as you see, it is crucial, please can you define �kind�.

Thanks.

TTFN, Oolon

Evolutionist: Evolution is a fact.
CD: Really? What about these scientific problems?
Evolutionist: Oh, so you're saying evolution is impossible huh?

Do you see the false dichotomy here? If I cannot falsify evolution that does not mean it is a fact.

Could, could, could? Yes, any of those transitions could have occurred. They all could have occurred. But they are not what science is pointing to. Surely you can see the difference between a fish losing a complex capability versus a fish becoming a giraffe with all of the additions that that entails.

What is unlikely about your series of transitions? Well, first there is the fossil record. As Carroll observes, the species don't form a spectrum of finely-graded intermedates. They almost always belong to a few, distinct major groups. Darwin's idea of extrapolating the observed small-scale change to macro change is challenged by the fossil record. Even evolutionists today question whether large-scale evolution is merely repeated rounds of small-scale change. Secondly, it is not as though breeding experience or evolutionary experiments reveal that adaptation and variation is unbounded in the sense that you require. All of our practical experience suggests it is not unbounded. Third, as I've already brought up, there is the issue of mutation rates, fixation probabilities, and the overall design space. Fourth, does there even exist such a finely-graded set of intermediates (answer: "we don't know")? Fifth, how did the many new complexities evolve (designs that require multiple DNA substitutions)? Sixth, the small-scale change that we do observe are brought about by a highly complex adaptation system which evolution can only speculate about how it arose. Did evolution build an evolution machine? One which lays out future paths of change (as opposed to randomly exploring the design space).

So is your fish-to-giraffe evolution possible. Sure, all sorts of things are possible. There may be ETs on alpha-centuri too. What I am looking at is science, and what it indicates.

Charles Darwin

September 23, 2003, 12:25 AM

quote:
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Originally posted by Charles Darwin
My take is that authors overstretched when they conclude the enamel synthesis genes are still present in a working form in toothless aves. The avian genes they refer to are building block genes used for all sorts of developmental purposes. It is no surprise that they are fully functional; they are used for a variety of purposes. Again, if there was some long since dormant avian set of genes being invoked then they should be riddled with mutations.
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Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
What, then, is your explaination for the fully formed avian teeth present in the embryos? Do bird teeth just happen to be a by product of avian 'building block' genes? Isn't that something of a coincidence?

I suppose you have just such a unique 'take' on all peer reveiwed scientific papers that appear to support evolution.

They are not "avian" teeth. Their formation is not a coincidence, they do not form without the mouse tissue applied. The mouse tissue is necessary to have the teeth form. It is causing the teeth to form, and in the process using building block avian genes that are there all the time.

Look, this observation was claimed as strong evidence for evolution because it shows long-dormant avian 'teeth' genes. I explained that this simply is not what the evidence shows, and in fact doesn't even make sense since the genes in all liklihood would be riddled with mutations even if they did exist. Now after explaining this, do you say "OK, I see your point; this isn't such strong evidence." ? No, you continue with this useless claim. OK, I give. That's all I can do. If you still believe it is strong evidence then don't blame me.

Doubting Didymus

September 23, 2003, 12:49 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Their formation is not a coincidence, they do not form without the mouse tissue applied. The mouse tissue is necessary to have the teeth form. It is causing the teeth to form, and in the process using building block avian genes that are there all the time.

What exactly leads you to this conclusion, which is the opposite of that of the actual researchers? It's always intriguing to see that not accepting evolution somehow gives one the ability to simply dismiss any conclusion from any scientist that one does not like very much, based, seemingly, on nothing more than ones humble opinion. Sadly, the rest of us do not have this magical ability.

Edit: It's just occurred to me that you may not have meant what you seem to have meant. Would I be right in thinking that you do, actually, accept the conclusion that avian signals are causing the development of the teeth, but that this should be unsurprising for some reason?

lpetrich

September 23, 2003, 01:36 AM

Charles Darwin:
What is unlikely about your series of transitions? Well, first there is the fossil record. As Carroll observes, the species don't form a spectrum of finely-graded intermedates. They almost always belong to a few, distinct major groups.

Except that on the large scale, one does find LOTS of intermediates. Consider horse evolution from Hyracotherium to Equus. Living back in the Eocene, about 50 million years ago, Hyracotherium was about the size of a small dog; its shoulder height was 10-20" (25-50 cm; 2.5-5 hands). It had a more-or-less generalized dentition, and similar-looking toes, 5 in front and 4 in back.

As time goes on, one finds successors to Hyracotherium that get bigger and bigger, get bigger and bigger cheek teeth (premolars and molars), and get bigger and bigger middle toes -- and smaller and smaller toes on each side. Eventually, they get one big middle toe and two small side toes, and eventually only one toe.

But present-day equines are sometimes born with two extra side toes on each foot!

But what does CD think had happened? *POOF!* *POOF!* *POOF!* *POOF!* *POOF!* ?

Also look at the hominid/hominin fossil record. The earlier ones look very simian and the later ones look more and more human.

(CD's demands of very rigorous standards of proof...)

I dare him to demand equally high standards of proof for his pet hypothesis of the miraculous creation of new species.

Doubting Didymus

September 23, 2003, 01:44 AM

don't form a spectrum of finely-graded intermedates. They almost always belong to a few, distinct major groups.

You've seen this picture already, I think:

http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/images/hominids2.jpg

What major groups were you referring to in this case?

Badfish

September 23, 2003, 03:15 AM

Why does "D" have an unnatural blue glow? Heeeeey is there some CGI going on here? ;)

I've seen this a hundred times, some could be monkeys, and may I ask if anyone has actually seen these skulls in real life? Or have you just seen the pictures?

Oh yeah, also "L" gives me the creeps.....

Azathoth

September 23, 2003, 03:24 AM

It's the material used to fill in the gap.They just copy from the other side,since skulls are symmetrical.

Oolon Colluphid

September 23, 2003, 04:03 AM

Originally posted by Azathoth
It's the material used to fill in the gap.They just copy from the other side,since skulls are symmetrical.
And don't forget that these skulls are very fragile three-dimensional jigsaws. If I were doing a fragile 3D jigsaw, I'd sure as hell use some plasticine (or whatever) to support the bits while I fitted them together.

In the interminable threads here, Ed has claimed that the skulls are too fragmentary to tell anything much about them. So I'm noting again that it's not mere guesswork; there are sensible assumptions like lateral symmetry (got only one side? then you can say what the other was very probably like), that two separate pieces of cranium very likely do arch together (rather than suddenly bulging radically in the missing intervening three inches), and so on.

Cheers, Oolon

Azathoth

September 23, 2003, 04:37 AM

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
And don't forget that these skulls are very fragile three-dimensional jigsaws. If I were doing a fragile 3D jigsaw, I'd sure as hell use some plasticine (or whatever) to support the bits while I fitted them together.

In the interminable threads here, Ed has claimed that the skulls are too fragmentary to tell anything much about them. So I'm noting again that it's not mere guesswork; there are sensible assumptions like lateral symmetry (got only one side? then you can say what the other was very probably like), that two separate pieces of cranium very likely do arch together (rather than suddenly bulging radically in the missing intervening three inches), and so on.

Cheers, Oolon

Ah,yes.I forgot to mention that. :)

As for not being able to tell what they are,Ed is mistaken.

I've done a more than a few three dimensional jigsaws,and it's quite easy to tell what the finished product will look like,just by looking at the shape of a few assembled sections.

If you know what the object is,that you're putting together,such as a skull,it becomes even easier,due to the fact that you can make certain assumptions,like you have already mentioned.

Dr Rick

September 23, 2003, 09:07 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
I realize these distinctions may not be important to you, but what I was arguing against was TE, not ID.

It's obvious you are not arguing against ID.

You are claiming that "God made the species " and TE is false, and then claiming that TE methods are "not science" and your "objections are based on science" because you are "primarily interested in science" and that "there is no question that ID is asking a scientific question and using scientific means to get at the answer" because "the idea/theory does not make religious claims as, say, evolution does" even though it relies on a supernatural entity and is neither falsifiable nor verifiable, and evolution can't be right because we "don't know all the details" and yet when asked about the details of ID reply that "I hope you do not expect me to come up with an explanation for the motives of God for imagined problems such as these."

Yes, your argument is quite clear.

NottyImp

September 23, 2003, 09:53 AM

What I am primarily interested in is science, and in this instance, how it bears on evolution.

But you're not, are you Charles? Because you believe in a non-naturalistic creationist model that you have admitted is scientifically untestable in and of itself. Thus, no science there.

Your only use for science is to selectively quote and interpret those finding that you think invalidate TE, thus hoping to leave us believing that creationism is the only possible alternative.

Frankly, its a pretty poor strategy.

Charles Darwin

September 23, 2003, 11:36 AM

Originally posted by Ken

What convinced me that common descent was inescapable was its explanatory power. When comparing special creation with common descent, the latter neatly explained too many phenomena that the former could only take ad-hoc stabs at. Certainly, an all-powerful Intelligent Designer could do anything s/he/it decided to do, e.g., give five fingers to a dolphin and amorphous cartilage to a shark for much the same function. Or give humans sparse body hair that rises on end in the face of cold or fear, just as apes have fur that stands out to insulate from cold or make the body appear larger when threatened.

God could do this, but wouldn't we prefer for Him to make all the species unambiguously different so we'd know for sure that evolution is impossible? Why would He make hairs on humans and apes have the same function.

The problem with this reasoning is that it strains at the gnat of similarities and swallows the camel negative evidences for common descent, and of how the ape or human could have arisen all by itself in the first place.

Or place apparent tooth-making genes in modern birds.

This is evolutionary mythology. We've gone over it in this thread. Doubting D. wants to stick to the myth because that is what the authors of a paper concluded. But since evolution is the going paradigm, conclusions are routinely given evolutionary spins. Whether or not the data actually support evolution is another matter.

Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees.

But the HERVs argue against common descent. You need a just-so story to explain the data.

Or put a telomere in the middle of the second human chromosome, suggesting the fusion of two ancestral telomeres (which must have happened in one of the first generations if humans are specially created, since we all have these telomeres).

Genotype changes can become fixed without being in an early generation. The explanation for human chromosome 2 does not entail common descent or macroevolution.

Yes, the Intelligent Designer could have done all these things, and many more, and if we are to follow your counsel, we should refrain from making any conclusions from these phenomena.

You are mischaracterizing my point, which is that the scientific data argue *against* evolution and common descent. Secondly, if you want to make arguments about what God should do, then, yes, I would argue that you need to be open and clear about your religious beliefs. I am by no means arguing we ought to turn a blind eye to all those evidences which are, according to you, obviously explained by evolution or common descent, but require a just-so story under creationism. I think you, in practically every case, misinterpret the data so it fits evolution very well.

Yes, s/he/it may have had reasons we cannot comprehend. Yet, if the Designer is not impotent, s/he/it could have created in any of an infinite number of other ways without so much as offering the slightest suggestion that common descent was at play. It wasn't the brutality of nature that concerned me as I contemplated God's role in creation, but rather the sense that s/he/it began to appear deceitful if s/he/it had not in fact used evolution as a tool of creation. In denying evolution, I began to feel like the proverbial creationists who suggested that God deliberately planted fossils of extinct fauna in the earth to test our faith. This was the crux for me: If God, who could have created in any way s/he/it saw fit, chose to create in such a way that common descent made sense, when in fact common descent did not happen, then how could I possibly trust God in any other matter?

Given your premises I agree with your conclusion.

As E.O. Wilson put it:

"Perhaps God did create all organisms, including human beings, in finished form, in one stroke, and maybe it all happened several thousand years ago. But if that is true, He also salted the earth with false evidence in such endless and exquisite detail, and so thoroughly from pole to pole, as to make us conclude first that life evolved, and second that the process took billions of years. Surely Scripture tells us He would not do that. The Prime Mover of the Old and New Testaments is variously loving, magisterial, denying, thunderously angry, and mysterious, but never tricky [with the possible exception of the story in which God sent a lying spirit to the prophets--Ken] (Consilience, p. 141).

This is evolutionary mythology. I could turn that argument around and arrive at a much stronger conclusion. How deceptive it would be for God to use evolution when the very species defy evolution. It is a wonder that man could come up with evolution given what we know. Even moreso, that he would claim it to be fact. Even moreso that he would accuse God of deception.

Are you willing to give up truthfulness as an attribute of the Intelligent Designer in an effort to paint evolutionists as theologically motivated? ... I'd like a straight answer from you on this.

Of course not. I don't need to. I'm not painting evolutionists as theologically motivated, they did a fine job of that themselves. Just read through this thread.

In what ways could God have pre-empted the appearance of common descent, and by so doing, nipped any possible theory of evolution in the bud? In other words, what kinds of show-stoppers could s/he/it have planted? Here are a few:

1) By creating the universe with the appearance of youth, thereby unmistakably denying evolution the time it needed to happen. Instead, we witness supernova explosions up to 9 billion light years away.
2) By making the fossil record follow any of millions of possible sequences other than the one that it in fact follows, with complex forms appearing in only the higher layers.
3) By taking care not to introduce apparent atavisms like hen's teeth and horse toes (to quote the title of a Gould book).
4) By not putting morphologically similar (but significantly different) extinct species in the same geographical location as extant creatures.
5) By creating an inseparable gap between humans and the creatures most closely allied with them genetically. As it is, we share between 95 and 99% of our genome with chimps, and the fossil record provides morphologically intermediate forms between the chimps and us. If cows or dogs were the most similar creatures to us, modern evolution could never have gotten off the ground.
6) By using similar forms (e.g., cartilaginous fins) for similar functions (aquatic maneuvering), rather than different forms (e.g., a pentadactyl structure) for similar functions, differentiated by lines of descent proposed on other independent grounds.
7) By tightly constraining the variability of populations within species such that, for example, the striking variety of dog breeds developed within human history, or human races themselves, could not have arisen.
8) By taking care not to introduce any of the other 29+ evidences of macroevolution discussed in the article of the same title (sans any real theological considerations).

You greatly underestimate man's creativity and will to believe. I suspect that evolution is one of many false tales man could tell about origins. Furthermore, I doubt many of your items above could stop the evolution roller coaster. You want a different fossil record, but the fossils appear planted there. Isn't this good enough for you? Oh, you don't like those transitions. You want God to make every single species completely independent of each other. Sorry, but this is hardly a case for deception. All of us species have to live in the same biosphere under the same natural laws.

There is no hen's teeth atavism, you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.

You want an inseparable gap between humans and chimps? I cannot fathom what this complaint is about. What more of a gap could you ask for? The chasm between chimps and humans is enormous. Do you really think a few point mutations here and there in protein coding sequences are going to make a chimp become a human?

You want tightly constrained variability in populations. But this would entirely change the nature of adaptability. Aren't you satisfied that adaptability is the result of an incredibly complex machine? The more we learn, the more we're amazed.

The list could be endless. That things are the way they are does not prove macro evolution, but note that evolution could not be true if reality were significantly different than it in fact is.

You underestimate evolution's adaptability. It is hardly narrowly contingent on the specifics of biology.

The world didn't have to be old. It is. Dolphins didn't have to have five fingers. They do. Complex forms could have been found in the lower strata. They haven't been found, nor will they be. If a rabbit skeleton is some day found in the pre-Cambrian, then we can all give up this debate and take a rest, acknowledging the creationists were right all along.

C'mon God, dazzle us with things that make no sense. Pull a rabbit out of a hat; show us just one more miracle, then we'll believe. Right ...

You may protest that none of these phenomena really prove common descent, and that we only come to our conclusions by "connecting the dots."

No, you've missed my point. If common descent or evolution is compelling, then that is sufficient. Connecting the dots is fine.

Granted. But this isn't about mathematical proof. For me, it's about looking at the data and thinking, "What really happened?", regardless of what I want to be true, or how capable I might be in highlighting the difficulties in the theory. It's not a game! It's about truth.

Regardless of what you want to be true? You've got to be kidding? You've made all sorts of requirements for God. He isn't supposed to make the higher life forms last (#2), or put similar species in similar locations (#4). It seems to me that this very much is about what you "want to be true."

The predictive power of evolution impressed me the more I learned of the facts. For example, Nikishimi searched for and found an apparently non-functional vitamin C-producing gene in primates based on the fact that primates do not produce their vitamin C like other mammals. Here is my take on how the discovery proceeded:

1) It was discovered that most mammals do not need vitamin C in their diet;
2) Therefore, there must be a gene that produces vitamin C;
3) Based on (2), we've looked for and found the gene
4) Other mammals, i.e., guinea pigs, primates and humans, require an external source of vitamin C in their diet
5) These mammals therefore must not be able to produce vitamin C on their own.
6) On the theory of common descent, humans and primates share a common ancestor
7) On the theory of common descent, that common ancestor was a mammal
8) On the theory of common descent, that common ancestor or a predecessor, like other mammals, must have a vitamin C gene similar to that shared by other mammals.
9) On the theory of common descent, primates and humans (the descendants of primates) would be expected to have a non-functional vitamin C gene at the same location in the genome as that in other mammals.
10) On the basis of (6) thru (9), we look for that gene and find it in both primates and humans. Furthermore, we discover that this non-functional gene varies among species (humans, chimpanzees, orangs, macaques, etc.) in proportion to the distance between them in the standard phylogenetic tree.

#2 is wrong. There is a set of genes the comprise the vitamin C synthesis pathway. But that is an aside. Otherwise, that is a good example of evolution's predictive power. However, one doesn't need evolution to follow this trail. You are exaggerating its importance. C'mon, one hardly needs evolution to think to look for homologous genes in homologous locations in allied species (more below on this).

And like the HERVs, pseudogenes have their problematic cases, and in fact they do not align with other phylogenies as well as you seem to think. Indeed, there are rather interesting similarities between pseudogenes. Perhaps you missed our earlier discussion on this. I'll paste in my relevant comments:

You also fail to mention that the human and chimp GLO pseudogene alignment shares conserved substitution sites. For example,

The chimp to human alignment has these replacements:
38a to g
55c to t
83c to g
130c to t

and the chimp to orangutan (accession # AB025719) alignment has these replacements:

55c to t
75t to c
83c to g
85a to g
95t to c
96g to a
106a to g
131g to a
144c to t

There are 9/164 = .0549 fraction of residues that are replaced in the latter. So with any given replacement in the human alignment, you have a 0.0549 probability of hitting one of the orangutan's sites, or a .945 probability of not hitting it. Assuming random substitutions, the chances the human alignment not sharing any of the orangutan's substitution sites are ~.945^4 = 80% (this is not quite exact, but close enough to make my point). Or another way to put it, the expected number of hits is about 0.0549*4 ~.22 (again, this is not exact).

So in other words, given this number of residues, this number of replacements in the two cases, we don�t expect to see even a single common substitution site. Instead out of a total of 4 possible, we see two and a third that is off by only 1 residue.

These are similarities that evolution does not predict. Under evolution we must say, "gee, what a coincidence."

My point here is to show how integral the theory of common descent was to the reasoning that led to the discovery in (10). The kicker is not that humans and primates share some genes in common (like they share many other features), but that the existence of a non-functional (at least in respect to the production of vitamin C) gene could be predicted ahead of time before knowing whether it existed in either primates or humans. It is that specific prediction that sets apart the theory of common descent from its competition. Note that I am not making any of the metaphysical claims you accuse evolutionists of. I am simply saying that, in this case, and in many others, the theory is productive.

You are making a big to-do about nothing. No, you are not making the metaphysical claim, but you are short changing creationism and for some reason elevating evolution beyond warrant. It would be altogether natural for the creationist to ask the same questions. Indeed, though life scientists always make the obligatory evolutionary interpretation, it is rarely necessary. Someone went and asked a slew of life scientists if evolution was important and if it was important in guiding their own research. The answers were routinely, "yes" and "no," respectively. It is thought to be important generally. I'm not saying the vitamin C pseudogene research was not guided by evolution, but I'd be surprised if it was. The question is so obvious; it is simply absurd to think one needs evolution to guide us around else we'll be clueless in our research.

From an ID or creationist standpoint, there is no reason to predict that primates should have a vitamin C pseudogene without already knowing it.

Why not? These species obtain vitamin C from dietary sources, crippling mutations would therefore not be so serious and could become fixed in the population.

From an evolutionary perspective, we would think it likely that the genetic remnants of a functional vitamin C-producing gene should exist in the primates if the primates are descended from mammals that have a functional vitamin C-producing gene. What evolutionary theory predicts is the simple existence of the vitamin C pseudogene in primates (before even looking for it under the microscope), not its underlying mechanism.

You are fooling yourself. Do not think for a moment that failure to locate the GLO pseudogene would have falsified evolution. That could have been easily explained away.

As a former missionary linguist-to-be-Bible translator in Africa, I was impressed by the similarities and differences between the language I studied and a neighboring related language. I often thought about the principles I had learned in my one historical linguistic class, and I was fascinated by the patterns I could uncover, and puzzled by the instances that ran counter to the rules. But I never once doubted that the two languages shared a common ancestor. The geographical and morphological proximity of the two languages made it impossible to argue otherwise, in spite of the puzzles. What really happened? In broad lines, they descended from a common ancestor. Exactly how it happened, I have no clue.

Nor do I doubt that two languages can share a common ancestor. So what? You are not invoking spectacularly unlikely events. A people group split up and their once common language became two different languages. You are making a strawman argument. Creationists don't doubt such events. Or to put it another way, doubting the evolutionary process is not at all tantamount to doubting such events as language evolution.

You are gifted at drawing out puzzles and challenging the logical basis for our conclusions. But your attempts at undermining common descent ring hollow, simply because nature makes sense when seen through the lens of evolution. For all your prowess, effort and sincerity, you cannot change the facts, and the facts as a whole testify to the veracity of common descent.

I cannot say that evolution or common descent is false. I do think, however, that your claim that the facts as a whole testify to the veracity of common descent is false.

By the way, if you do accept the possibility of blind fish having descended from seeing fish, where in my list do you draw the line between what probably did happen and what probably did not happen, keeping open the possibility of an Intelligent Agent to bridge any probability gaps?

quote:
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If cave fish have seeing ancestors, then perhaps beetles with sealed wings have flying ancestors; deep-sea eye-stalk-toting blind crabs that withstand enormous water pressure may have seeing ancestors that cannot withstand such pressure; swift ostriches with powerful leg muscles may have flying ancestors that aren't as fleet of foot; and supremely capable swimmers like the penguins may have flying ancestors that can't match their diving abilities.
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I really would like to know where you draw the line and why...

I do not know precisely where I would draw the line. I would have to look into the details of each case.

Jack the Bodiless

September 23, 2003, 11:49 AM

Charles:
Evolutionist: Evolution is a fact.
CD: Really? What about these scientific problems?
Evolutionist: Oh, so you're saying evolution is impossible huh?

Do you see the false dichotomy here? If I cannot falsify evolution that does not mean it is a fact.
Evolution, however, IS a fact. Even creationists don't deny this. It sounds like you've relapsed into a creationist definition of "evolution" again. How, at this stage, can you justify claiming that a change in the frequency of alleles in populations is not a fact? Or that mutations aren't fact, or that natural selection is not fact?
Could, could, could? Yes, any of those transitions could have occurred. They all could have occurred. But they are not what science is pointing to. Surely you can see the difference between a fish losing a complex capability versus a fish becoming a giraffe with all of the additions that that entails.
Yes, that IS precisely what science is pointing to. Are you now arguing that the transitional forms between fishes and giraffes do not exist in the fossil record? Maybe you should have checked before saying that?

Furthermore, what is this new scientific principle you're introducing, that "additions are a problem"? How so? Perhaps you should have checked to see whether giraffes actually have any major organs that fish don't have, and checked that we don't have the transitional forms for those too, either in the fossil record or in living organisms?

You are, as usual, arguing from ignorance here.
What is unlikely about your series of transitions? Well, first there is the fossil record. As Carroll observes, the species don't form a spectrum of finely-graded intermedates. They almost always belong to a few, distinct major groups. Darwin's idea of extrapolating the observed small-scale change to macro change is challenged by the fossil record. Even evolutionists today question whether large-scale evolution is merely repeated rounds of small-scale change.
There are plenty of intermediates between fish and giraffes, and "punctuated equilibrium" IS repeated rounds of small-scale change. Nothing in the fossil record contradicts Darwinian evolution. Again, did you actually check before making this religious pronouncement?
Secondly, it is not as though breeding experience or evolutionary experiments reveal that adaptation and variation is unbounded in the sense that you require. All of our practical experience suggests it is not unbounded.
Again, you didn't check. Animal and plant breeders know very well that if they are trying to achieve a specific result, there is often a limit to the progress that can be made from selective breeding from a limited gene pool, until a mutation occurs which adds a desired gene to that pool.
Third, as I've already brought up, there is the issue of mutation rates, fixation probabilities, and the overall design space.
Do you believe that biologists are ignorant of mathematics? Again, you didn't check. The mathematics of probability features prominently in modern evolutionary biology.
Fourth, does there even exist such a finely-graded set of intermediates (answer: "we don't know")?
Correction: YOU don't know. Again, you didn't check, did you? Do you have even the foggiest notion how many fossil therapsids there are, for instance? Do you even know what a therapsid IS?
Fifth, how did the many new complexities evolve (designs that require multiple DNA substitutions)?
Such as... ?

Are you arguing that giraffes have an organ that fish don't have, and which requires multiple DNA substitutions to even begin to function (i.e. it cannot have developed in incremental steps)? What a pity you didn't check to see if the giraffe actually does have such an organ.

Are you beginning to see a pattern here?
Sixth, the small-scale change that we do observe are brought about by a highly complex adaptation system which evolution can only speculate about how it arose. Did evolution build an evolution machine? One which lays out future paths of change (as opposed to randomly exploring the design space).
How is this relevant to the issue at hand, which is the evolution of giraffes from fish?
So is your fish-to-giraffe evolution possible. Sure, all sorts of things are possible. There may be ETs on alpha-centuri too. What I am looking at is science, and what it indicates.
Nope, ignorance isn't science.

Jack the Bodiless

September 23, 2003, 12:23 PM

The problem with this reasoning is that it strains at the gnat of similarities and swallows the camel negative evidences for common descent...
This implies that there is a greater bulk of "negative evidence for common descent" than "similarities". Again, this is a statement of faith borne of ignorance.
Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees.

But the HERVs argue against common descent. You need a just-so story to explain the data.
Again, the sheer number of just-so stories required to make creationism work is staggering. Common descent is the most parsimonious explanation. But you belive that you, a non-biologist, are empowered by your God to overrule the professional opinion of the actual experts in this subject.
Genotype changes can become fixed without being in an early generation. The explanation for human chromosome 2 does not entail common descent or macroevolution.
It is a sucessful prediction. Based purely on the difference in chromosome count between humans and chimps, evolution allows us to PREDICT this result. Therefore it is undeniably a small part of the overwhelming evidence for common descent. One of millions of pieces of such evidence.
You are mischaracterizing my point, which is that the scientific data argue *against* evolution and common descent.
That is not your "point": that is your fundamentalist religious belief, fradulently stated as if it had a basis in fact.
This is evolutionary mythology. I could turn that argument around and arrive at a much stronger conclusion. How deceptive it would be for God to use evolution when the very species defy evolution.
...Except that they don't. :rolleyes:

And so it goes. You have uncritically accepted creationist propaganda because it fits your religious prejudices.
From an ID or creationist standpoint, there is no reason to predict that primates should have a vitamin C pseudogene without already knowing it.

Why not? These species obtain vitamin C from dietary sources, crippling mutations would therefore not be so serious and could become fixed in the population.
Not "crippling mutations": ONE SPECIFIC crippling mutation, shared by ALL primates because they are descended from a common ancestor.
Nor do I doubt that two languages can share a common ancestor. So what? You are not invoking spectacularly unlikely events. A people group split up and their once common language became two different languages. You are making a strawman argument. Creationists don't doubt such events. Or to put it another way, doubting the evolutionary process is not at all tantamount to doubting such events as language evolution.
...What are these "spectacularly unlikely" events?
I cannot say that evolution or common descent is false. I do think, however, that your claim that the facts as a whole testify to the veracity of common descent is false.
And we can say that your claim is false. I wonder what the experts say? Oh, wait...

lpetrich

September 23, 2003, 01:20 PM

(on making features with lots of underlying similarities...)

Charles Darwin:

God could do this, but wouldn't we prefer for Him to make all the species unambiguously different so we'd know for sure that evolution is impossible? ...

Like a creature with a bird's beak, a bat's wings, insect antennae, etc.

The problem with this reasoning is that it strains at the gnat of similarities and swallows the camel negative evidences for common descent, and of how the ape or human could have arisen all by itself in the first place.

Except that evolution is not about something being poofed into existence, but being produced by modification of something else.

"Charles Darwin" seems to imagine the origin of something as coming into existence with a big *POOF!*, and he seems to be asking "How can the evolution version of poofing possibly happen?"

Ken:
Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees.

But the HERVs argue against common descent. You need a just-so story to explain the data.

Only one HERV seems to be troublesome -- not all of them! And "Charles Darwin" has yet to explain how his pet hypothesis explains the pattern of HERV's that we see.

Furthermore, he has yet to explain why present-day horses are sometimes born with small side toes -- making their feet much like those of fossil "horses" with a toe on each side of each big middle toe. And the older fossil "horses" have toes that look more alike! And otherwise look less horse-like.

The explanation for human chromosome 2 does not entail common descent or macroevolution.

"Charles Darwin" has not explain why that chromosome was created with the appearance of being two fused chromosomes.

You are mischaracterizing my point, which is that the scientific data argue *against* evolution and common descent.

Let's apply "Charles Darwin's" reasoning to plagiarism cases. Let's imagine that he runs a map-printing company that sells a map of his hometown that includes the exact same errors as a map made by another map-printing company. Which decides to sue CD for plagiarism.

Using his arguments on evolution, CD would argue that his suer has no case, because that suer has not caught his company's staff copying that map, and because his company's staff had had good reasons for making those errors.

However, the jury disagrees, and CD's map company has to pay big sums to its suer, and it is soon out of business.

The inference of evolution is exactly parallel to the inference of plagiarism here -- one need not be able to follow all the details, and just-so stories are not reasonable counterevidence.

I'm not painting evolutionists as theologically motivated, they did a fine job of that themselves. Just read through this thread.

Pure projection.

You greatly underestimate man's creativity and will to believe.

You're telling me.

I suspect that evolution is one of many false tales man could tell about origins.

Look who's talking.

You want God to make every single species completely independent of each other. Sorry, but this is hardly a case for deception. All of us species have to live in the same biosphere under the same natural laws.

Except that these natural laws allow a LOT of variation. Where are the creatures with birds' beaks, bats' wings, and insect antennae?

C'mon God, dazzle us with things that make no sense. Pull a rabbit out of a hat; show us just one more miracle, then we'll believe. Right ...

Bertrand Russell once wrote that in the 1820's upstate New York that there was a prophetess who claimed that she would walk on water on a certain date. When big crowds showed up to watch her do that, she asked them:

"Are you all entirely convinced that I can walk on water?"

"Yes!!!"

"Then there is no need for me to do so."

From an ID or creationist standpoint, there is no reason to predict that primates should have a vitamin C pseudogene without already knowing it.

Why not? These species obtain vitamin C from dietary sources, crippling mutations would therefore not be so serious and could become fixed in the population.

In other words, evolution.

Ken

September 23, 2003, 01:25 PM

Thanks, JB, for your response to CD's response to me. As a relative neophite, I appreciate any support I can get. I simply wanted to lay out what it was that personally led me to consider evolution more than just wishful thinking. I'm not surprised that CD isn't impressed; I can only say what impressed me and continue following the debate as those more knowledgeable than I have their say.

Prince Vegita

September 23, 2003, 02:52 PM

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by NottyImp
No, I'd like to scientifically put special creation to the test. You appear to be telling me that I can't.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

CD replied:
The only way I know is to show that evolution is compelling.

Here CD shows his utter ignorance of the scientific method. The only way HE knows. :rolleyes:

1. exhaust all plausible naturalistic hypotheses
2. delineate between all creation myths on an objective basis, specifically hypothesis testing.
3. actually test said hypotheses to determine the "correct" creation myth.

Until he does these things, CD is engaging in the ultimate just-so story. He is merely espousing his belief.

Let's get him started: CD, please explain how to distinguish between the various forms of Christian creationism and determine the "correct" one, and also explain how we know Christian creationism is the "correct" religious creation myth. Then, get your fellow creationists to agree with you (haha), do some research that backs your predictions in a non-ad-hoc sort of way (snicker), and maybe then you'll be about ready to challenge what the actual science has to tell us.

Doubting Didymus

September 23, 2003, 06:50 PM

Originally posted by Badfish
I've seen this a hundred times, some could be monkeys...

Actually, come of them clearly are (apes, that is, not monkeys). The one right at the top left isn't actually a fossil, it's a modern chimpanzee skull. The point of the picture is to show that there is a clear transitional sequence from chimps, our closest living relative, and modern man. I wouldn't even know where to begin trying to separate the apes from the men in the picture above. It'd be like asking where on a greyscale spectrum does black turn to white. Tellingly, no two creationists can decide either.

The fact that these skulls are not organised in the above sequence according to where they come in the transitional sequence, but by their antiquity is just the icing on the cake. It's just another example of two independant fields (geological dating methods and morphological analysis in this case) agreeing on the same evolutionary conclusion.

Doubting Didymus

September 23, 2003, 06:55 PM

There's a sherlock holmes quote that I constantly strive to remember in cases like this. Something like "when evidence from seemingly unrelated sources points to the same conclusion we must always give it our strictest attention". I think it's from hound of the baskervilles. Does anyone know the precise quote?

markfiend

September 24, 2003, 04:46 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
I would argue that you need to be open and clear about your religious beliefs.

I think you, in practically every case, misinterpret the data so it fits evolution very well.

I'm not painting evolutionists as theologically motivated, they did a fine job of that themselves. Just read through this thread.

You greatly underestimate man's creativity and will to believe.

you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.

It seems to me that this very much is about what you "want to be true."
http://www.markfiend.com/images/ironymeter.gif

Jack the Bodiless

September 24, 2003, 06:14 AM

Charles:
Evolutionists here touted the vestigial argument as being much stronger than it is. In fact, it seems to me that it falls apart on scrutiny.
It would certainly help your case if you could provide an actual example of a case which "falls apart on scrutiny", yes?

So far, you have failed to do so. Your "vestigial organs cannot have any function at all" strawman has been thoroughly incinerated, and that appears to be all you had.

Now I think it's quite likely that the higher concentration of immune-system structures in the human appendix evolved precisely because the appendix is a major avenue of infection. And I wouldn't be at all surprised if there's a cave fish somewhere that has better immune-system defenses in its useless eyeballs for the same reason. If this turns out to be the case, will you argue that the eyeballs are "part of the immune system" and therefore have never been eyes at all?

The problem with this argument is that it is ludicrous. This is a criterion that YOU consider to be legitimate:
But, in fact, it is you who are saying what the Designer would or would not do. You don't like what you observe in nature, so you believe God wouldn't have make it that way. This is your evidence for common descent. But since evolution is ludicrous, you invoke your Designer to step in, being careful to keep him at a distance from those designs you don't like.
Unfortunately, everything about special creation fails the "ludicrousness test". It is ludicrous to suggest that vestigial eyes were never eyes, ludicrous to deny that the appendix is a vestigial section of gut, ludicrous to pretend that ostriches don't have wings.

Of course, many aspects of science fail the "ludicrousness test" also, especially in physics. It is ludicrous to suggest that matter is mostly empty space, ludicrous to claim that the speed of light is independent of the velocity of the observer... and don't even get me started on quantum theory.

But you have failed to explain why evolution is ludicrous. Unlike modern physics, it doesn't require rewriting scientific laws. You've mumbled something about mathematical probability and "enormous space of alternatives", and cited (or, rather, mentioned in passing) a book written in 1967 (ancient history in the field of genetics). But, so far, nothing has come of this except mathematical fallacies: the coin-flipping fallacy and the "too many harmful mutations" fallacy (a variant of the standard creationist "let's ignore natural selection" fallacy).

Harmful mutations aren't a problem unless they overwhelm the creature's reproductive rate. If a mated couple have 10 offspring in their lifetime, even a 50% rate of lethal mutations will leave 5 survivors, more than enough to cause a population explosion leading to fierce competition and natural selection in which beneficial mutations (no matter how rare) will eventually prevail.

A lethal mutation rate in excess of 80% would cause problems in the scenario above, as there wouldn't be enough survivors to replace the parents, leading to extinction. However, this is not happening: species aren't on a universal downward slide to extinction. Of course, creationists might argue otherwise, citing "the Fall": however, the huge rate of lethal mutations required for this would be very obvious.

So, given that this isn't happening, evolution is the inevitable outcome.
You greatly underestimate man's creativity and will to believe. I suspect that evolution is one of many false tales man could tell about origins. Furthermore, I doubt many of your items above could stop the evolution roller coaster. You want a different fossil record, but the fossils appear planted there. Isn't this good enough for you?
The existence of millions of fossils perfectly arranged in the evolutionary "Tree of Life" sequence of common descent, with abundant transitional forms between the major groups, would certainly pose a problem for the credibility of creationism. It's equivalent to claiming that God is lying to us, by faking overwhelming evidence for evolution (or, at least, common descent). And creationists are well aware of this.

Hence, they invented the Fantasy Fossil Record.

The Fantasy Fossil Record has characteristics that are markedly different from the actual one. Far fewer fossils, for instance, and a lack of transitional forms. Also, fossils in the FFR are "context-free": they never appear in strata that can be dated, for instance. Hence, "evolutionists" in the FFR universe simply plug the fossils into the place that their religion dictates, without actual data.

Amazingly, the Fantasy Fossil Record is constructed entirely on the misrepresentation of the views of people who don't believe in it! People like Stephen J. Gould and Niles Eldredge, of "punctuated equilibrium" fame. Creationists atually expect us to believe that the author of "The Triumph of Evolution and the Failure of Creationism" considers the fossil evidence to support the opposite conclusion!

Even knowledgeable creationists reject this baloney. Kurt Wise (the only creationist with a PhD in paleontology that I've ever heard of, and probably the only one in the world) has openly admitted that the fossil record overwhelmingly supports common descent, and that his religious faith is the only reason he won't accept this. Of course, non-fundie Christians who know about such things are also aware that the Fantasy Fossil Record doesn't represent reality.

monkenstick

September 24, 2003, 06:56 AM

charley, the existence of pseudogenes like GLO is both confirmation of evolution and a huge problem for ID/YEC

I think the urate oxidase pseudogene is an even better example - humans have no functional enzyme to break down uric acid, which is one of the reasons we can get gout.
Other mammals such as mice, do however have this gene.

It turns out that all surveyed members of the family hominidae (orangutans, gorillas, chimps and us) have a urate oxidase pseudogene, with a crippling premature stop codon in the same place.

It doesn't function as urate oxidase, because it is broken, yet it is 95 percent homologous to a fucntioning urate oxidase gene in spider-monkeys

So why is a broken gene distributed among primates in a manner entirely consistent with common descent?

Neither ID or YEC has a reasonable explanation for its existence

markfiend

September 24, 2003, 07:23 AM

monkenstick:
So why is a broken gene distributed among primates in a manner entirely consistent with common descent?

Neither ID or YEC has a reasonable explanation for its existence
Judging from previous behaviour on this thread, you can take it for granted that ol' CD will handwave an explanation, or say "I'll let you have the last word" or "OK, I give" or somesuch.

And then bring the subject up again in 300 posts' time as a point in his favour. :mad:

Jack the Bodiless

September 24, 2003, 10:41 AM

...Incidentally:
There is no hen's teeth atavism, you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.
Now, you WILL be supplying some sort of support for this assertion eventually, yes?

caravelair

September 24, 2003, 01:41 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Creationists (at least this one) do not assert that they must be functionless to be vestigial; creationists assert that the argument fails.

oh come now. when we started talking about vestigial characteristics, you immediately said something along the lines of how they keep finding functions for such characteristics. certainly that implies that you don't think an organ with function is vestigial.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
By what virtue are vestigial structures particularly good evidence for evolution? Would you agree that evolutionists do say that vestigial structures have undergone a reduction in function, of some sort? And that it is by virtue of this reduced function that they serve as evidence?

once again, they fulfill a prediction of evolution, and therefore count as evidence. evolution explains these things perfectly, by saying that the organisms evolved from ancestors who used these organs the way they are used in similar creatures. for example, the ostrich would have evolved from birds that used their wings for flight. the blind fish evolved from ones that used their eyes for sight. now, this also has the potential to contradict our current view of evolution, for example, if a human had vestigial wings, it would make no sense, since humans did not evolve from flying creatures. however, as far as i know, vestigial characteristics that we have found so far are completely consistant with out view of evolution. on the other hand, i don't see how special creation could possibly explain these things beyond "god just made it that way". which doesn't explain very much at all.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Assuming you agree; but then what happens when a perfectly good funtion is indeed discovered?

nothing. because, as we discussed, vestigial organs do not need to be functionless. besides, it is clear than many things, like blind eyes, do not have a "perfectly good function". unless of course, you've thought of one that no one in the world ever has before.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
An insect wing becomes a highly advanced gyro, the ostrich wing is a balancer,

but the point is, there is no reason an ostrich would need a wing shaped structure just for balancing. monkeys seem to find tails particularly useful for balancing, and those are much more simple structures, so why wouldn't ostriches have 2 tails sticking out the sides of them, instead of wings? why do they have feathers at all, if they don't fly? why not hair?

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
other designs are supposed to have become vestigial and then evolved to provide all sorts of functions. What happens is that the design *continues* to be considered to be vestigial and as good evidence for evolution. So reduced function or lack of function is, in fact, *not* required for the structure to serve as evidence.

you're ignoring the fact that vestigial means reduced or rudimentary function COMPARED TO THE SAME STRUCTURE IN OTHER ORGANISMS.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
By what virtue does the structure served as evidence? It is by the presupposition that evolution is true, and that therefore the design must have evolved from that of some cousin species, and since it must have evolved, it is evidence for evolution. But of course, this is circular.

it is not based on that presupposition at all. as i said before, it fulfills a specific prediction of evolution, and therefore is evidence of it. evolution predicts it. it's there. end of story. no presuppositions involved.

just out of curiosity, exactly what type of evidence would you need to see to be convinced of evolution? would you be convinced by ANY evidence, or have you closed your mind completely to the possibility? give me an example of something you think would be convincing evidence of evolution, if such evidence existed.

Ken

September 25, 2003, 02:02 PM

What convinced me that common descent was inescapable was its explanatory power. When comparing special creation with common descent, the latter neatly explained too many phenomena that the former could only take ad-hoc stabs at. Certainly, an all-powerful Intelligent Designer could do anything s/he/it decided to do, e.g., give five fingers to a dolphin and amorphous cartilage to a shark for much the same function. Or give humans sparse body hair that rises on end in the face of cold or fear, just as apes have fur that stands out to insulate from cold or make the body appear larger when threatened.

God could do this, but wouldn't we prefer for Him to make all the species unambiguously different so we'd know for sure that evolution is impossible? Why would He make hairs on humans and apes have the same function.

I'm just looking at appearances. It makes sense from the perspective of common descent that our body hair should stand on end in the same circumstances in which it stands on end for apes, though for apes the purpose is discernable, while for humans it's less clear. I'm not claiming this to be a proof of evolution, but it's just one in a series of circumstantial "things to think about" department that "fit" if evolution is true but are simply curiosities from an ID perspective.

The problem with this reasoning is that it strains at the gnat of similarities and swallows the camel negative evidences for common descent, and of how the ape or human could have arisen all by itself in the first place.

You've shared with us a couple hairs of the camel of negative evidence for common descent (e.g., missing HERV). Do you have others in mind?

In my post before last, I made a clear distinction between common descent and evolutionary theory. Initially I'm only interested in the evidence for and against common descent, leaving open divinely guided evolution as a way of getting around the "how" problem you keep bringing into the discussion. I can't speak for the other contributors to this thread, but my preference is to evaluate the evidence for and against bare common descent before discussing the mechanism. The two questions are logically independent, even if they are usually lumped together in practice.

Or place apparent tooth-making genes in modern birds.

This is evolutionary mythology. We've gone over it in this thread. Doubting D. wants to stick to the myth because that is what the authors of a paper concluded. But since evolution is the going paradigm, conclusions are routinely given evolutionary spins. Whether or not the data actually support evolution is another matter.

I have not read the detailed journal description, but I have enough faith in the researchers to know that they would not have published anything about dormant teeth genes if it were possible to add certain mouse genes to any old chicken gene to make teeth. Furthermore, I assume they knew which chicken gene(s) to choose based on its placement in the genome relative to genes responsible for teeth formation in other species. You can't just dismiss this so easily. How simple a matter it would have been for the Intelligent Designer to make the chicken gene(s) unreceptive to tooth formation, and then our poor gullible minds would not have been led astray! It would have been much easier to make these genes unable to contribute to tooth formation than not, since it requires a specific set of functions to make teeth, even with the help of the mouse genes. If this were not so, the researchers could have simply used mouse genes to instruct our appendix gene(s), for example, to make teeth!

More later...

Ken

lpetrich

September 25, 2003, 03:06 PM

The original Charles Darwin noted some common pre-Darwinian views in Chapter 13 of his Origin of Species; in a section on "rudimentary, atrophied, or aborted organs", he states:
I have now given the leading facts with respect to rudimentary organs. In reflecting on them, every one must be struck with astonishment: for the same reasoning power which tells us plainly that most parts and organs are exquisitely adapted for certain purposes, tells us with equal plainness that these rudimentary or atrophied organs, are imperfect and useless. In works on natural history rudimentary organs are generally said to have been created `for the sake of symmetry,' or in order `to complete the scheme of nature;' but this seems to me no explanation, merely a restatement of the fact.This suggests that a common pre-Darwinian view was that such features are present for the sake of completeness, that an organism would not be complete without them.

Thus, we would not be complete without:

Gill pouches and fishlike blood circulation as embryos
An appendix
A tailbone (coccyx) and an embryonic tail
Weak brow ridges
Skull and pelvic bones that start off separate and become fused
Wisdom teeth
GLO and urate-oxidase pseudogenes

However, this view is not very popular among present-day creationists, who often prefer to argue that there is no such thing as a vestigial feature.

Charles Darwin

September 25, 2003, 03:48 PM

Originally posted by caravelair
oh come now. when we started talking about vestigial characteristics, you immediately said something along the lines of how they keep finding functions for such characteristics. certainly that implies that you don't think an organ with function is vestigial.

once again, they fulfill a prediction of evolution, and therefore count as evidence. evolution explains these things perfectly, by saying that the organisms evolved from ancestors who used these organs the way they are used in similar creatures. for example, the ostrich would have evolved from birds that used their wings for flight. the blind fish evolved from ones that used their eyes for sight. now, this also has the potential to contradict our current view of evolution, for example, if a human had vestigial wings, it would make no sense, since humans did not evolve from flying creatures. however, as far as i know, vestigial characteristics that we have found so far are completely consistant with out view of evolution. on the other hand, i don't see how special creation could possibly explain these things beyond "god just made it that way". which doesn't explain very much at all.

nothing. because, as we discussed, vestigial organs do not need to be functionless. besides, it is clear than many things, like blind eyes, do not have a "perfectly good function". unless of course, you've thought of one that no one in the world ever has before.

but the point is, there is no reason an ostrich would need a wing shaped structure just for balancing. monkeys seem to find tails particularly useful for balancing, and those are much more simple structures, so why wouldn't ostriches have 2 tails sticking out the sides of them, instead of wings? why do they have feathers at all, if they don't fly? why not hair?

you're ignoring the fact that vestigial means reduced or rudimentary function COMPARED TO THE SAME STRUCTURE IN OTHER ORGANISMS.

it is not based on that presupposition at all. as i said before, it fulfills a specific prediction of evolution, and therefore is evidence of it. evolution predicts it. it's there. end of story. no presuppositions involved.

just out of curiosity, exactly what type of evidence would you need to see to be convinced of evolution? would you be convinced by ANY evidence, or have you closed your mind completely to the possibility? give me an example of something you think would be convincing evidence of evolution, if such evidence existed.

Indeed, good points. I was not fully representing the vestigial argument and I appreciate your fleshing that out. You are rightly adding to the argument the notion that a structure is vestigial and evidence for evolution by virtue of its similarity with corresponding structures in allied species.

First, I'm certainly not doubting that similarities between species, in general, are evidence for evolution. So in that sense I completely agree with you. My point was that the argument for evolution, from vestigial structures, does not go beyond this more general point. Do vestigial structures provide evidence? Yes, by virtue of their being similar to corresponding structures in allied species.

But not by virtue of their reduced or modified function. I have read evolutionists who are quite sure that the function of the 'vestigial' structure is inefficient or practically worthless, and hence it is obvious evidence for evolution. But such judgements are subjective, for we haven't measured the utility at all times, and in all ways, for the whale's 'pelvis' structure, for example.

Now back to your point. First, you say the vestigial structures 'fulfill a prediction of evolution.' This is a stretch. Yes, they fulfill the general prediction of similarities between species, but their reduced function is not a prediction of evolution. Failure to find such structures could easily be accommodated by explaining that the structure had to be dispensed with right off because of the burden it presented. Hence, it either had to be improved, or it had to be removed. Slow removal is not allowed. Evolution does not predict reduced function structures.

Now on to what I think is your main point:

you're ignoring the fact that vestigial means reduced or rudimentary function COMPARED TO THE SAME STRUCTURE IN OTHER ORGANISMS.

which really consists of two separation arguments, one for evolution and one against creatrionism. As I've said, I agree with the general argument that the similarity is evidence for evolution. Beyond that this evidence doesn't provide any special evidence for evolution. Regarding creationism, you write:

i don't see how special creation could possibly explain these things beyond "god just made it that way". which doesn't explain very much at all.

You use the ostrich wings being used for balancers as an example. Why not a tail, or anything else? Why something that just happens to look quite like the structure on birds that fly?

First, do you see that this is where the real strength of the argument from vestigial structures lies? You say evolution explains them perfectly, but in fact it doesn't. Yes, it explains them, but only in a superficial sense. It does not explain how such structures arose in the first place, nor does it require vestigial structures. It is really a high level story that accommodates a wide range of evidences. The strength here is the argument against creationism; which boils down to an argument against God creating things like this. It is a religious argument.

Second, when you ask why was not some other sort of balancer used for the ostrich, you assume that wings and feathers have no use but flight, and so using them as balancers is ad hoc. But what if wings have other uses (as indeed evolutionists have often argued). For storage, they wrap around the body rather nicely; for protection and warmth they might come in handy; and so forth. These are just possibilities. My point is that it is not clear, to me anyway, that the design is ad hoc.

Charles Darwin

September 25, 2003, 05:57 PM

quote: Posted by CD
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

You also fail to mention that the human and chimp GLO pseudogene alignment shares conserved substitution sites. For example,

The chimp to human alignment has these replacements:
38a to g
55c to t
83c to g
130c to t

and the chimp to orangutan (accession # AB025719) alignment has these replacements:

55c to t
75t to c
83c to g
85a to g
95t to c
96g to a
106a to g
131g to a
144c to t

There are 9/164 = .0549 fraction of residues that are replaced in the latter. So with any given replacement in the human alignment, you have a 0.0549 probability of hitting one of the orangutan's sites, or a .945 probability of not hitting it. Assuming random substitutions, the chances the human alignment not sharing any of the orangutan's substitution sites are ~.945^4 = 80% (this is not quite exact, but close enough to make my point). Or another way to put it, the expected number of hits is about 0.0549*4 ~.22 (again, this is not exact).

So in other words, given this number of residues, this number of replacements in the two cases, we don�t expect to see even a single common substitution site. Instead out of a total of 4 possible, we see two and a third that is off by only 1 residue.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by monkenstick
charley, the existence of pseudogenes like GLO is both confirmation of evolution and a huge problem for ID/YEC

I think the urate oxidase pseudogene is an even better example - humans have no functional enzyme to break down uric acid, which is one of the reasons we can get gout.
Other mammals such as mice, do however have this gene.

It turns out that all surveyed members of the family hominidae (orangutans, gorillas, chimps and us) have a urate oxidase pseudogene, with a crippling premature stop codon in the same place.

It doesn't function as urate oxidase, because it is broken, yet it is 95 percent homologous to a fucntioning urate oxidase gene in spider-monkeys

So why is a broken gene distributed among primates in a manner entirely consistent with common descent?

Neither ID or YEC has a reasonable explanation for its existence

I get your drift, unfortunately you didn't get mine. Please read my post above, and then answer this question: Why are, according to evolution, correlations in post-speciation mutations meaningless whereas the correlations in the crippling mutation taken as so meaningful? Or in other words, how can you be so sure that the correlation of the crippling mutation indicates that the mutation must have occured in an ancestral segment when there exist other correlations which must have occurred independently?

monkenstick

September 25, 2003, 07:44 PM

Why are, according to evolution, correlations in post-speciation mutations meaningless whereas the correlations in the crippling mutation taken as so meaningful?
I don't know where you got that idea, in constructing a phylogentic tree using something like the urate oxidase pseudogene, the method is blind to the consequences of any mutation.

Or in other words, how can you be so sure that the correlation of the crippling mutation indicates that the mutation must have occured in an ancestral segment when there exist other correlations which must have occurred independently?
Because the crippling mutation is shared by all members of a monophyletic group. You seem to be suggesting that the same crippling mutation could occur in the same place independently.

Jack the Bodiless

September 26, 2003, 03:39 AM

First, do you see that this is where the real strength of the argument from vestigial structures lies? You say evolution explains them perfectly, but in fact it doesn't. Yes, it explains them, but only in a superficial sense. It does not explain how such structures arose in the first place, nor does it require vestigial structures. It is really a high level story that accommodates a wide range of evidences. The strength here is the argument against creationism; which boils down to an argument against God creating things like this. It is a religious argument.
No, it isn't.

Evolution (or, rather, common descent) implies that, while some redundant features will disappear and others will survive as vestigial features, those that survive as vestigial features will show the creature's ancestry.

Ostriches have vestigial wings, but they don't have vestigial antennae. Humans have vestigial appendixes and tails, but not vestigial wings. And so on. There are thousands upon thousands of similar examples, providing a staggeringly huge body of evidence against ANY theory that isn't based on common descent.

Hence, common descent is "fact". Therfore special creation isn't worthy of consideration, and there is no need to speculate on what the God of special creation may or may not have done, because special creation didn't happen.

BTW, you still have provided no justification for this claim:
There is no hen's teeth atavism, you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.
...And I will keep reminding you of this until you do.

Ken

September 26, 2003, 01:02 PM

Or cause additional lateral toes to appear in some (not all) horses. Or give some (not all) whales what appear to be atavistic femurs. Or cause pseudogenes or HERVs to corroborate, at least roughly, with phylogenies constructed on independent grounds, even when the relationships are not intuitive, e.g., that between elephants and manatees.

But the HERVs argue against common descent. You need a just-so story to explain the data.

You've given us one case where HERVs argue against common descent. Rather than assuming this has no explanation, let's wait to find out whether in fact there may exist traces of the HERV in question, or whether this may be a different kind of HERV (or not an HERV altogether) that is more prone to disappearing from the genome than other HERVs. If indeed there is no possible explanation for the disappearance of this HERV, then that would indeed be good evidence against common descent, and I would be willing to reconsider my position. But there are so many instances that do testify to common descent that I would be surprised if a good explanation for the missing human HERV is not forthcoming. I will go further out on a limb and make this prediction: A reasonable explantion for the missing HERV will come to light. If it does, then will you be willing to accept it as a argument against your position?

Or put a telomere in the middle of the second human chromosome, suggesting the fusion of two ancestral telomeres (which must have happened in one of the first generations if humans are specially created, since we all have these telomeres).

Genotype changes can become fixed without being in an early generation. The explanation for human chromosome 2 does not entail common descent or macroevolution.

Yes, assuming the sub-populations (i.e., races) have interbred. But once you have isolated populations (e.g., Australian Aboriginees), this is no longer feasible. But the main point, as others have expressed, is that given this data:

1) Chimps, the animals most closely allied to humans genetically, have 24 sets of chromosomes, and

2) Humans have 23 sets of chromosomes,

then, not knowing anything about the actual structure of the chromosomes, the only reasonable way to account for the difference, from the perspective of common descent, is to posit a fusion event sometime after the split of the chimp-human lineage. Why? Because it highly unlikely for a creature to lose a whole chromosome and survive. So when evidence of fusion was discovered (i.e., telomeres in chromosome 2), this was a fulfillment of evolutionary prediction.

Now, you can say "Big deal! This doesn't preclude special creation, nor is it surprising in the light of special creation." But here's the point, a point which can be made for hundreds of other like phenomena (e.g., nested hierarchies): While special creation could accommodate either outcome (e.g., fusion or no fusion, nested hierarchies or no nested hierarchies), evolution could not be true (or would suffer a great setback) if it were any other way (e.g., evidence that fusion had not occurred).

More later,

Ken

Charles Darwin

September 26, 2003, 09:38 PM

Originally posted by monkenstick
I don't know where you got that idea, in constructing a phylogentic tree using something like the urate oxidase pseudogene, the method is blind to the consequences of any mutation.

Because the crippling mutation is shared by all members of a monophyletic group. You seem to be suggesting that the same crippling mutation could occur in the same place independently.

Ah hah! Now I see why you were not understanding me; I wasn't making much sense is why. Note to self: Don't try to compute phylogenies in your head.

Please ignore my earlier posts about the GLO pseudogene. I'd like to think about it some more, but for now, yes I agree with you. It is not that pseudogene evidence is perfect, but you make a good point. It is evidence for common descent and evolution. But I would like to think on it a bit more.

caravelair

September 27, 2003, 08:25 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Indeed, good points. I was not fully representing the vestigial argument and I appreciate your fleshing that out. You are rightly adding to the argument the notion that a structure is vestigial and evidence for evolution by virtue of its similarity with corresponding structures in allied species.

First, I'm certainly not doubting that similarities between species, in general, are evidence for evolution. So in that sense I completely agree with you. My point was that the argument for evolution, from vestigial structures, does not go beyond this more general point. Do vestigial structures provide evidence? Yes, by virtue of their being similar to corresponding structures in allied species.

But not by virtue of their reduced or modified function. I have read evolutionists who are quite sure that the function of the 'vestigial' structure is inefficient or practically worthless, and hence it is obvious evidence for evolution. But such judgements are subjective, for we haven't measured the utility at all times, and in all ways, for the whale's 'pelvis' structure, for example.

i disagree with you. i think it is the combination of similarity in structure, and dissimilarity in function that is the meat of the argument of vestigial structures. you don't need to determine that the structure itself is useless, you simply have to compare the function of the structure relative to the function of similar structures in other organisms, and that is not subjective.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Now back to your point. First, you say the vestigial structures 'fulfill a prediction of evolution.' This is a stretch. Yes, they fulfill the general prediction of similarities between species, but their reduced function is not a prediction of evolution.

sure it is. because evolution predicts that as an organism evolves and changes with its environment, certain structures will no longer be useful to that organism, and this would result in those structures evolving reduced or changed function. for example, if whales evolved from land-based mammals (with legs), then legs would not be useful for them in the water, a tail would be much more useful. so we would expect the legs to evolve away gradually, since they are not useful, and we would expect vestiges which are not a disadvantage to the whale, like a pelvis, to remain. i feel i'm not articulating this well, so i hope you understand my point.

on another note, not only do we have the whales pelvis as evidence that they evolved from creatures with legs, but we also see atavisms in whales, where whales are occasionally born with back leg structures. these are 2 independant pieces of evidence, which both point to the same thing. to me, that makes it even more convincing.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Failure to find such structures could easily be accommodated by explaining that the structure had to be dispensed with right off because of the burden it presented. Hence, it either had to be improved, or it had to be removed. Slow removal is not allowed. Evolution does not predict reduced function structures.

but evolution does not do anything "right off". slow removal is the only possible type of removal. and i don't think that those structures would present an immediate burden, because at one time, those structures would have been an advantage, and organisms evolve to change niches very gradually. again, i'm not sure if i'm articulating what i mean very well. furthermore, if a structure became useless, it is not necessary that the whole structure be removed, because a part of the structure might not present a disadvantage to the organism, it might be neutral. like the whale's pelvis structure. the legs were a disadvantage, so they disappeared, but the pelvis has very little effect, if any. thus, the result is a vestigial pelvis.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
First, do you see that this is where the real strength of the argument from vestigial structures lies? You say evolution explains them perfectly, but in fact it doesn't. Yes, it explains them, but only in a superficial sense. It does not explain how such structures arose in the first place, nor does it require vestigial structures.

it certainly does explain how the vestigial structures arose. through evolution. the organism evolved the structure through many small changes which were advantageous to the organism. and i believe it does require vestigial structures, because if we think that structures occasionally evolve away, then we should expect to find some remnants of these structures.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
It is really a high level story that accommodates a wide range of evidences. The strength here is the argument against creationism; which boils down to an argument against God creating things like this. It is a religious argument.

i agree that as an argument against creationism, it is based on an idea of what god would and would not do, which is not verifiable. but as an argument FOR evolution, it is not religious.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Second, when you ask why was not some other sort of balancer used for the ostrich, you assume that wings and feathers have no use but flight, and so using them as balancers is ad hoc. But what if wings have other uses (as indeed evolutionists have often argued). For storage, they wrap around the body rather nicely; for protection and warmth they might come in handy; and so forth. These are just possibilities. My point is that it is not clear, to me anyway, that the design is ad hoc.

i do not assume that they have no use but flight. indeed, i'm sure that feathers provide insulation, and ostriches probably use their wings for things other than flight. it's the comparison of these structures with those of other organisms that really tells us something about them. it seems to me that flight is a much more efficient, or direct use for these structures. that is to say, it appears (superficially) that these structures were "designed" for flight, as they are much more specified for that use.

caravelair

September 28, 2003, 11:48 AM

on second thought, i retract my statement that vestigial structures work only against special creation as a religious argument. it does work on that level, but it also works as a scientific argument against special creation by virtue of the fact that special creation presents no god explanation for these features, just as it presents no good explanation for anything in biology. with special creation, we just have "god made it that way", and we learn nothing beyond that. which is why it's so useless as a theory.

also, i asked you a question a few pages back, and you must have forgot to answer it, but i really would like to know your answer:

Originally posted by caravelair
just out of curiosity, exactly what type of evidence would you need to see to be convinced of evolution? would you be convinced by ANY evidence, or have you closed your mind completely to the possibility? give me an example of something you think would be convincing evidence of evolution, if such evidence existed.

Duvenoy

September 28, 2003, 09:04 PM

Just want to add that ostriches do indeed have a practical use for their wings. They, especally the male, use them in a fairly complicated, courtship ritual.

doov

Data

September 29, 2003, 05:43 AM

Originally posted by Duvenoy
Just want to add that ostriches do indeed have a practical use for their wings. They, especally the male, use them in a fairly complicated, courtship ritual.

doov
The vestigal wings of the New Zealand Kiwi would be a better example.

pangloss

September 29, 2003, 07:47 AM

I read a simplistic synopsis of this thread at the ARN den of simpletons, and it indicated that 'Charles Darwin' was busily explaining that the non-creationists here are all closed-minded and that we believe what we believe due to reasons other than evidence.

Skimming through this thread, I see nothing of the sort. On one of the other II forums, I had asked (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1119781#post1119781) Charles a simpel question - to supply supporting citations for one of his many claims.

I got no response whatsoever - just a dodge...

How very ironic.

Jack the Bodiless

September 29, 2003, 09:30 AM

I'm still waiting for him to support his assertion that:
There is no hen's teeth atavism, you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.
His interpretation should be checkable: mouse teeth, being typically mammalian (hence differentiated, with incisors, canines etc) should be quite different from the peg teeth of theropod dinosaurs, archaeopteryx etc. This is something the researchers should have noticed.

Charles Darwin

September 29, 2003, 10:04 PM

Originally posted by pangloss
On one of the other II forums, I had asked (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1119781#post1119781) Charles a simpel question - to supply supporting citations for one of his many claims.

I got no response whatsoever - just a dodge...

How very ironic.

Actually I did respond to your post. I explained that we had been instructed not to talk about evolution in that forum, so I couldn't go into the details in that thread. It was not a dodge. Now if you have some reasonable evidence that protein synthesis evolved I'd like to hear it.

Charles Darwin

September 29, 2003, 10:09 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
I'm still waiting for him to support his assertion that:

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
There is no hen's teeth atavism, you are uncritically swallowing bogus claims.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

His interpretation should be checkable: mouse teeth, being typically mammalian (hence differentiated, with incisors, canines etc) should be quite different from the peg teeth of theropod dinosaurs, archaeopteryx etc. This is something the researchers should have noticed.

Wait no more; simply read the posts. We discussed it earlier in this thread. The conclusion, according to Doubting D. and Ken: yes, your argument makes sense, but we'd rather believe the authors who interpret the results in favor of evolution (what a surprise!). Who cares about the facts.

Doubting Didymus

September 29, 2003, 11:21 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Wait no more; simply read the posts. We discussed it earlier in this thread. The conclusion, according to Doubting D. and Ken: yes, your argument makes sense, but we'd rather believe the authors who interpret the results in favor of evolution (what a surprise!). Who cares about the facts.

Wait, you never mentioned any facts. All you said was that your interpretation differs from the authors, apparently without any actual reason for doing so. No 'argument' was ever squeesed out of you at all. If you have facts that support the aforementioned position, please fire away.

Jack the Bodiless

September 30, 2003, 05:41 AM

Charles, you made several very specific statements on this subject. You went far beyond a mere statement that you do not believe there is a hen's teeth atavism: apparently, it is a FACT that there is NO hen's teeth atavism. This is "evolutionary mythology", a "bogus claim".

...But now it appears that you were "Lying for the Lord". Avian tooth genes can't exist because this would contradict your religion, therefore they DON'T exist.

From the TGE project (http://facts4god.faithweb.com/thelist.html), Argument 141:
141. ARGUMENT FROM EVIDENTIAL ASSERTION (HENRY MORRIS'S ARGUMENT)

1) God exists.
2) Therefore, all the physical evidence must show this.
3) Therefore, it does.
4) Therefore, God exists.
You are entitled to your own opinions, but you are not entitled to your own facts. If those teeth were actually mouse teeth, then the evidence should indicate that. You cannot simply assume that the evidence DOES indicate that.

Again, you are asserting that your religion makes you right, and professional biologists wrong.

pangloss

October 1, 2003, 07:19 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Actually I did respond to your post. I explained that we had been instructed not to talk about evolution in that forum, so I couldn't go into the details in that thread. It was not a dodge. Now if you have some reasonable evidence that protein synthesis evolved I'd like to hear it.

I know you responded - with a dodge.

I am sure that you would like to hear some evidence for what appears to be this one area that there is adearth of knowledge in - after all, that is the only type of place where anti-"Darwinists" can find any hope of rescuing their claptrap.

However, since I had asked first, I would like some examples of this "more evidence for the bible" than for evolution...

By the way - I can assure you that I "believe" what I do based on the evidence, not on some metaphysical prediposition. Being an anti-evolutionist does not bestow upon you some sixth-sense to be able to 'know' what drives everyone else.

Ken

October 1, 2003, 02:29 PM

Yes, the Intelligent Designer could have done all these things, and many more, and if we are to follow your counsel, we should refrain from making any conclusions from these phenomena.

You are mischaracterizing my point, which is that the scientific data argue *against* evolution and common descent. Secondly, if you want to make arguments about what God should do, then, yes, I would argue that you need to be open and clear about your religious beliefs. I am by no means arguing we ought to turn a blind eye to all those evidences which are, according to you, obviously explained by evolution or common descent, but require a just-so story under creationism. I think you, in practically every case, misinterpret the data so it fits evolution very well.

Yes, s/he/it may have had reasons we cannot comprehend. Yet, if the Designer is not impotent, s/he/it could have created in any of an infinite number of other ways without so much as offering the slightest suggestion that common descent was at play. It wasn't the brutality of nature that concerned me as I contemplated God's role in creation, but rather the sense that s/he/it began to appear deceitful if s/he/it had not in fact used evolution as a tool of creation. In denying evolution, I began to feel like the proverbial creationists who suggested that God deliberately planted fossils of extinct fauna in the earth to test our faith. This was the crux for me: If God, who could have created in any way s/he/it saw fit, chose to create in such a way that common descent made sense, when in fact common descent did not happen, then how could I possibly trust God in any other matter?

Given your premises I agree with your conclusion.

As E.O. Wilson put it:

"Perhaps God did create all organisms, including human beings, in finished form, in one stroke, and maybe it all happened several thousand years ago. But if that is true, He also salted the earth with false evidence in such endless and exquisite detail, and so thoroughly from pole to pole, as to make us conclude first that life evolved, and second that the process took billions of years. Surely Scripture tells us He would not do that. The Prime Mover of the Old and New Testaments is variously loving, magisterial, denying, thunderously angry, and mysterious, but never tricky [with the possible exception of the story in which God sent a lying spirit to the prophets--Ken] (Consilience, p. 141).

This is evolutionary mythology. I could turn that argument around and arrive at a much stronger conclusion. How deceptive it would be for God to use evolution when the very species defy evolution. It is a wonder that man could come up with evolution given what we know. Even moreso, that he would claim it to be fact. Even moreso that he would accuse God of deception.

If God is directly involved in the process of creation or evolution, then yes, the deception argument could cut both ways for phenomena that appear to support either position. If this is so, then the Intelligent Designer would appear to be doubly deceptive, since on the one hand (at least on the surface) there are phenomena that appear to contradict evolution, but on the other hand we do see at least hints (I would say more than hints, but we'll say hints for the sake of argument) that species have indeed evolved. But if it was in his power to make the evidence unambiguous on either side of the question, and yet we in face see apparent evidence for both positions, then we begin to question the forthrightness of the Intelligent Designer.

In sum, if God is directly involved in creation, and we see in nature both hints of evolution and problems with evolution, then we're at an impass if we believe in a truthful Creator. But if God is not directly involved in creation, or if there is no God, the problem goes away: Hints or evidence for evolution can be taken at face value, and apparent but not insurmountable difficulties can be investigated and explained, without having to wonder about anyone's truthfulness. The deception argument is assymetrical: A potential problem for special creation or divinely guided evolution, but not a problem for naturalistic evolution.

If I were to plant in my house a web of suggestions that I was seeing another woman, knowing that my wife would come across the evidence, then my wife would have reason to suspect me of unfaithfulness, whether or not I was in fact being unfaithful, even if in every other respect I appeared to be faithful to her. If God did not want us to think that evolution occurred, then certainly he could have prevented horse toe, whale leg and chicken teeth apparent atavisms, to mention a small sampling of hints for evolution. Or did he not know that we might even think of such phenomena as evidence for evolution? If evolution is not true, does the entire fault lie with us for thinking it's true?

More later,

Ken

Charles Darwin

October 2, 2003, 12:32 AM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
What I am primarily interested in is science, and in this instance, how it bears on evolution.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by NottyImp
But you're not, are you Charles? Because you believe in a non-naturalistic creationist model that you have admitted is scientifically untestable in and of itself. Thus, no science there.

However, please follow the thread. I was reponding to a comment about me wanting to make evolutionists appear silly, or some such thing. In my response I was pointing out that, with regard to evolution, I am interested in how the science bears on it. My point was not that I believe naturalistic models explain all things.

Charles Darwin

October 2, 2003, 12:48 AM

Originally posted by caravelair
i disagree with you. i think it is the combination of similarity in structure, and dissimilarity in function that is the meat of the argument of vestigial structures. you don't need to determine that the structure itself is useless, you simply have to compare the function of the structure relative to the function of similar structures in other organisms, and that is not subjective.

sure it is. because evolution predicts that as an organism evolves and changes with its environment, certain structures will no longer be useful to that organism, and this would result in those structures evolving reduced or changed function. for example, if whales evolved from land-based mammals (with legs), then legs would not be useful for them in the water, a tail would be much more useful. so we would expect the legs to evolve away gradually, since they are not useful, and we would expect vestiges which are not a disadvantage to the whale, like a pelvis, to remain. i feel i'm not articulating this well, so i hope you understand my point.

on another note, not only do we have the whales pelvis as evidence that they evolved from creatures with legs, but we also see atavisms in whales, where whales are occasionally born with back leg structures. these are 2 independant pieces of evidence, which both point to the same thing. to me, that makes it even more convincing.

but evolution does not do anything "right off". slow removal is the only possible type of removal. and i don't think that those structures would present an immediate burden, because at one time, those structures would have been an advantage, and organisms evolve to change niches very gradually. again, i'm not sure if i'm articulating what i mean very well. furthermore, if a structure became useless, it is not necessary that the whole structure be removed, because a part of the structure might not present a disadvantage to the organism, it might be neutral. like the whale's pelvis structure. the legs were a disadvantage, so they disappeared, but the pelvis has very little effect, if any. thus, the result is a vestigial pelvis.

it certainly does explain how the vestigial structures arose. through evolution. the organism evolved the structure through many small changes which were advantageous to the organism. and i believe it does require vestigial structures, because if we think that structures occasionally evolve away, then we should expect to find some remnants of these structures.

i agree that as an argument against creationism, it is based on an idea of what god would and would not do, which is not verifiable. but as an argument FOR evolution, it is not religious.

i do not assume that they have no use but flight. indeed, i'm sure that feathers provide insulation, and ostriches probably use their wings for things other than flight. it's the comparison of these structures with those of other organisms that really tells us something about them. it seems to me that flight is a much more efficient, or direct use for these structures. that is to say, it appears (superficially) that these structures were "designed" for flight, as they are much more specified for that use.

We're getting closer. But when you say: "but evolution does not do anything 'right off'. ", you are ignoring the history of evolutionary thinking. Starting with Huxley, there have always been evolutionists who have considered at least the possibility of rather abrupt change. There is nothing in the theory that disallows this. Hence, if evolutionists were unable to locate any "vestigial" structures, it would do them no harm. They could say there is some biological mechanism that allows for it, like a mutation that interferes with the development path. And since evolution does not require such gradual reduction, it is not a prediction of evolution.

Now when you conclude:

i do not assume that they have no use but flight. indeed, i'm sure that feathers provide insulation, and ostriches probably use their wings for things other than flight. it's the comparison of these structures with those of other organisms that really tells us something about them. it seems to me that flight is a much more efficient, or direct use for these structures. that is to say, it appears (superficially) that these structures were "designed" for flight, as they are much more specified for that use.

yes, I very much agree. These have been my points precisely. First, from a scientific view, it is the comparison with the homologous structures in *other* species. That is, "vestigial" organs are evidence merely in the same way as any other similarity, regardless of the level of function. Then, second, the power of the evidence, and the reason it is called out so prominently by evolutionists, is the metaphysical argument you echo. It seems to us that these *ought* to serve the function of flight. Yours is a very good point. But it is not scientific.

Charles Darwin

October 2, 2003, 12:58 AM

Originally posted by caravelair
just out of curiosity, exactly what type of evidence would you need to see to be convinced of evolution? would you be convinced by ANY evidence, or have you closed your mind completely to the possibility? give me an example of something you think would be convincing evidence of evolution, if such evidence existed.

Closed my mind? Think about what you are saying. You believe that the most complex things known arose all by themselves. You cannot explain how it happened. And you claim it to be a fact. And you are asking me about my judgement?

My problem with evolution is its disconnect with science. What evidence would I need? That's a difficult question, though I could speculate. But I would have hoped that you'd have a sense from my posts. The evidence does not stack up; it does not even come close. The tone of your question suggests that I am setting an unrealistically high evidential standard. Come on man, is it too much to ask for some explanation for how the most complex things are supposed to have arose by themselves? This is quite something to swallow, don't you think? And it is not as though you have all kinds of powerful circumstantial evidence anyway. Even if we were to swallow that echolocation arose all by itself, the evidences you cite usually have their own ambiguities, as we've discussed in this thread.

Charles Darwin

October 2, 2003, 01:20 AM

Originally posted by monkenstick
charley, the existence of pseudogenes like GLO is both confirmation of evolution and a huge problem for ID/YEC

I think the urate oxidase pseudogene is an even better example - humans have no functional enzyme to break down uric acid, which is one of the reasons we can get gout.
Other mammals such as mice, do however have this gene.

It turns out that all surveyed members of the family hominidae (orangutans, gorillas, chimps and us) have a urate oxidase pseudogene, with a crippling premature stop codon in the same place.

It doesn't function as urate oxidase, because it is broken, yet it is 95 percent homologous to a fucntioning urate oxidase gene in spider-monkeys

So why is a broken gene distributed among primates in a manner entirely consistent with common descent?

Neither ID or YEC has a reasonable explanation for its existence

Pseudogenes are an interesting evidence, but you are mistaken if you think creationism has no explanation. An obvious explanation is that they occurred via common crippling mutations. Analogous to your "convergent" evolution, where the same thing happens different lineages. Also, as discussed earlier, we know that mutations can be concentrated along the genome, supporting the idea of a common mutation in allied species.

Another explanation would be that there is a yet to be discovered function. This may seem unlikely, but remember the track record of all those "useless" functions. We keep on finding functions for them. We've even found functions for at least one pseudogene. The GLO gene appears to have a frame shift mutation, but the world of biology is one full of exceptions.

You are also not mentioning problems with pseudogene evidence. While I agree it can be taken as evidence for common descent and evolution, there are anomalies, such as not evolving as fast as a non functional sequence should, or producing contradictory phylogenies. I agree it is interesting evidence, but not as unequivocal as you make it out to be.

Badfish

October 2, 2003, 01:29 AM

monkenstick

October 2, 2003, 01:35 AM

Pseudogenes are an interesting evidence, but you are mistaken if you think creationism has no explanation. An obvious explanation is that they occurred via common crippling mutations. Analogous to your "convergent" evolution, where the same thing happens different lineages. Also, as discussed earlier, we know that mutations can be concentrated along the genome, supporting the idea of a common mutation in allied species.

the coincidence of the same crippling mutation in just those mammals which happen to form the monophyletic family of organisms known collectively as hominidae should be too much for any reasonable person to accept.

I also don't think "it might have some unknown function" is very convincing, because these sequences of "unknown function" are about 94 percent similar to a sequence for which we already know the function (functional urate oxidase in new world monkeys)

Charles Darwin

October 2, 2003, 01:37 AM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Wait no more; simply read the posts. We discussed it earlier in this thread. The conclusion, according to Doubting D. and Ken: yes, your argument makes sense, but we'd rather believe the authors who interpret the results in favor of evolution (what a surprise!). Who cares about the facts.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Doubting Didymus
Wait, you never mentioned any facts. All you said was that your interpretation differs from the authors, apparently without any actual reason for doing so. No 'argument' was ever squeesed out of you at all. If you have facts that support the aforementioned position, please fire away.

Yes, I did provide arguments. If there was some long-since dormant "tooth" genes they would have incurred probably too many mutations to be useful by this time. Instead, the teeth only grow when the mouse tissue is applied. The mouse tissue is necessary for anything to happen. It is recruiting common growth factors (wnt and noggin) from the bird tissue that are used for a range of applications. Of course, the authors cast the results into an evolutionary light, that is a given. That doesn't mean there is something compelling about this evidence.

NottyImp

October 2, 2003, 02:23 AM

Closed my mind? Think about what you are saying. You believe that the most complex things known arose all by themselves. You cannot explain how it happened. And you claim it to be a fact. And you are asking me about my judgement?

Given that you believe that 150 years of rational scientific enquiry should be rejected in favour of a book of myths written by superstitious goat-herders some 2500 years ago, why wouldn't we ask you about your judgement?

Badfish

October 2, 2003, 02:33 AM

Originally posted by NottyImp
Given that you believe that 150 years of rational scientific enquiry should be rejected in favour of a book of myths written by superstitious goat-herders some 2500 years ago, why wouldn't we ask you about your judgement?

Why wouldn't we ask about your judgement? Are you satisfied that science hasn't the slightest idea how life Began?

Isn't it reasonable to seek the truth of our origins? If science would experiment and use the most likely cause of something arising from nothing, then the evolution models might be different.

And evolution, no matter the extent of it doesn't nullify the existance of God.

So anyway science could still be wrong here, not too long ago science was absolutely positive the sun revolved around the earth, it's the nature of science, its discoveries could and DO change over time.

And not to complain, but you need a new line, that goatherder line is so old, and we all know (or most of us) the origins of the bible. And since human life was relatively new when the bible was written (according to the bible), farming and herding was the prevalant way of life, so would you expect biblical testimony to be written by a rocket scientist?

greenbear

October 2, 2003, 02:55 AM

Originally posted by Badfish
Why wouldn't we ask about your judgement? Are you satisfied that science hasn't the slightest idea how life Began?
Yes, science does have ideas on how life began. Unlike Creationists, science demands credible evidence before accepting theories.

greenbear

October 2, 2003, 03:02 AM

Originally posted by Badfish
Isn't it reasonable to seek the truth of our origins? If science would experiment and use the most likely cause of something arising from nothing, then the evolution models might be different. What do you consider the most likely cause?

greenbear

October 2, 2003, 03:05 AM

Originally posted by Badfish
And evolution, no matter the extent of it doesn't nullify the existance of God. It doesn't nullify Zark the space lizard either.

greenbear

October 2, 2003, 03:08 AM

Originally posted by Badfish
So anyway science could still be wrong here, not too long ago science was absolutely positive the sun revolved around the earth, it's the nature of science, its discoveries could and DO change over time. No, that would be religion which included geo-centrism as part of it's dogma.

lpetrich

October 2, 2003, 03:08 AM

Charles Darwin:
Pseudogenes are an interesting evidence, but you are mistaken if you think creationism has no explanation.

Sure. It was created to look like the result of evolution [sarcasm].

And there is, of course, the pre-Darwinian explanation I had mentioned earlier in this thread, that it's some sort of taste for completeness -- our genomes would not be complete without broken urate-oxidase and GLO genes.

Another explanation would be that there is a yet to be discovered function.

IMO, it takes a LOT of faith to believe that.

This may seem unlikely, but remember the track record of all those "useless" functions.

Let's see your vestigial-feature functionality scorecard. A list of features, with when proposed to be vestigial, and when shown to be functional.

lpetrich

October 2, 2003, 03:33 AM

Charles Darwin:
Yes, I did provide arguments. If there was some long-since dormant "tooth" genes they would have incurred probably too many mutations to be useful by this time. Instead, the teeth only grow when the mouse tissue is applied. ...

This suggests that many vestigial features are maintained as side effects of other processes. Thus, tailless land vertebrates grow embryonic tails because their growth is a side effect of the spinal-cord layout mechanism. And embryonic gill arches, gill pouches, and aortic arches are maintained because suppressing all but the "necessary" ones would break the mechanisms for making them.

A clue comes from the genetics of Manx-cat taillesness. Cats have a gene involved in producing tails that can either be normal (m) or Manx (M). Since cats are diploid, they have two copies of that gene:

mm -- "normal" tailed cat
Mm -- Manx cat (stubby or absent tail)
MM -- dies as an embryo

So the M allele must break some mechanism that the m allele fits into. The combination Mm would be partial breakage, enough to allow the cat to survive, though with tail growth suppressed. The combination MM would be complete breakage, complete with killing the embryo.

However, taillessness does evolve, and it likely evolves if there is some penalty to having a tail, like it getting entangled in branches. This may force selection for the presence of a "Manx" gene in the population -- and subsequent selection of mutations that make the "Manx" gene less troublesome.

Badfish

October 2, 2003, 03:34 AM

Originally posted by greenbear
Yes, science does have ideas on how life began. Unlike Creationists, science demands credible evidence before accepting theories.

What evidence? There is no demonstratable evidence from either side.

Badfish

October 2, 2003, 03:37 AM

Originally posted by greenbear
No, that would be religion which included geo-centrism as part of it's dogma.

Yeah, but science at the time believed it and even made models explaining how it worked.

Badfish

October 2, 2003, 03:39 AM

Originally posted by greenbear
It doesn't nullify Zark the space lizard either.

He sounds cool, whats his angle?

Badfish

October 2, 2003, 03:42 AM

Originally posted by greenbear
What do you consider the most likely cause?

Well considering that all life as we can observe it contains the same basic DNA (all organisms contain the famous double helix), and the millions of unique species in spite of sharing this quality, it sure seems like design with a signature.

Also, something from nothing, could suggest a designer.

Wounded King

October 2, 2003, 03:45 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Instead, the teeth only grow when the mouse tissue is applied. The mouse tissue is necessary for anything to happen.

Not for anything to happen. This paper shows that chick skin mesenchyme, which expresses FGFs and BMPs or beads soaked in FGF4 and/or BMP4 were capable of inducing the development of rudimentary structures, more developed than the normally present lamina like rudiments, in chick mandibles. These structures also show Sonic hedgehog expression in a pattern similar to that seen in the developing mouse tooth germ.

Chen Y, Zhang Y, Jiang TX, Barlow AJ, St. Amand TR, Hu Y, Heaney S, Francis-West P, Chuong CM, Maas R.
Conservation of early odontogenic signaling pathways in Aves.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 Aug 29; 97(18): 10044-10049. (http://www.pubmedcentral.gov/articlerender.fcgi?tool=pmcentrez&artid=27667)

Teeth have been missing from birds (Aves) for at least 60 million years. However, in the chick oral cavity a rudiment forms that resembles the lamina stage of the mammalian molar tooth germ. We have addressed the molecular basis for this secondary loss of tooth formation in Aves by analyzing in chick embryos the status of molecular pathways known to regulate mouse tooth development. Similar to the mouse dental lamina, expression of Fgf8, Pitx2, Barx1, and Pax9 defines a potential chick odontogenic region. However, the expression of three molecules involved in tooth initiation, Bmp4, Msx1, and Msx2, are absent from the presumptive chick dental lamina. In chick mandibles, exogenous bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) induces Msx expression and together with fibroblast growth factor promotes the development of Sonic hedgehog expressing epithelial structures. Distinct epithelial appendages also were induced when chick mandibular epithelium was recombined with a tissue source of BMPs and fibroblast growth factors, chick skin mesenchyme. These results show that, although latent, the early signaling pathways involved in odontogenesis remain inducible in Aves and suggest that loss of odontogenic Bmp4 expression may be responsible for the early arrest of tooth development in living birds.

Jack the Bodiless

October 2, 2003, 03:49 AM

Don't some birds grow teeth anyhow?

The expression "as rare as hen's teeth" is a lot older than modern genetic engineering...

NottyImp

October 2, 2003, 04:16 AM

Why wouldn't we ask about your judgement? Are you satisfied that science hasn't the slightest idea how life Began?

But evolutionary theory isn't contingent on abiogenesis. I'm not personally familiar with the field, but I'm pretty sure that there is plenty of research into this going on right now.

Why do you insist that science must know the answers now? One hundred years ago we had no clear idea how the sun generated its energy, but now we do. Genetic research is still a relatively new field, and there is a huge amount of research still to be done. Thus the "God of the Gaps" will continue to recede.

Jack the Bodiless

October 2, 2003, 04:35 AM

Charles:
My problem with evolution is its disconnect with science. What evidence would I need? That's a difficult question, though I could speculate. But I would have hoped that you'd have a sense from my posts. The evidence does not stack up; it does not even come close.
...The evidence for WHAT "does not stack up"? The evidence for WHAT "does not even come close"?

The evidence for both evolution and common descent certainly stacks up: no competent person who has actually studied it will deny this, regardless of their religious beliefs. Even the anti-Darwinian "intelligent design" advocates will not deny these facts.

I could just as easily argue that the evidence for round-Earthism does not stack up; it does not even come close.
The tone of your question suggests that I am setting an unrealistically high evidential standard. Come on man, is it too much to ask for some explanation for how the most complex things are supposed to have arose by themselves? This is quite something to swallow, don't you think?
By random mutation and natural selection.

...Come off it, Charles! Why are you being so obtuse? Why is this NOT an "explanation for how the most complex things are supposed to have arose by themselves?"

Evolution is an inevitable consequence of the existence of imperfectly-replicated heritable characteristics which influence an organism's chance of survival. Even if God poofed all species into existence in 4004 BC, they would inevitably have evolved since.

Now, we have a theory that the fact of evolution is sufficient to account for the fact of common descent. You may disagree that it is sufficient, but you really need to demonstrate that it is insufficient, rather than snorting with indignation at it. You certainly can't pretend that you haven't even been presented with this as an explanation!

Alternatively, if you disagree that common descent is fact, then it isn't sufficient to simply wave your hands and say that "God made it look that way". Nor can you get away with calling a belief in common descent "evolutionism" and implying that it is a religion.

We also have a theory that the fact of gravity is sufficient to account for the fact that the Earth is round. What is "unscientific" about that? Sure, maybe God just likes round planets, but are you prepared to argue that it is "unscientific", or even a "religious belief", that planets are round because gravity made them that way?

...Because, so far, your argument against evolution is analogous to arguing that the Earth is flat "because God made it that way" (which, incidentally, is what the authors of the Bible actually believed: if YOU don't believe this, then why not?).

Let me ask you a variation of caravelair's question:

just out of curiosity, exactly what type of evidence would you need to see to be convinced of common descent? would you be convinced by ANY evidence, or have you closed your mind completely to the possibility? give me an example of something you think would be convincing evidence of common descent, if such evidence existed.

lpetrich

October 2, 2003, 10:30 AM

Badfish:
I don't mean to butt in, but if I was to believe evolution, then I would be even more concerned and thirsting for knowledge about our origins.

Except that there has been a Hades of a lot of work done on the evolution of humanity, if that's what you are asking about.

This is something that I don't understand, it seems that evolutionists and atheists are content not knowing where we came from or began, ...

Why do you think that evolutionary biologists believe that?

If something can appear as a result of random chance and come from absolute nothing,

Evolution does NOT involve such a "poof" theory of origins, the way that creationism does.

then surely the odds that a designer is responsible instead seems to be more compelling, given the apparent design and millions of unique specimens of life.

If there were any designers involved, it was a multitude of them.

Is it just coincidental that we share some form of common ancestry with just about every other animal or creature? Or is the DNA "double helix" an undeniable or at least possible signature of the "Creator"?

Or else that later designers built on the work of earlier ones.

lpetrich

October 2, 2003, 10:41 AM

Badfish:
And not to complain, but you need a new line, that goatherder line is so old, and we all know (or most of us) the origins of the bible. And since human life was relatively new when the bible was written (according to the bible), farming and herding was the prevalant way of life, so would you expect biblical testimony to be written by a rocket scientist?

It ought to be clear that we are capable of learning things since the Bible was written 2000-3000 years ago. So why should we be bound by it?

lpetrich

October 2, 2003, 10:43 AM

(evolution vs. creationism)
Originally posted by Badfish
What evidence? There is no demonstratable evidence from either side. A remarkable claim.

HRG

October 2, 2003, 02:32 PM

Originally posted by Badfish
Well considering that all life as we can observe it contains the same basic DNA (all organisms contain the famous double helix), and the millions of unique species in spite of sharing this quality, it sure seems like design with a signature.

All hydrogen atoms look alike. Does that seem like design with a signature ?

I hope you realize that the genetic code still evolves.

Also, something from nothing, could suggest a designer.
The only designers we actually know of are human designers, thus your suggestion must be based on some similarities to human design activities and their results. Which designers have we actually observed making something out of nothing ?

Of course, the "something out of nothing" formula is pure polemics. The universe did not have to "come from" anything, and when life emerged, there was quite a lot of "something" around.

Regards,
HRG.

Charles Darwin

October 2, 2003, 08:38 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Pseudogenes are an interesting evidence, but you are mistaken if you think creationism has no explanation. An obvious explanation is that they occurred via common crippling mutations. Analogous to your "convergent" evolution, where the same thing happens different lineages. Also, as discussed earlier, we know that mutations can be concentrated along the genome, supporting the idea of a common mutation in allied species.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by monkenstick
the coincidence of the same crippling mutation in just those mammals which happen to form the monophyletic family of organisms known collectively as hominidae should be too much for any reasonable person to accept.

But convergence is well accepted in evolutionary theory, and convergent mutations are an empirical fact. This is not an unreasonable explanation. As we discussed earlier, mutations can be predictable in bacteria. In Molecular Strategies in Biological Evolution L. Ripley writes:

Spontaneous mutations are rare and are produced by multiple biochemical mechanisms. Nonetheless, studies of these mechanisms have revealed striking examples inwhich mutational specificity can be related to a characteristic of the surrounding DNA sequence and/or the enzymes participating in mutagenesis. Thus, to an increasing degree the DNA sequences of mutants are predictable.

Also, convergent mutations are observed in SIV. See, for example:

Buckley, et al, " Convergent evolution of SIV env after independent inoculation of rhesus macaques with infectious proviral DNA," Virology, 312:470-80, 2003.

where they write: "The env gene of three simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) variants developed convergent mutations during disease progression in six rhesus macaques. progression. ... three regions consistently mutated in all monkeys studied; these similar mutations developed independently even though the animals had received only a single infectious molecular clone rather than standard viral inocula that contain viral quasispecies. Together, these data indicate that the env genes of SIVmac239, SIVdelta3, and SIVdelta3+, in the context of different proviral backbones, evolve similarly in different hosts during disease progression."

Also, there are pseudogenes with identical modifications that appear to be independent. For example, a pseudogene (cmk) in the endosymbiotic bacteria Buchnera from two different insect species has an identical 16 base pair deletion. If evolution is true, and if the two pseudogenes share a common ancestral pseudogene, then they must have diverged ~50 MYR. But this would be very strange, for these pseudogene would have had to have endured the 50 MYR with essentially zero deletions while the Buchnera genome would have had to have been incurring massive genome reduction. [Mira, Ochman and Moran, "Deletional Bias and the Evolution of Bacterial Genomes," TIG, 17:589, 2001.] Even under evolution the best explanation appears to be that the pseudogenes arose independently, and that the two identical deletion events occurred independently.

I think it is fair for you to claim pseudogenes as evidence for evolution, but the evidence has its problems, as there are not a few anomalous situations. The evidence is not unequivocal, and certainly not unexplainable by non evolutionary mechanisms.

monkenstick

October 2, 2003, 10:01 PM

The reason convergent mutations isn't at all compelling to me is that the same stop codon mutation is present in a pattern that confirms the phylogeny we already have.

Its even more unbeleivable when you also include the data that gibbons also have an inactivated urate oxidase, but they all have a deletion, rather than a premature stop codon

So what you're asking me to believe is that a nonsense mutation at codon 33 occured in all members of hominidae that have been surveyed, and a different nonsense mutation occured at position 18 in all the members of the gibbon family that have been surveyed.

The mutation in codon 33 isn't present in any of the gibbons, and the mutation in codon 18 isn't present in any of the hominidae

http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Catarrhini&contgroup=Primates

Charles Darwin

October 3, 2003, 12:11 AM

Originally posted by Wounded King
Not for anything to happen. This paper shows that chick skin mesenchyme, which expresses FGFs and BMPs or beads soaked in FGF4 and/or BMP4 were capable of inducing the development of rudimentary structures, more developed than the normally present lamina like rudiments, in chick mandibles. These structures also show Sonic hedgehog expression in a pattern similar to that seen in the developing mouse tooth germ.

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Chen Y, Zhang Y, Jiang TX, Barlow AJ, St. Amand TR, Hu Y, Heaney S, Francis-West P, Chuong CM, Maas R.
Conservation of early odontogenic signaling pathways in Aves.
Proc Natl Acad Sci U S A. 2000 Aug 29; 97(18): 10044-10049.

Teeth have been missing from birds (Aves) for at least 60 million years. However, in the chick oral cavity a rudiment forms that resembles the lamina stage of the mammalian molar tooth germ. We have addressed the molecular basis for this secondary loss of tooth formation in Aves by analyzing in chick embryos the status of molecular pathways known to regulate mouse tooth development. Similar to the mouse dental lamina, expression of Fgf8, Pitx2, Barx1, and Pax9 defines a potential chick odontogenic region. However, the expression of three molecules involved in tooth initiation, Bmp4, Msx1, and Msx2, are absent from the presumptive chick dental lamina. In chick mandibles, exogenous bone morphogenetic protein (BMP) induces Msx expression and together with fibroblast growth factor promotes the development of Sonic hedgehog expressing epithelial structures. Distinct epithelial appendages also were induced when chick mandibular epithelium was recombined with a tissue source of BMPs and fibroblast growth factors, chick skin mesenchyme. These results show that, although latent, the early signaling pathways involved in odontogenesis remain inducible in Aves and suggest that loss of odontogenic Bmp4 expression may be responsible for the early arrest of tooth development in living birds.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

In this paper, they are using biotechnology to promote the development of epithelial structures. Consider the possibility that far in the future, we may learn how to create a working cell, by adding the right components at the right places and times. It would be disingenuous to claim it as evidence for how life got started, because the process is driven by our ingenuity rather than the workings of natural laws. Now consider the less ambitious, but conceptually the same, case of making bird embryos grow teeth, again by clever manipulation. In this paper, we see the beginnings of this process. They are not growing teeth, but they are manipulating the oral cavity development. They add bone morphogenetic protein and fibroblast growth factors, at the right development stage and location, and they obtain some epithelial structures. This is great research, and leaves one wondering about other possibilities. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if they could induce strange developments elsewhere in the embryo as well. But so what?

monkenstick

October 3, 2003, 01:15 AM

oops
Its even more unbeleivable when you also include the data that gibbons also have an inactivated urate oxidase, but they all have a deletion, rather than a premature stop codon

its not a deletion, its a nonsense mutation in codon 18

Badfish

October 3, 2003, 03:04 AM

Originally posted by HRG
The universe did not have to "come from" anything, and when life emerged, there was quite a lot of "something" around.

Regards,
HRG.

Where did the "lot of something" come from? All matter capable of evolving into an organism has a limited lifespan I believe.

Therefore as all things we can observe has a lifespan, a beginning and an ending.

To suggest that there has always been something, or that the universe is eternal is just as much faith if not much more faith, than belief in a designer. IMO

Badfish

October 3, 2003, 03:19 AM

Originally posted by lpetrich
(evolution vs. creationism)
A remarkable claim.

But true. Neither science (if you want to call creationISM a science) cannot demonstrate our origins. I am seeing that evolutionists seem more concerned with the fascination that we "seemed" to evolve from common ancestors or what have you, creationISM actually tries to explain our actual origins from the very beginning.

I would say that even the process of evolution is a creation of some sort, a new creation as a result of natural selection or other devices of nature.

Therefore it's not entirely ridiculous that creation by a designer is possible. IMO

In fact many theists make a good argument for ID and evolution from common ancestry (not good enough for me, but still compelling), I can buy adaptive evolution or micro evolution because of changing climatic conditions or other natural occurances, possibly even natural selection, causing gene or DNA mutation.

So basically IMO, creation by an ID and evolution can work in tandem, and should be explored as a possibility because of a lack of evidence to contradict the concept of our beginnings as presented by CreationISTS.

Jack the Bodiless

October 3, 2003, 03:33 AM

Badfish:

I think you need to clarify what you mean by the term "creationist". Usually it refers to belief in Genesis-style "special creation", the separate creation of individual species: which is baloney, as it's contradicted by masses of evidence.

I get the impression that what you're advocating is an initial creation event of a primitive organism, followed by God-guided common descent: "Theistic Evolution".

But, as a scientific theory, theistic evolution is unsatisfactory because it doesn't explain God. You're merely replacing one mystery with another.

Oolon Colluphid

October 3, 2003, 03:39 AM

Did he mention intelligent design? :D <rubs hand with glee>

Badfish

October 3, 2003, 03:41 AM

Yes that is true, Jack, however the mystery and the Genesis style creation does have testimony, which also contains a fairly accurate geneology (suggesting the testimony of Genesis could be close), also suggesting that there is a small preponderance over any other speculative theories of the origins of the cosmos. IMO

Badfish

October 3, 2003, 03:44 AM

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
Did he mention intelligent design? :D <rubs hand with glee>

LOL,

Yes I believe he did, but I'm not the only one. I believe that it is a prevailing underlying theme here by the anti-evolutionists, could be wrong.

Why? Do you have demonstratable evidence to the contrary? Or just more speculation with philosophy and no evidence theories? ;)

Wounded King

October 3, 2003, 03:49 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
They add bone morphogenetic protein and fibroblast growth factors, at the right development stage and location, and they obtain some epithelial structures. This is great research, and leaves one wondering about other possibilities. I wouldn't be surprised, for example, if they could induce strange developments elsewhere in the embryo as well. But so what?

So it shows that you can induce elements of the early developmental program of the tooth in chick, without the need for any non-chick material. While the expression of BMP and FGF is obviously ectopic or from an exogenous source it is not prone to the same problems of contamination to which the mouse/ chick chimera studies are.

It doesn't need to leave you wondering, even a passing familiarity with developmental biology would give you a wealth of instances of interesting changes to the developmental program caused by ectopic expression, overexpression, knockouts, knockins and a whole host of other techniques. Does your 'So what?' mean that you fail to see the point of the entire field of developmental biology? As with naturally occurring mutants the interference with normal developmental programs is the easiest way to investigate those programs.

You said that mouse tissue was necessary for anything to happen, I was simply directing you to research that shows that material derived solely from the chick, excepting the viral vector used for the transfection, was sufficient to induce certain elements of the early tooth devlopmental pathway, or at least morphological movements and patterns of gene expression almost identical to those seen in early tooth development in the mouse.

Do you think that the induction of supernumerary limbs by growth factor treatments tells us nothing about the initiation of limb development?

You say
In this paper, they are using biotechnology to promote the development of epithelial structures. Consider the possibility that far in the future, we may learn how to create a working cell, by adding the right components at the right places and times. It would be disingenuous to claim it as evidence for how life got started, because the process is driven by our ingenuity rather than the workings of natural laws. Now consider the less ambitious, but conceptually the same, case of making bird embryos grow teeth, again by clever manipulation.

This is not the same thing at all. Rather than adding a large number of disparate completely novel elements all that is happening is a few genes, which the chick already expresses in other tissues, are ectopically expressed in the tissue underlying the mandibular epithelium. They didn't fiddle around with every factor under the sun until they got the right ones. The required factors were hypothesised on the basis of studies of tooth development in other models. If the expression of a gene, which is known to be important in inducing teeth in mice, induces tooth like structures in the mandibular tissues of chick why is it such a leap of faith to suggest that their may be a conserved vertebrate pathway of dental development, what better explanation can you provide? That those specific factors just happen to induce morhpholgical and gene expression profiles similar to those seen in mammalian teeth germs? Or is your contention that while large elements of these developmental pathways are conserved they are unable to actually give rise to teeth in chicks as chicks never had teeth? Is there any evidence to support this?

As far as the results being drawn from our ingenuioty go, you seem to be ruling out the entire field of science, most experiments require an element of ingenuity to design them, should we only rely on things which are self obvious or perhaps the result of divine revelation rather than use our ingenuity to investigate?

Oolon Colluphid

October 3, 2003, 04:02 AM

Originally posted by Badfish
LOL,

Yes I believe he did, but I'm not the only one. I believe that it is a prevailing underlying theme here by the anti-evolutionists, could be wrong.

Why? Do you have demonstratable evidence to the contrary? Or just more speculation with philosophy and no evidence theories? ;)
Well, it depends. What exactly do you mean by intelligent design? What sort of things does it purport to explain? Are there any predictions we can draw from it?

TTFN, Oolon

Charles Darwin

October 3, 2003, 10:56 AM

Originally posted by monkenstick
The reason convergent mutations isn't at all compelling to me is that the same stop codon mutation is present in a pattern that confirms the phylogeny we already have.

Its even more unbeleivable when you also include the data that gibbons also have an inactivated urate oxidase, but they all have a deletion, rather than a premature stop codon

So what you're asking me to believe is that a nonsense mutation at codon 33 occured in all members of hominidae that have been surveyed, and a different nonsense mutation occured at position 18 in all the members of the gibbon family that have been surveyed.

The mutation in codon 33 isn't present in any of the gibbons, and the mutation in codon 18 isn't present in any of the hominidae

http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Catarrhini&contgroup=Primates

"all the members of the gibbon family that have been surveyed"? Last I checked there was only one gibbon sequence. In any case, to my knowledge there is no evidence that convergent mutations occur in distant species. The evidence that we do have is of them occurring in the same or very similar species. So it is not clear why you are having difficulty accepting the idea that there could be a convergent mutation within the hominidae, but not in the gibbon.

In fact, under evolution, what are the chances that a pseudogene would be caused by independent events? The evolutionists who published the urate oxidase findings noted this, and so were forced to make the strange conclusion that the pseudogene was selected for! :

"Because the disruption of a functional gene by independent events in two different evolutionary lineages is unlikely to occur on a chance basis, our data favor the hypothesis that the loss of urate oxidase may have evolutionary advantages." [J Mol Evol, 34:78-84, 1992]

pangloss

October 3, 2003, 12:16 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Charles:

It would certainly help your case if you could provide an actual example of a case which "falls apart on scrutiny", yes?

So far, you have failed to do so. Your "vestigial organs cannot have any function at all" strawman has been thoroughly incinerated, and that appears to be all you had.

Of course all vestigials have a function and are therefore not vestigials.

Why, the great anatmist/physiologist (theologian, actually) George Howe once informed me that his posterior auricularis muscles could not be vestiges because he sometimes uses them to adjust his glasses.....

Maybe CD can provide a functon for the extensor coccygis? If, of course, we must rely on the "no functions for vestiges" caricature....

monkenstick

October 3, 2003, 07:03 PM

"all the members of the gibbon family that have been surveyed"? Last I checked there was only one gibbon sequence. In any case, to my knowledge there is no evidence that convergent mutations occur in distant species. The evidence that we do have is of them occurring in the same or very similar species. So it is not clear why you are having difficulty accepting the idea that there could be a convergent mutation within the hominidae, but not in the gibbon.

there is convergent evolution in the hominidae and in the gibbons, except that the mutations which are "convergent" are different for both of these monophyletic groups

so a C->T transition in codon 33 just happened to occur in all the members of hominidae, but no C->T transition in codon 18

and a C-> T transition occured in codon 18 in all the gibbons, but not a C->T transition in codon 33

take a look at the tree in the link. All the convergent mutations you're asking me to accept support the current tree - its a co-inincidence that is so ridiculous as to be preposterous

In fact, under evolution, what are the chances that a pseudogene would be caused by independent events? The evolutionists who published the urate oxidase findings noted this, and so were forced to make the strange conclusion that the pseudogene was selected for! :

"Because the disruption of a functional gene by independent events in two different evolutionary lineages is unlikely to occur on a chance basis, our data favor the hypothesis that the loss of urate oxidase may have evolutionary advantages." [J Mol Evol, 34:78-84, 1992]
A more recent paper posits the explanation that the pseudogene took two hits - a reduction in promoter function in the common ancestor of gibbons and hominidae followed by different nonsense mutations in those lineages

The conclusion isn't strange at all, if there is selective advantage in turning off a gene, then inactivating mutations in it will be favoured. The hypothesis is that urate, having antioxidant properties, may contribute to longer lifespans and a reduction in cancer rate.

Charles Darwin

October 5, 2003, 12:02 AM

Originally posted by monkenstick
there is convergent evolution in the hominidae and in the gibbons, except that the mutations which are "convergent" are different for both of these monophyletic groups

so a C->T transition in codon 33 just happened to occur in all the members of hominidae, but no C->T transition in codon 18

and a C-> T transition occured in codon 18 in all the gibbons, but not a C->T transition in codon 33

take a look at the tree in the link. All the convergent mutations you're asking me to accept support the current tree - its a co-inincidence that is so ridiculous as to be preposterous

I'm afraid you missed my point. Convergent mutations are observed in the same species, or in highly related species. They are not observed otherwise. So it is not "preposterous" to hypothesize that the same mutation observed in similar species could be the result of convergent mutations rather than common descent; and that a different mutation observed in a farther species is not convergent (and therefore likely to be at a different location) because the species are not so closely related. It is an independent mutation. So, you had independent mutations in these four species, but three species, the most similar, had convergent mutations.

I'm not saying I know that this is what happened. I'm merely saying that it need not be viewed as some great coincidence. We observe empirically that convergent mutations occur, and that they occur in highly similar species. Now we observe a pseudogene that has the same apparent mutation in the most similar species, and a different mutation in the more distant species. This fits.

Also, you ignored my question about the gibbon sequences. You say "all the gibbons" but I aware of only a single gibbon sequence. Are there more? If so, can you specify them?

Originally posted by monkenstick
A more recent paper posits the explanation that the pseudogene took two hits - a reduction in promoter function in the common ancestor of gibbons and hominidae followed by different nonsense mutations in those lineages

I wonder what the citation is? Thanks.

Charles Darwin

October 5, 2003, 12:25 AM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Let me ask you a variation of caravelair's question:

just out of curiosity, exactly what type of evidence would you need to see to be convinced of common descent? would you be convinced by ANY evidence, or have you closed your mind completely to the possibility? give me an example of something you think would be convincing evidence of common descent, if such evidence existed.

Let me give you some examples. Two related species of frogs, Rana fusca and Rana esculents have, as you would expect, very similar eyes. Yet they form differently. As Gavin de Beer put it, "This is no isolated example." It is not unusual that structures thought to be homologous, in fact, develop from different genes and/or different development pathways. Homologies that develop differently conflict with common descent.

There are similar pseudogenes in an endosymbiotic bacteria (Buchnera, as discussed in a recent post) from different hosts, which, even if one is an evolutionist, look independent. It would be very strange if they share a common ancestral pseudogene. But if we admit that these pseudogenes, with identical mutations, formed independently, then why not other pseudogenes as well? So we don't require common descent for pseudogenes.

There are HERVs that conflict with, and are not easily explained by, common descent.

There are fossils that appear planted there and have no obvious precursor. The general pattern of the fossil record is one of an upside down evolutionary tree. That is, you get a myriad of diversity all at once followed by a winnowing. This pattern occurs repeatedly.

Would I be convinced by ANY evidence. Sure I would. I'd be happy to jump on-board, but I need scientific evidence. Right now we have a lot of evidence against common descent. What evidence would suffice to accept common descent? Well, a great solution would be to provide the mechanism that accounts for all these anomalies and negative evidences. But then we're going beyond mere common descent, and we're talking about evolution. And that means we're going to hit the probability problem head-on. Now you've got even bigger problems.

Charles Darwin

October 5, 2003, 02:04 AM

Originally posted by Ken
You've shared with us a couple hairs of the camel of negative evidence for common descent (e.g., missing HERV). Do you have others in mind?

Two related species of frogs, Rana fusca and Rana esculents have, as you would expect, very similar eyes. Yet they form differently. As Gavin de Beer put it, "This is no isolated example." It is not unusual that structures thought to be homologous, in fact, develop from different genes and/or different development pathways. Homologies that develop differently conflict with common descent.

There are a great many cases of convergent evolution. Similar designs which must have arisen separately. This conflicts with common descent.

There are similar pseudogenes in an endosymbiotic bacteria (Buchnera, as discussed in a recent post) from different hosts, which, even if one is an evolutionist, look independent. It would be very strange if they share a common ancestral pseudogene. But if we admit that these pseudogenes, with identical mutations, formed independently, then why not other pseudogenes as well? So we don't require common descent for pseudogenes.

There are HERVs that conflict with, and are not easily explained by, common descent.

There are fossils that appear planted there and have no obvious precursor. The general pattern of the fossil record is one of an upside down evolutionary tree. That is, you get a myriad of diversity all at once followed by a winnowing. This pattern occurs repeatedly. This is not common descent.

Originally posted by Ken
I have not read the detailed journal description, but I have enough faith in the researchers to know that they would not have published anything about dormant teeth genes if it were possible to add certain mouse genes to any old chicken gene to make teeth. Furthermore, I assume they knew which chicken gene(s) to choose based on its placement in the genome relative to genes responsible for teeth formation in other species. You can't just dismiss this so easily. How simple a matter it would have been for the Intelligent Designer to make the chicken gene(s) unreceptive to tooth formation, and then our poor gullible minds would not have been led astray! It would have been much easier to make these genes unable to contribute to tooth formation than not, since it requires a specific set of functions to make teeth, even with the help of the mouse genes. If this were not so, the researchers could have simply used mouse genes to instruct our appendix gene(s), for example, to make teeth! Ken

First, you need to understand that results are routinely cast in the light of evolution, even if the connection is only remote. I'm not dismissing the Science paper so easily. The results simply do not support the claim that there is a dormant set of "teeth" genes in the bird.

Second, you say "How simple a matter it would have been for the Intelligent Designer to make the chicken gene(s) unreceptive to tooth formation." But would it really be so simple? You see we know not enough to make such a statement; not nearly enough. Also, it is not as though God has allowed for such an ambiguous situation to arise as you make it out to be. What more do you want? There are all kinds of problem with common descent; yet you would require for it to be impossible for common descent theories to be constructed. But how can such a thing be done when we are so adamant that it must be true. I suspect it really doesn't matter how much evidence one stacks up against common descent, we'll still find a way to argue for it. And then people come along and ask why the Creator didn't short-circuit that argument too. This is testing God.

Charles Darwin

October 5, 2003, 02:30 AM

Originally posted by Ken
You've given us one case where HERVs argue against common descent.
Two.

Originally posted by Ken
Rather than assuming this has no explanation, let's wait to find out whether in fact there may exist traces of the HERV in question, or whether this may be a different kind of HERV (or not an HERV altogether) that is more prone to disappearing from the genome than other HERVs. If indeed there is no possible explanation for the disappearance of this HERV, then that would indeed be good evidence against common descent, and I would be willing to reconsider my position. But there are so many instances that do testify to common descent that I would be surprised if a good explanation for the missing human HERV is not forthcoming. I will go further out on a limb and make this prediction: A reasonable explantion for the missing HERV will come to light. If it does, then will you be willing to accept it as a argument against your position?
Certainly.

Originally posted by Ken
Yes, assuming the sub-populations (i.e., races) have interbred. But once you have isolated populations (e.g., Australian Aboriginees), this is no longer feasible. But the main point, as others have expressed, is that given this data:

1) Chimps, the animals most closely allied to humans genetically, have 24 sets of chromosomes, and

2) Humans have 23 sets of chromosomes,

then, not knowing anything about the actual structure of the chromosomes, the only reasonable way to account for the difference, from the perspective of common descent, is to posit a fusion event sometime after the split of the chimp-human lineage. Why? Because it highly unlikely for a creature to lose a whole chromosome and survive. So when evidence of fusion was discovered (i.e., telomeres in chromosome 2), this was a fulfillment of evolutionary prediction.

Now, you can say "Big deal! This doesn't preclude special creation, nor is it surprising in the light of special creation." But here's the point, a point which can be made for hundreds of other like phenomena (e.g., nested hierarchies): While special creation could accommodate either outcome (e.g., fusion or no fusion, nested hierarchies or no nested hierarchies), evolution could not be true (or would suffer a great setback) if it were any other way (e.g., evidence that fusion had not occurred).

More later,

Ken

You are operating under a great misconception. Common descent would not be disproved if the human genome chromsome 2 was not fused. I don't know where you got that from. There are all kinds of genotype changes from species to species that common descent has no problem with. Was there a dilemma with common descent and evolution before the fusion hypothesis was posited?

The same for your nested hierarchies. Anomalies and difficulties are routinely explained by evolutionists using such devices as extraordinarily and temporarily high rates of mutation. Such events would erase the hierarchical pattern. And if you are willing to swallow the origin of life once, why not twice? And thrice? Who knows, life may have been popping up like corn. Maybe cladogenesis is rare, but anagenesis is prolific. With life originating so often, you could get many species, but no hierarchy. You greatly underestimate our ability to contrive the desired result.

lpetrich

October 5, 2003, 04:48 AM

"Charles Darwin":
I'm afraid you missed my point. Convergent mutations are observed in the same species, or in highly related species. They are not observed otherwise.

Convergent mutations? What are those supposed to be???

That mutation happening in some ancestor and being faithfully preserved by descendants is a MUCH more reasonable hypothesis.

Imagine that CD was a lawyer defending someone charged with plagiarism. The prosecution thinks it has an open-and-shut case. But CD has a comeback. "You see, my client can easily have come up with the exact same writing as the one he copied off of, grammatical and vocabulary quirks, typos, and all. So that is why one cannot determine whether anyone had committed plagiarism from their writing alone."

But if one can conclude plagiarism from comparison of writing alone, then one can infer evolution from patterns of similarity and difference.

Let me give you some examples. Two related species of frogs, Rana fusca and Rana esculents have, as you would expect, very similar eyes. Yet they form differently. As Gavin de Beer put it, "This is no isolated example."

I'd like to see CD explain what he means by "form differently", and why this is not an "isolated example". I also note that Gavin de Beer had wrote 32 years ago, and a lot can happen in that amount of time. Finally, is this his only example?

It is not unusual that structures thought to be homologous, in fact, develop from different genes and/or different development pathways. Homologies that develop differently conflict with common descent.

I notice that CD has not listed any specific genes that this is allegedly true of.

There are similar pseudogenes in an endosymbiotic bacteria (Buchnera, as discussed in a recent post) from different hosts, which, even if one is an evolutionist, look independent. ...

However, the hosts could easily have diversified with ancestral Buchnera bacteria living inside of them. Aphids could well have had these bacteria for as long as their ancestors had been sucking plant sap, which is around 200 million years according to some estimates.

There are HERVs that conflict with, and are not easily explained by, common descent.

Yawn. HERV's can become lost.

There are fossils that appear planted there and have no obvious precursor.

Which oens.

The general pattern of the fossil record is one of an upside down evolutionary tree. That is, you get a myriad of diversity all at once followed by a winnowing. This pattern occurs repeatedly.

Except that this diversification typically has a treelike structure; all that's happened is repeated pruning.

Right now we have a lot of evidence against common descent.

Like video of new species being poofed into existence?

There are a great many cases of convergent evolution. Similar designs which must have arisen separately. This conflicts with common descent.

Except that convergent evolution can often be recognized by differences in detail. Consider all these examples:

Wings:
Birds
Bats
Pterosaurs
Insects

Anteating:
Echidna (spiny anteater)
Pangolin
Aardvark
South American anteater

Camera Eyes:
Vertebrates
Cephalopods (squid, octopuses)

Antishness:
Ants
Termites

Prickly Coats:
Porcupines
Sea Urchins
Thorny Plants
Etc.

Venom:
Arachnids
Hymenopterans (wasps, bees, ants)
Snakes
Etc.

Armor:
Tree bark
Seed/nut shells
Aquatic-invertebrate shells
Arthropod outer skin
Fish, lizard/snake scales
Turtle shells
Armadillo skin plates
Etc.

Fins:
Squid
Fish
Ichthyosaurs
Plesiosaurs
Cetaceans

Hopping limbs:
Orthopterans (grasshoppers, locusts, crickets, katydids)
Frogs
Kangaroos
Rabbits

Grasping limbs:
Scorpions
Mantids
Lobsters/crabs
Perching birds (can grab a branch with their feet)
Primates

In many cases, the convergent feature's details are different enough to clearly indicate convergence. Bird wings closely resemble each other, and bat wings closely resemble each other, but bird and bat wings are very different-looking. Likewise, porcupine and sea-urchin spines are made in very different ways. Rabbit hind legs do not look much like grasshopper hind legs. And human hands do not look much like songbird feet or lobster claws.

In some cases, the convergent features are very similar-looking, but the rest of the organism gives it away. The various anteaters have long, thin snouts and tongues, but the rest of the animal is different enough to indicate convergent evolution -- the closest relatives of each one are non-anteaters.

monkenstick

October 5, 2003, 06:42 AM

I'm afraid you missed my point. Convergent mutations are observed in the same species, or in highly related species. They are not observed otherwise. So it is not "preposterous" to hypothesize that the same mutation observed in similar species could be the result of convergent mutations rather than common descent; and that a different mutation observed in a farther species is not convergent (and therefore likely to be at a different location) because the species are not so closely related. It is an independent mutation. So, you had independent mutations in these four species, but three species, the most similar, had convergent mutations.

I'm not saying I know that this is what happened. I'm merely saying that it need not be viewed as some great coincidence. We observe empirically that convergent mutations occur, and that they occur in highly similar species. Now we observe a pseudogene that has the same apparent mutation in the most similar species, and a different mutation in the more distant species. This fits.

Also, you ignored my question about the gibbon sequences. You say "all the gibbons" but I aware of only a single gibbon sequence. Are there more? If so, can you specify them?

*sigh*
Maybe i'd better list it

Members of family hominidae:

H. Sapiens - nonsense mutation in codon 33
P. Troglodytes - nonsense mutation in codon 33
P.Pygmaeus - nonsense mutation in codon 33
G.Gorilla - nonsense mutation in codon 33

Members of the family Hylobatidae:
H.lar - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.agilis - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.muelleri - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.concolor - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.syndactylus - nonsense mutation in codon 18

Now, look at the tree again, click on hominidae, and then click on hylobatidae
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Catarrhini&contgroup=Primates

putting these mutations down to convergence rather than descent is clutching at straws trying to avoid a conclusion you don't like. Parsimony, maximum likelihood and bloody common sense indicate that these mutations are a shared derived characters

The amount of fortuitous convergent mutations you're proposing would make paternity tests useless, and forensic DNA analysis inadmissible

REF:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=11961098&dopt=Citation

Ken

October 5, 2003, 10:11 PM

This site (http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/197x/stone-i-orthomol_psych-1972-v1-n2-3-p82.htm) (whose accuracy I cannot necessarily vouch for) suggests that the GLO mutation affects the entire sub-order Anthropoidea, including the family Hominidae, the gibbons and others, but not the prosimians. If this is accurate, CD, would you suggest that these dozens of species all acquired the same mutation independently, while the urate oxidase mutation affected only the species of the family Hominidae and not the gibbons (in keeping with the expectations of common descent)? If the mutations arose independently, should there not be an anthropoid species here and there that does not suffer from the GLO mutation? I don't think all the species have been surveyed, but the theory of common descent predicts that when the data is all in, all the anthropoid species will be shown to suffer from the same mutation. If not, then your theory would begin to look more promising. Otherwise, common descent appears to have more explanatory power.

markfiend

October 6, 2003, 05:27 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
So it is not "preposterous" to hypothesize that the same mutation observed in similar species could be the result of convergent mutations rather than common descent; and that a different mutation observed in a farther species is not convergent (and therefore likely to be at a different location) because the species are not so closely related.

and in a different post...

Two related species of frogs, Rana fusca and Rana esculents have, as you would expect, very similar eyes.

CD, do you not realise that by accepting "related species", and species that are "similar" or "not so closely related", you are implicitly accepting common descent?

If common descent is false, then how can you say that species are related to each other at all?

Oolon Colluphid

October 6, 2003, 05:31 AM

Originally posted by markfiend
CD, do you not realise that by accepting "related species", and species that are "similar" or "not so closely related", you are implicitly accepting common descent?

If common descent is false, then how can you say that species are related to each other at all?
But you see, they're still the same 'kind'. :rolleyes:

Has CD defined 'kind' yet? If not, it's about time he did, since it is crucial.

Oolon

Jack the Bodiless

October 6, 2003, 07:32 AM

There are fossils that appear planted there and have no obvious precursor.
You keep saying this, but we're no closer to finding out which fossils you're referring to.

This is a dangerous argument for creationists to use, because we keep finding the "missing" fossils. The history of this argument is one of uninterrupted retreat by the creationists.
The general pattern of the fossil record is one of an upside down evolutionary tree. That is, you get a myriad of diversity all at once followed by a winnowing. This pattern occurs repeatedly. This is not common descent.
...Yes, it is. Why are mass-extinctions, and subseqent rapid diversification to fill vacant niches, supposedly "not common descent"?

pangloss

October 6, 2003, 04:25 PM

I had not heard that 'convergent mutation = synapomorphy' line before. That is a classic - a keeper - and a prime exmample of the cognitive dissonance that runs rampant in creationists....

Jobar

October 6, 2003, 11:57 PM

Hello CD; you haven't heard from me before, but I have followed with great interest the entire 25 pages of this thread, and I have a question, and an observation.

Back on pages 22 and 23, this exchange occurred:

Ken:
As a former missionary linguist-to-be-Bible translator in Africa, I was impressed by the similarities and differences between the language I studied and a neighboring related language. I often thought about the principles I had learned in my one historical linguistic class, and I was fascinated by the patterns I could uncover, and puzzled by the instances that ran counter to the rules. But I never once doubted that the two languages shared a common ancestor. The geographical and morphological proximity of the two languages made it impossible to argue otherwise, in spite of the puzzles. What really happened? In broad lines, they descended from a common ancestor. Exactly how it happened, I have no clue.

(Ken, I think that your contributions to this thread, as a former creationist who came to see the strength of evolution and the nonsensical implications of creationism, are at least as powerful as the voluminous technical information from our resident experts. Bravo!)

CD:
Nor do I doubt that two languages can share a common ancestor. So what? You are not invoking spectacularly unlikely events. A people group split up and their once common language became two different languages. You are making a strawman argument. Creationists don't doubt such events. Or to put it another way, doubting the evolutionary process is not at all tantamount to doubting such events as language evolution.

Now, from this, I gather that you are not so much the Biblical literalist as to claim that the differing languages of humanity are the result of God passing a miracle to prevent the construction of the Tower of Babel. You say flat out that "Creationists don't doubt such events."

Charles, I was in elementary school when Watson and Crick determined the structure of DNA. I recall very clearly the achievement being called deciphering the LANGUAGE of genetics.

You admit that languages can evolve. Yet you try to claim that the genetic code cannot! Tell me, just how do you conclude this? Is there some reason that speech (a way of communicating information) can change to such a degree that two or more wildly varying languages can sprout from one language, while the genetic code (also a way of communicating information) cannot change to such a degree that two or more wildly varying species cannot sprout from one?

That's the question; the observation:

As far as I can see, as a highly-informed layman (my degree is in physics, but I once taught high school biology, and also was once a mod on this forum for a short while), the only real 'problem for evolution' you have shown in these pages has been the 2 missing HERVs in the human genome. Charles, claiming that this constitutes any sort of spoiler for the fact of evolution, is akin to claiming that small unexplained variations in the measured surface gravity of the Earth, constitutes a 'spoiler' to the fact of geosphericity.

Despite the fact that, IMO, you have utterly failed to show any significant flaw in the concept of evolution, I want to thank you for coming here and arguing; because thanks to your addlepated and silly objections, I have received a refresher course in the science of biology, and the theory (which explains the fact) of evolution.

:)

Charles Darwin

October 7, 2003, 07:58 PM

Originally posted by monkenstick
*sigh*
Maybe i'd better list it

Members of family hominidae:

H. Sapiens - nonsense mutation in codon 33
P. Troglodytes - nonsense mutation in codon 33
P.Pygmaeus - nonsense mutation in codon 33
G.Gorilla - nonsense mutation in codon 33

Members of the family Hylobatidae:
H.lar - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.agilis - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.muelleri - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.concolor - nonsense mutation in codon 18
H.syndactylus - nonsense mutation in codon 18

Now, look at the tree again, click on hominidae, and then click on hylobatidae
http://tolweb.org/tree?group=Catarrhini&contgroup=Primates

putting these mutations down to convergence rather than descent is clutching at straws trying to avoid a conclusion you don't like. Parsimony, maximum likelihood and bloody common sense indicate that these mutations are a shared derived characters

The amount of fortuitous convergent mutations you're proposing would make paternity tests useless, and forensic DNA analysis inadmissible

REF:http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?db=PubMed&cmd=Retrieve&list_uids=11961098&dopt=Citation

Thank you for the citation. I'd seen that paper, but forgot that they had sequenced several gibbon genes. Let's look at what the paper really says, but first, you are wrong if you think I am "clutching at straws trying to avoid a conclusion" I don't like. That is simply not the case. Now on to the paper.

Earlier I pointed out that, even if one accepts evolution, there are pseudogenes that coincidentally contain identical yet independent mutations. This undercuts the evolutionary reasoning that pseudogenes, such as this urate oxidase pseudogene, must have a common ancestor because they share common crippling mutations. This paper contains yet more examples of this.

For instance: "The nonsense mutation (TGA) at codon 107 is, however, more complicated than others. It occurs in the gorilla, the orangutan, and the gibbon, and therefore requires multiple origins of this nonsense mutation."

And then there is this apparent multiple event: "One exceptional change is a duplicated segment of GGGATGCC in intron 4 which is shared by the gorilla and the orangutan. However, because this change is phylogenetically incompatible with any of the three possible sister-relationships among the closely related trio of the human, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, it might result from two independent duplications. Alternatively, though less likely, ...".

Next there is this "coincidence": "it is interesting to note that the exon 2 nonsense mutation (CGATGA) is the same as that found in psi-Uox in the human and the great apes. One possibility for such coincidence may be attributed to a high transition rate from C to T in a CGA codon." But the authors then discuss why this is not likely."

And here is a conflicting phylogeny within the Gibbons: "The splice donor site mutation at intron 3 is shared by gibbons, except H. syndactylus (data not shown). This and other substitutions in the gibbon Uox gene support that H. syndactylus is the most distantly related species in the family (fig. 3 ). This conclusion is different from that of Roos and Geissman (2001) , who studied the mitochondrial control region and Phe-tRNA."

Finally, things became so confused that they resort to admitting that even the two independent events that are supposed to have caused the inactivation, probably, in fact, did not really do the job all by themselves. Rather, it must have been a progressive process of degradation: "Although dysfunctioning of the Uox gene in the human and great ape clade stems from a nonsense mutation in exon 2 or in the gibbon clade stems from a nonsense mutation in exon 2 or one-base indels, the promoter might have already been deteriorated by harmful mutations before Catarrhini and Platyrrhini diverged from each other. It therefore appears that the stepwise loss of Uox activity is more reasonable than the single step loss during primate evolution."

Then there is theh remarkable multiple CGA-TGA conversions: "Overall, it is remarkable that, except one CGA codon in exon 6, all the other four CGA codons are converted to the TGA termination codon in all or some of the hominoids."

Furthermore, you claim that the urate oxidase pseudogene phylogeny confirms the consensus phylogeny, but this is not the case. The latter has the gorilla splitting off first, and then chimp-human split occurring later. The urate oxidase pseudogene phylogeny has the human splitting off first. The authors are forced to resort to the claim that there must have been high levels of polymorphism in the ancestral species followed by random sorting of polymorphism in the descendant species.

I'm sorry, but these pseudogenes are simply not the unequivocal proofs of evolution and common descent as you claim. In fact, not only do they fail to provide such undeniable evidence, but they raise several problems.

markfiend

October 8, 2003, 04:47 AM

Coo-eee! Charles! Did you miss this?Originally posted by markfiend
CD, do you not realise that by accepting "related species", and species that are "similar" or "not so closely related", you are implicitly accepting common descent?

If common descent is false, then how can you say that species are related to each other at all? Still waiting for an answer!

Charles Darwin

October 8, 2003, 10:52 PM

Originally posted by markfiend
CD, do you not realise that by accepting "related species", and species that are "similar" or "not so closely related", you are implicitly accepting common descent?

If common descent is false, then how can you say that species are related to each other at all?

Some species are more similar to each other than to others. Like two autos that are more similar, I am simply using the word "related" to describe this, not to suggest they have common ancestors. Species are not all equally different or similar.

Charles Darwin

October 8, 2003, 10:53 PM

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
But you see, they're still the same 'kind'. :rolleyes:

Has CD defined 'kind' yet? If not, it's about time he did, since it is crucial.

Oolon

No I did not define 'kind.' Why is it crucial?

Charles Darwin

October 9, 2003, 01:12 AM

Originally posted by Ken
This site (http://www.seanet.com/~alexs/ascorbate/197x/stone-i-orthomol_psych-1972-v1-n2-3-p82.htm) (whose accuracy I cannot necessarily vouch for) suggests that the GLO mutation affects the entire sub-order Anthropoidea, including the family Hominidae, the gibbons and others, but not the prosimians. If this is accurate, CD, would you ...

Interesting point. I'm only able to find it in the human (D17461), chimp, orangutan and macaque. Also, see this paper for example. (http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/query.fcgi?cmd=Retrieve&db=PubMed&list_uids=10572964&dopt=Abstract) I have never seen a gorilla or gibbon sequence for this pseudogene. Is this evidence going to turn out like the urate oxidase pseudogene ?

Charles Darwin

October 9, 2003, 01:35 AM

Originally posted by Jobar
You admit that languages can evolve. Yet you try to claim that the genetic code cannot! Tell me, just how do you conclude this? Is there some reason that speech (a way of communicating information) can change to such a degree that two or more wildly varying languages can sprout from one language, while the genetic code (also a way of communicating information) cannot change to such a degree that two or more wildly varying species cannot sprout from one?

That's the question; the observation:

As far as I can see, as a highly-informed layman (my degree is in physics, but I once taught high school biology, and also was once a mod on this forum for a short while), the only real 'problem for evolution' you have shown in these pages has been the 2 missing HERVs in the human genome. Charles, claiming that this constitutes any sort of spoiler for the fact of evolution, is akin to claiming that small unexplained variations in the measured surface gravity of the Earth, constitutes a 'spoiler' to the fact of geosphericity.

Despite the fact that, IMO, you have utterly failed to show any significant flaw in the concept of evolution, I want to thank you for coming here and arguing; because thanks to your addlepated and silly objections, I have received a refresher course in the science of biology, and the theory (which explains the fact) of evolution.

Just to be clear, I did not claim the genetic code cannot evolve; I claimed it is highly unlikely. I'd prefer not to get into a lengthy discussion comparing it with the evolution of language. They are two different things and I think the analogy just won't get us very far. The reason teh evolution of the genetic code is so far-fetched has to do with physics and chemistry; the idea is simply unsupported by science. When you bring up human language you introduce a raft of complicating factors, such as they human brain, sociology, and so forth.

You next point out that aside from a couple of HERVs, there really aren't any evidential problems with evolution. You are certainly not alone here. This belief, along with the claim that evolution is a fact, are the telling parts of this tale. It isn't enough to posit a most bizarre theory; that the most complex things we know of arose all by themselves. But evolutionists next tell us with a straight face that the theory is a fact, and that there isn't any evidence to the contrary. You have no idea how the genetic code, echolocation, or a thousand other complexities could have evolved, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Adaptation is driven by a complex machine which evolution doesn't explain yet relies on, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Everything we know from breeding and mutation experiments is that change doesn't take you very far, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Homologies have different development patterns, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. The Burgess Shale fossils look like they were planted there, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. The fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Can you see why evolution is so problematic?

NottyImp

October 9, 2003, 02:20 AM

Everything we know from breeding and mutation experiments is that change doesn't take you very far

But doesn't going not very far over several billion years get you quite a long way? That's the point, isn't it?

Just to be clear though, Charles, how old do you think the earth is?

markfiend

October 9, 2003, 04:34 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Some species are more similar to each other than to others. Like two autos that are more similar, I am simply using the word "related" to describe this, not to suggest they have common ancestors. Species are not all equally different or similar.Oh dear. Didn't we go over this (what feels like) several thousand posts ago? The point that "Species are not all equally different or similar" is what I was trying to explain to you in my posts about cladistics here, (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1147045#post1147045) here, (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1150242#post1150242) here, (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1151415#post1151415) and here. (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&postid=1153004#post1153004) You deny this in one post, then accept it several pages later.
Just to be clear, I did not claim the genetic code cannot evolve; I claimed it is highly unlikely. I'd prefer not to get into a lengthy discussion comparing it with the evolution of language. They are two different things and I think the analogy just won't get us very far. The reason teh evolution of the genetic code is so far-fetched has to do with physics and chemistry; the idea is simply unsupported by science.No. It is perfectly well-supported by science but denied by your theology. When you bring up human language you introduce a raft of complicating factors, such as they human brain, sociology, and so forth.

You next point out that aside from a couple of HERVs, there really aren't any evidential problems with evolution. You are certainly not alone here. This belief, along with the claim that evolution is a fact, are the telling parts of this tale. It isn't enough to posit a most bizarre theory; that the most complex things we know of arose all by themselves.Argument from incredulity, now Charles? But evolutionists next tell us with a straight face that the theory is a fact, and that there isn't any evidence to the contrary. You have no idea how the genetic code, echolocationWhat??? Oh I cannot be bothered going through this thread again for the many hypotheses put forward for how echolocation could have evolved. But I know they are there, and if you are honest, so do you., or a thousand other complexities could have evolved, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Adaptation is driven by a complex machine which evolution doesn't explain yet relies on,It's called the environment, Charles. Ever heard of it? This is what drives evolution, adaptation to the environment. but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Everything we know from breeding and mutation experiments is that change doesn't take you very far, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Homologies have different development patterns, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. The Burgess Shale fossils look like they were planted there,This is wrong, as has been explained to you on many occasions. but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. The fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree,No it doesn't. Can you not take on board a single correction of your misconceptions that any of us offer? but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. Can you see why evolution is so problematic? Quite frankly, no. It is not problematic unless posed against your dogmatic unwillingness to accept it.

monkenstick

October 9, 2003, 06:02 AM

charles, for a tree with ten species, there are 125000 possible topologies - the fact that this tree matches extremely closely with two minor differences in terminal branches isn't supportive of your claims that convergent mutations are the explanation for the relationships of the UOX pseudogenes. Gorilla, human and chimp genes sometimes group differently than the currently accepted species tree because of the problem of lineage sorting

the question is which scenario is more likely - that broken genes in hominidae are the result of convergent mutations, or common ancestry

common ancestry is quite clearly a more likely explanation - this is supported by the fact that the phylogeny of the members of hominidae surveyed form a monophyletic group, distinct from hylobatids

lpetrich

October 9, 2003, 06:18 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
No I did not define 'kind.' Why is it crucial? "Charles Darwin", are you always this obtuse?

"Created kind" or "baramin" is a VERY important concept to many creationists.

Jack the Bodiless

October 9, 2003, 07:22 AM

Just to be clear, I did not claim the genetic code cannot evolve; I claimed it is highly unlikely. I'd prefer not to get into a lengthy discussion comparing it with the evolution of language. They are two different things and I think the analogy just won't get us very far. The reason teh evolution of the genetic code is so far-fetched has to do with physics and chemistry; the idea is simply unsupported by science.
...Except, of course, that it isn't. :rolleyes:

Charles, there is nothing remotely "unscientific" about the occurrence of mutations in the genetic code, or the operation of natural selection (and, from the context, it's quite clear that we're not discussing the origin of the genetic code, but the subsequent diversification of species: THAT's where the analogy with the diversification of languages comes in). As I pointed out earlier, you are entitled to your own opinions, but you are NOT entitled to your own facts. Physics and chemistry don't contradict evolution just because you WANT them to.

You seem to have a very hazy notion of what is "supported by science" and what is not. Common descent is certainly supported by science, as is mutation and natural selection (and hence evolution).
You next point out that aside from a couple of HERVs, there really aren't any evidential problems with evolution. You are certainly not alone here. This belief, along with the claim that evolution is a fact, are the telling parts of this tale.
What's "telling" is that you still can't find anything else. And that you keep pretending that there's a "problem" with echolocation, the Burgess Shale etc. simply because you WANT to believe this.

I note that you have still not actually answered my question: what evidence, if it existed, would cause you to accept common descent? Your previous effort involved regurgitating the HERV example as alleged evidence against common descent, but you won't address the evidence FOR common descent. You won't tell us how much you need, or why you feel that you don't have enough.

I suspect this is because you're too embarrassed to admit that no evidence could possibly be enough: that your views are fixed by your religion. This is evident from your earlier "God made it that way" posts. But if that's your stance, I think we'd all appreciate a little Kurt Wise honesty here: stop trying to pretend that science is on your side.

For instance, if a million strands of evidence are studied, two strands of evidence point AGAINST common descent (though not conclusively) and another 999,998 strands of evidence point TOWARDS common descent: even if your religion requires you to deny this evidence, surely you can't be so obtuse or dishonest as to claim that it is unscientific to conclude that common descent has occurred?

lpetrich

October 9, 2003, 07:58 AM

"Charles Darwin":
The reason teh evolution of the genetic code is so far-fetched has to do with physics and chemistry; the idea is simply unsupported by science.

First, evolution is NOT a "poof" theory of origins. Many creationists seem to think that, perhaps because they already believe in a "poof" theory of origins.

One reasonable scenario is origin from a RNA world; the first proteins had been short coenzymes assembled with RNA enzymes, and once this mechanism got going, the "coenzymes" became big enough to become the primary parts, with the RNA becoming reduced to coenzyme status or dropping out altogether.

Notice the absence of a "*POOF!*" step.

You have no idea how the genetic code, echolocation, or a thousand other complexities could have evolved, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

"Charles Darwin" has indicated elsewhere that he considers only a fully-worked-out scenario acceptable. I think that he'd have a great career as a defense lawyer -- he'd demand similar fully-worked-out scenarios from the prosecution, with even the tiniest gaps construed as absolute proof that his client is 100% innocent.

Thus, he'd consider bat echolocation possible to evolve only after the complete working out of all the details of how bat genes get translated into bat echolocation mechanisms. And if that is not CD's view, then what is it? Is such full detail absolutely necessary or is it not?

I think that CD ought to consider the evolution of jawed-vertebrate hemoglobin. It is a 4-part molecule composed of two kinds of protein chains (alpha and beta, of course) attached to heme groups in a square pattern:

AB
BA

The family trees produced by comparison of the alpha and beta chains agree closely with those derived by traditional means -- and also with each other. Furthermore, the alpha and beta chains are recognizably related to each other, which suggests that they were the result of a gene duplication in some early jawed fish.

Adaptation is driven by a complex machine which evolution doesn't explain yet relies on, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

What "complex machine"? I have no idea what CD has in mind.

Everything we know from breeding and mutation experiments is that change doesn't take you very far, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

Except that breeding experiments tend to exhaust pre-existing variations, and mutations have to be succeeded by lots of other mutations to produce big changes.

Homologies have different development patterns, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

Except that CD has cited exactly ONE example -- an example that he may have misunderstood.

But when one looks at the genetic level, homologies are confirmed. In fact, some development mechanisms, like Hox genes, are conserved over much of the animal kingdom. Geoffroy St. Hilaire's hypothesis of dorsoventral inversion has been confirmed by molecular evidence after a century and a half of controversy and rejection. Eyes are started with Pax6 over much of the animal kingdom, and there is evidence that the forebrain-midbrain-hindbrain differentiation mechanism may be equally widespread.

The Burgess Shale fossils look like they were planted there, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

How do they look "planted there"?

And let's see how much CD knows about the Chengjiang fossils.

The fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

CD has NOT explained why it looks like an "inverted evolutionary tree". I suggest that he look at the equine fossil record some time.

Oolon Colluphid

October 9, 2003, 08:12 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
No I did not define 'kind.' Why is it crucial?
Talk about obtuse! Let me lay it out simply.

Evolution says that all living things -- oak tree, platyhelminth, wasp, elephant, liverwort, sponge, snake, albatross, alga, protist and person, and all other things -- derive from one (or at worst, a few) common ancestors.

Creation says that living things were created separately: that each 'kind' is separate, and not related by descent with modification. A 'kind' is an immutable thing (since if it were mutable, there's no reason why a whale, say, could not 'microevolve' from a fully terrestrial tetrapod).

But, creationists allow -- since they have no choice -- that 'microevolution' occurs. That it can even cause speciation. But that Galapagos finches are still the same 'kind'; that Great Danes and chihuahuas are still 'dog kind', and so on.

So, some change is allowable uinder both hypotheses.

Evolution says that 'microevolution' can go on indefinitely, producing vastly different organisms; creation says that one kind cannot microevolve into another.

Therefore there is some barrier to microevolution that cannot be crossed, which makes 'kinds' ultimately immutable.

And therefore, if we are to test the creation hypothesis, we need to first know what a 'kind' actually is. How can we tell if it's immutable if we don't know what one is?!

There are in nature certain potential groupings of creatures, based on their sharing of defining characteristics, and we need to know which are related by microevolutionary descent, and which are actually separate 'kinds'.

So, what is a 'kind'? Does it roughly equate to a:
Population
Race
Subspecies (eg Crotalus viridis viridis, Crotalus viridis cerberus, Homo sapiens sapiens)
Species (eg Crotalus viridis, Homo sapiens, Homo ergaster)
Genus (eg Crotalus, Homo, Australopithecus)
Tribe / subfamily (eg Hominini, Crotalinae)
Family (eg , Viperidae, Hominidae)
Superfamily (eg Hominoidea)
Order (eg Squamata, Primates)
Class (eg Reptilia, Mammalia)
Subphylum (eg Vertebrata)
Phylum (eg Chordata)
Kingdom
... or something else?

Nature shows nested hierarchies, but at some point -- according to creationists -- there should be a clear divide between 'kinds'. One should be able to say whether something is one kind or another.

So come on then. What is a 'kind', and how do we tell?

TTFN, Oolon

GunnerJ

October 9, 2003, 09:36 AM

But evolutionists next tell us with a straight face that the theory is a fact

:banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead: :banghead:

Ape31

October 9, 2003, 10:22 AM

Creationists are opposed to the idea that one 'kind' can evolve into another 'kind' but in one sense this does not conflict with evolution at all. The concept of a nested heirarchy encapsulates the idea nicely - even though lines may split in two, both are still members of the same parent group. When we point to the variation within a 'kind', for example comparing Great Danes to chihuahuas, a creationist will always respond with "Yes, but they are still dogs" at which point we should agree. Then point out that the descendants of Great Danes could have two heads and be the size of large dinosaurs and the descendants of chihuahuas could have six wings and be the size of insects and they would both still be dogs.

This point should be made more often and more loudly IMHO.

r.

caravelair

October 9, 2003, 11:34 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
We're getting closer. But when you say: "but evolution does not do anything 'right off'. ", you are ignoring the history of evolutionary thinking. Starting with Huxley, there have always been evolutionists who have considered at least the possibility of rather abrupt change. There is nothing in the theory that disallows this. Hence, if evolutionists were unable to locate any "vestigial" structures, it would do them no harm. They could say there is some biological mechanism that allows for it, like a mutation that interferes with the development path. And since evolution does not require such gradual reduction, it is not a prediction of evolution.

i don't have to ascribe to every idea of every evolutionist ever. huxley lived before the mechanism of inheritance and variation was understood. now that we know a little bit more about genetics, we know that the vast majority of mutations cause small differences, not big ones. we also know that most major mutations are detrimental. in fact, in order for such a structure to be removed in this way, it would already have to have become functionless before this occured, otherwise removing this structure would be detrimental, and this would have to have occurred by gradual change. if a mutation did remove such a structure, this change would only spread through the gene pool if it was beneficial. and since most vestigial organs are not detrimental, there is no reason this would happen by natural selection. in fact, since natural selection deals with what is available, we would expect it to co-opt the function of an organ that is not useful anymore, and thus removing the organ completely would be detrimental in these cases, and would be prevented by natural selection. the flaw in your thinking is that you assume an organ becomes functionless (or changes function) BY mutation. in reality, the organ would become functionless (or change function) gradually, as the species gradually changes between ecological niches. this does not necessarily require the structure of the organ to change much. since species would only change niches gradually, we would expect sudden changes like this not to occur, or at the very least to occur incredibly rarely. you also assume that evoltion predicts that all vestigial structures are on their way to non-existance, which is not necessarily the case. so therefore, vestigial structures ARE a falsifiable prediction of evolutionary theory. even if rapid changes occured occasionally, we would still expect them to occur gradually the vast majority of the time. if we found no vestigial structures at all, this would indeed be damaging to evolution.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
yes, I very much agree. These have been my points precisely. First, from a scientific view, it is the comparison with the homologous structures in *other* species. That is, "vestigial" organs are evidence merely in the same way as any other similarity, regardless of the level of function. Then, second, the power of the evidence, and the reason it is called out so prominently by evolutionists, is the metaphysical argument you echo. It seems to us that these *ought* to serve the function of flight. Yours is a very good point. But it is not scientific.

but it's not a metaphysical argument at all to say that a structure is more specified for one function than for another. for example, some feathers are asymmetrical, which makes them more useful for flight, but does not make them more useful for insulation at all. feathers would insulate precisely as well if they were symmetrical. therefore, if we have asymmetrical feathers, we can say that they have characteristics which make them more specified for flight than for insulation. i see no metaphysics involved in this argument. and we can combine this with the fact that such feathers ARE used for flight in other organisms. as a second example, let's consider blind eyes. these eyes have lenses. this characteristic is useful for seeing, but wouldn't benefit any other possible function of the eye. combine this with the fact that we see eyes used for seeing in other species, and we know that lenses are beneficial for the eyes that do see, and we can say that these eye-structures are more specified for seeing than for any other possible function they might have. no metaphysics involved there, as far as i can see. similarly, i COULD use my nose to ingest spaghetti, but clearly noses are more specified for breathing than for eating. my mouth can be used for breathing, but clearly my teeth don't help me with that at all. but teeth are useful for mechanical digestion. therefore it is clear that while my mouth can be used for breathing, the structures in my mouth are clearly specified for eating. furthermore, we know that mouths ARE used for eating. this is no different than determining what functions structures are speficied for in vestigial organs. i don't see any metaphysics invovled here. i made no assumptions about what a designer would or would not do.

caravelair

October 9, 2003, 02:31 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Closed my mind? Think about what you are saying. You believe that the most complex things known arose all by themselves. You cannot explain how it happened. And you claim it to be a fact. And you are asking me about my judgement?

i'm sorry, but how does any of that imply that i have a closed mind? my mind is open. show me some structure that couldn't possibly have evolved, and i will concede that it is a big problem for evolution to deal with.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
My problem with evolution is its disconnect with science. What evidence would I need? That's a difficult question, though I could speculate. But I would have hoped that you'd have a sense from my posts.

the sense i get from your posts is that you will not accept any evidence at all.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
The evidence does not stack up; it does not even come close.

then perhaps you can suggest some other theory that you think does have sufficient evidence to support it, and explain some of that evidence. then we can see precisely what level of evidence you have in mind.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
The tone of your question suggests that I am setting an unrealistically high evidential standard. Come on man, is it too much to ask for some explanation for how the most complex things are supposed to have arose by themselves?

no, that is not too much to ask. however, we have provided you with SOME explanation for this. is it too much to ask that we provide every detail about everything? yes, THAT is too much to ask. every detail is not necessary. we certainly knew that gravity was a fact, before we could explain how it could lead to the formation of solar systems and galaxies.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
And it is not as though you have all kinds of powerful circumstantial evidence anyway.

funny, i think that's exactly what we do have here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/).

i believe we're still waiting for your 29+ lines of evidence for a flat earth.

junkyardgod

October 9, 2003, 06:10 PM

I can't say that I've read every post in this thread, much to long. So I don't know if this point has been touched on. But, from my perspective, according to the best evidence that I have at my disposal, evolution is embedded within a much larger, essentially all encompassing, phenomena, i.e., change through time. Many, not all, of the rules of change are understood. None of the rules require devine guidance, FWIK.

The whole universe, appearently, is evolving. At thier roots change and evolution are synonomyse.

Why would one think that "life" would be different, simply because it is more complex than other combinations of matter?

JYG

Charles Darwin

October 9, 2003, 10:24 PM

Originally posted by Oolon Colluphid
Talk about obtuse! Let me lay it out simply.

Evolution says that all living things -- oak tree, platyhelminth, wasp, elephant, liverwort, sponge, snake, albatross, alga, protist and person, and all other things -- derive from one (or at worst, a few) common ancestors.

Creation says that living things were created separately: that each 'kind' is separate, and not related by descent with modification. A 'kind' is an immutable thing (since if it were mutable, there's no reason why a whale, say, could not 'microevolve' from a fully terrestrial tetrapod).

But, creationists allow -- since they have no choice -- that 'microevolution' occurs. That it can even cause speciation. But that Galapagos finches are still the same 'kind'; that Great Danes and chihuahuas are still 'dog kind', and so on.

So, some change is allowable uinder both hypotheses.

Evolution says that 'microevolution' can go on indefinitely, producing vastly different organisms; creation says that one kind cannot microevolve into another.

Therefore there is some barrier to microevolution that cannot be crossed, which makes 'kinds' ultimately immutable.

And therefore, if we are to test the creation hypothesis, we need to first know what a 'kind' actually is. How can we tell if it's immutable if we don't know what one is?!

There are in nature certain potential groupings of creatures, based on their sharing of defining characteristics, and we need to know which are related by microevolutionary descent, and which are actually separate 'kinds'.

So, what is a 'kind'? Does it roughly equate to a:
Population
Race
Subspecies (eg Crotalus viridis viridis, Crotalus viridis cerberus, Homo sapiens sapiens)
Species (eg Crotalus viridis, Homo sapiens, Homo ergaster)
Genus (eg Crotalus, Homo, Australopithecus)
Tribe / subfamily (eg Hominini, Crotalinae)
Family (eg , Viperidae, Hominidae)
Superfamily (eg Hominoidea)
Order (eg Squamata, Primates)
Class (eg Reptilia, Mammalia)
Subphylum (eg Vertebrata)
Phylum (eg Chordata)
Kingdom
... or something else?

Nature shows nested hierarchies, but at some point -- according to creationists -- there should be a clear divide between 'kinds'. One should be able to say whether something is one kind or another.

So come on then. What is a 'kind', and how do we tell?

TTFN, Oolon

Sorry for seeming obtuse. Now I see your point. My problem with evolution is not that it crosses a religiously-inspired barrier (I'll remind you that William Paley had no problem, in principle, with the thought of the species evolving), but rather that the scientific evidence we do have indicates that adaptative change is not unbounded (for several different reasons already pointed out). Is evolution disproven? No.

If the science is right, then are there barriers, and therefore 'kinds'? Not necessarily. The design space is enormous. Even if there is a gradual path of viable intermediates between species A and B, the odds on random mutations striking on it are likely to be quite small. And even if such pathways do not exist, are the kinds all of the same nature (e.g., at the family level)? Again, not necessarily. So from my perspective the question: 'what is a kind'? is not so very important.

Charles Darwin

October 9, 2003, 10:48 PM

Originally posted by caravelair
funny, i think that's exactly what we do have here (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/).

Well, how 'bout you tell us which evidence from that site is your favorite one?

Worldtraveller

October 10, 2003, 01:44 AM

I know I said I was going to stay out of this thread...somewhere back on page 14 or so, but I saw something yesterday in the subway tunnel that made me think of our friend, Charles Darwin.

I was walking along the tunnel to the main train station when I heard a whistling behind me. Now at first, I thought it was just someone wandering along, whistling happily, if tunelessly. But there was an odd quality to the way the whistling sounded that caught my attention. So I turned to look, and lo and behold, there is a blind fellow about 20 feet back, turning his head from side to side, letting out 203 second whistles, and something I hadn't noticed before, also making a clicking sound with his tongue. Guess what?? He was echolocating!! And from the way he changed direction and headed up the branch that was on the other side of the tunnel (well out of reach of his cane) he seemed to be doing a pretty good job at it. So, if a ordinary hman being, with no special sensory adaptation, can learn to echolocate, how is it that it seems such a far stretch for for the ability to evolve over time as a selective trait?

Just my $0.02.

Cheers,
Lane

Charles Darwin

October 10, 2003, 02:12 AM

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD wrote: But evolutionists next tell us with a straight face that the theory is a fact, and that there isn't any evidence to the contrary. You have no idea how the genetic code, echolocation
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Markfiend wrote: What??? Oh I cannot be bothered going through this thread again for the many hypotheses put forward for how echolocation could have evolved. But I know they are there, and if you are honest, so do you.

Sorry, only just-so stories were provided. Doubting D. was the only one able to articulate the situation:

CD wrote: You see, I'm merely using echolacation because it is a reasonably easy thing to explain and understand the system (at a high level of course). A thousand Hertz system with noise filtering, gating logic, guidance logic and a super-sensitive receiver.

Now let's just be frank. You don't have the details. In fact, you don't have the foggiest idea whether such a thing could really evolve. You have no idea how many intermediates there would be; what and how many mutations are required to get you along the path; what the fitness improvement would be of those intermediates; what the probability of them becoming fixed (ie, widespread in the population) is; etc., etc. For this, and a thousand other examples of high complexity, you are in the dark. Yet you claim the theory is a scientific fact.

Doubting D wrote: True. And your point is what, exactly? Common descent is true, as every reputable biological scientist knows, and based on many independant lines of evidence. The fact that we don't have impossibly complete knowledge of every transitional sequence means nothing but just that. I really don't see what your point is. It's not impossible to deduce that things have common ancestry without knowing the things you've mentioned, just as it's not impossible to convict a murderer without a 24hr surveillance camera on his every action. But I'm wasting my breath... you knew that.

I appreciate that Doubting D. is able to articulate the situation, even if he does take the rather bizarre stand that complexities are no problem because, hey, it is just a detail. We can't be expected to actually defend our outrageous claims with any subtance now can we?

Now on to your next point:

-----------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD wrote: but there isn't any evidence to the contrary. The fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree,
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------

Markfiend wrote: No it doesn't. Can you not take on board a single correction of your misconceptions that any of us offer?

Yes I can, can you? The fact that the fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree is not controversial. Even folks in this thread acknowledged this fact.

lpetrich

October 10, 2003, 02:31 AM

(lots of stuff about echolocation snipped...)

With his standards of proof, "Charles Darwin" would have a great career as a defense lawyer. Imagine him defending Jeffrey Dahmer. "None of you saw him kill and eat those young men".

"Charles Darwin":
The fact that the fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree is not controversial. Even folks in this thread acknowledged this fact.

HOW does it look like "an inverted evolutionary tree"? Please describe to us in detail what you mean, or we will have to conclude that that is a hollow assertion.

markfiend

October 10, 2003, 05:05 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Sorry, only just-so stories were provided. Doubting D. was the only one able to articulate the situation:These are still hypotheses of how echolocation could have evolved. How precise do you need it to be? Do you want a DNA-sequence for every generation between a non-echolocating ancestor of a bat and a modern pipistrelle? Because it seems that nothing else will satisfy you.The fact that the fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree is not controversial. Even folks in this thread acknowledged this fact. I think I have misunderstood. I thought that by "the fossil pattern looks like an inverted evolutionary tree" you meant that "the fossil pattern looks like the opposite of what evolution predicts". It was your use of the word "inverted" which confused the issue; I would have said that "the fossil record looks like an evolutionary tree". Anyway, apologies.

I wonder if you've decided to ignore the fact that: By accepting "related species", and species that are "similar" or "not so closely related", you are implicitly accepting common descent.
In reply to this you said "Some species are more similar to each other than to others. Like two autos that are more similar, I am simply using the word "related" to describe this, not to suggest they have common ancestors. Species are not all equally different or similar."
There is no reason, if you deny common descent, to expect these differences in the amount of difference between species (hoping you'll forgive the awkward phrasing) and the nested heirarchies we observe in phylogenies.I repeat my charge that evolution is not problematic unless posed against your dogmatic unwillingness to accept it.

Wounded King

October 10, 2003, 07:43 AM

I think it br fairer to represent what CD said as "it looks like an evolutionary tree upside down" i.e. rather than an few species over time giving rise to many more diverse species we see many species early in the fossil record followed by declining numbers of species subsequently.

Do you, Charles, actually have a reference or any evidence that the fossil record looks like an 'inverted' evolutionary tree? What level is this based on species, genus, phlyum, kingdom?

caravelair

October 10, 2003, 11:24 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Well, how 'bout you tell us which evidence from that site is your favorite one?

i don't think i have a favorite. what's your favorite line of evidence that the earth is flat?

Charles Darwin

October 10, 2003, 06:09 PM

Originally posted by caravelair
i don't think i have a favorite.

No favorite? Is there one you think is strong evidence for evolution?

Originally posted by caravelair
what's your favorite line of evidence that the earth is flat?

Rifle builders assume a flat-earth in their ballistics tests. Works real well.

Charles Darwin

October 10, 2003, 06:57 PM

Originally posted by Wounded King
I think it br fairer to represent what CD said as "it looks like an evolutionary tree upside down" i.e. rather than an few species over time giving rise to many more diverse species we see many species early in the fossil record followed by declining numbers of species subsequently.

Do you, Charles, actually have a reference or any evidence that the fossil record looks like an 'inverted' evolutionary tree? What level is this based on species, genus, phlyum, kingdom?

Right. I do not think it is as simple as specifying a single level. Most have seen graphics showing the bursts of new flora and fauna followed by their winnowing over the eons, but I don't have any good examples to cite. Here are a few quotes anyway:

3. The apparently much greater rates of evolution during the origin of groups than during their subsequent duration; ... 4. The cause and nature of major radiations. One of the major features of large-scale evolution is teh sudden appearance and rapid radiation of major groups that dominated the Earth's biota for tens or hundreds of millions of years. Can such explosive radiations be explained on the basis of the apparently slow and small-scale changes that can be seen in modern species? -- Robert Carroll, Patterns and Processes of Vertebrate Evolution, 1997, p. 10.

Of course they can: Explosive radiations are the result of natural selection acting on biological variation. There, Robert, is your explanation.

The sudden appearance of new higher taxa, families and even orders, immediately after a mass extinction, with all the features more or less developed, implies a very rapid evolution. -- TS Kemp, Mammal-like Reptiles and the Origin of Mammals, 1982, p. 327.

caravelair

October 10, 2003, 11:33 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
No favorite? Is there one you think is strong evidence for evolution?

i think that the strongest part is that they all independantly point to the same thing. but really, i would rather focus on the other things i posted, since i mentioned this merely as a side note, and actually put some thought into the other comments.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Rifle builders assume a flat-earth in their ballistics tests. Works real well.

just because it's a reasonable approximation. rifles aren't designed to shoot past the horizon. since the radius of curvature is so large, it doesn't matter. you think any of the 29 lines can be explained away THAT easily? do you have any other lines of evidence, or is that it?

NottyImp

October 11, 2003, 08:37 AM

We can't be expected to actually defend our outrageous claims with any subtance now can we?

Perhaps you'd like to defend your outrageous claim that the species have just been "poofed" into existence with some "substance" then, Charles?

No, I thought not.

Charles Darwin

October 11, 2003, 12:15 PM

Originally posted by caravelair
just because it's a reasonable approximation. rifles aren't designed to shoot past the horizon. since the radius of curvature is so large, it doesn't matter. you think any of the 29 lines can be explained away THAT easily?

Yes.

Originally posted by caravelair
do you have any other lines of evidence, or is that it?

Of course, engineers and physicists use a flat-earth model for all kinds of applications. What's the point? The flat-earth model is highly successful, across several domains, with no detectable inaccuracy. And it is dead wrong too. The same could be said for a bunch of other theories too.

Charles Darwin

October 11, 2003, 12:19 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
We can't be expected to actually defend our outrageous claims with any subtance now can we?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by NottyImp
Perhaps you'd like to defend your outrageous claim that the species have just been "poofed" into existence with some "substance" then, Charles?

No, I thought not.

I'm not the one claiming my idea is a scientific theory, much less a fact. Do you and Ipetrich believe in evolution because I cannot provide you with a scientific explanation of how God made things? If this is your requirement, then you've got quite a religion there. Your god has to create in such a way that we can describe it according to natural law. This rules out supernatural creation, and leaves only natural processes. In that case, evolution is the best explanation. No wonder you are an evolutionist. I give.

Charles Darwin

October 11, 2003, 12:41 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
The general pattern of the fossil record is one of an upside down evolutionary tree. That is, you get a myriad of diversity all at once followed by a winnowing. This pattern occurs repeatedly. This is not common descent.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
...Yes, it is. Why are mass-extinctions, and subseqent rapid diversification to fill vacant niches, supposedly "not common descent"?

Sure, evolution can explain it. New designs appear in the fossil record -- so they must have evolved quickly. The new designs just sit there for millions of years, not evolving -- so they must not have evolved after their rapid rise. It is all because of the environment.

And just how is it that these fantastic biological machines arose on their own? Well, we've got this biological variation you see. Right, random variation hit upon the designs. No, no, no; natural selection did the designing; it guided things by selecting the successful random designs. I see, so it isn't really a random process? Not at all. But the variation is random? Definitely. Is the variation biased towards designs that work? Of course not, there is no teleology man, your centuries behind. In the design space, how many failures are there compared to successful designs? Oh there's bound to be an astronomical number of unworkable designs. There are billions of nucleotides and the workings are intricate. Yet random variation found the right designs? With the help of natural selection. But I thought the variation was not biased? Well, yes, natural selection picks the design after it is tested. How long does that take? Well each experiment is a life time, and of course even successful designs may or may not be selected for due to the randomness of each individual's life. And even then it may not become fixed in the population. But you are sure this all could happen? It is a fact.

But what if these intricate designs require multiple mutations to bring about; you know, the wheel doesn't work without an axle too? Oh that's no problem. You're two hundred years back with Paley; Darwin showed that Paley was all wet. How so? Hmm, I'm not quite sure; you'd have to read Darwin. I did.

You are using biological variation as your premise, but you cannot explain how it came about in the first place. Sure we can, it evolved. You're sure? Of course, it is a fact.

So why is it so hard for us experimentally to induce this process of macro evolution? Well it takes thousands of years you see. And why can't we map out that process? Well the DNA is so large, and you've got an immense design space, and we really don't understand all the workings anyway. Its quite complex you see. Yet random mutations, the vast majority of which do no good in the first place, are going to do the job, working on a species that somehow got there in the first place? Well these are research problems, give us time man! Yet evolution is fact? Of course it is!

And why do homologies arise from different genes or development pathways? That's easy; homologies do not necessarily develop in the same manner. That's been known for a long time. And why is that? Because we've found plenty of such examples. I see, similar structures, in similar species, arise differently, so evolution must have taken these homologies and rearranged their development while preserving their function? That's right. And this is a fact? Right, you've got it now.

OK, now I understand. By the way, I have a bridge to sell you.

WinAce

October 11, 2003, 12:47 PM

I have only one thing to say to the above post.

http://users.rcn.com/rostmd/winace/pics/strawman.jpg

Ken

October 11, 2003, 01:45 PM

Charles, my primary purpose in bringing up the language analogy was to point out the inherent messiness of historical sciences like evolution and historical linguistics, which, despite their messiness, are in no danger of being discredited by their detractors. I am quite well aware that there are significant differences between biological and linguistic evolution, but they are both historical, contingent sciences that propose descent with modification. I am reassured to know you accept linguistic evolution; not every anti-evolutionist does, nor was the idea widely accepted before modem times, particularly among the devout. After all, we already had a good explanation for the diversity of languages in Genesis, and it was difficult to discern enough linguistic change from one generation to the next to account for the unbridgeable differences between, say Navajo and Swahili. Microevolution or dialect adaptation within closely allied languages was conceivable, but major language groups had no ancestors in common. But now linguists have found clues linking all 6000 present languages back to a handful of ancestors. The farther they go back, the more difficult it is to put the pieces together, but the challenge is not whether they ultimately fit together but how they fit together.

Why are linguists so confident in linguistic common descent? Because they have an interest in debunking Genesis? Because they refuse to entertain supernatural causes? Because their theology does not allow them to associate God with the imperfections of human languages? So what if geographically proximate languages are in many cares also morphologically proximate? So what if fossil manuscripts appear to represent intermediate forms? So what if languages can be arranged in a tree demonstrating synapomorphies and nested hierarchies? This does not prove common descent or give it factual status. What about all the problems, all the out-of place morphemes in the manuscript record, all the missing pieces, all the languages like Japanese that have no close relatives, all the coincidental convergences of certain features among unrelated groups? (Do you get the point, or do I need to dig up my historical linguistics textbook to multiply examples?) Critics of linguistic common descent could identify thousands of puzzles and think they've discredited the whole enterprise, but they would be lacking all sense of proportion as to what constitutes sufficient evidence to establish or discredit a theory. There is evidence, then there is evidence. Linguistic evolution is just too obvious for us to get hung up over an array of impressive-looking arguments against it. I see your criticisms of common descent in the same light. If you choose to respond to this, I would ask you to stick to the notion of common descent itself, not the mechanism, because there's not any point in discussing the mechanism until we can agree on bare common descent.

A while back you declined an invitation to a formal debate because you had other commitments. I am impressed with the amount of time and attention you have given to this post. If you were to invest your time instead on a formal debate with say, the author of "29+ Evidences," it would be interesting to see how much headway you can make. In your own words, these evidences are easy to refute, and you have little respect for the article, so it should be a cinch to take up a debate with him. I'm not even sure he would be available for a debate, but I'm certain it would make for good reading if it worked out. What do you think?

lpetrich

October 11, 2003, 02:59 PM

"Charles Darwin":
The new designs just sit there for millions of years, not evolving -- so they must not have evolved after their rapid rise.

Like what new designs? Be specific.

And just how is it that these fantastic biological machines arose on their own? (a lot of similar rhetorical fumbling snipped...)

As elaborations of earlier ones. Shall I go into detail about examples like the evolution of dentition?

But what if these intricate designs require multiple mutations to bring about; you know, the wheel doesn't work without an axle too? ...

This "irreducible complexity" or "Roman arch" problem presents no difficulty for evolutionary biology -- all that is necessary is some feature in between that acts as scaffolding. It may be hard to imagine the evolution of honeybees from solitary bees, because workers and queens are mutually dependent, forming an irreducibly complex system. However, bumblebees are a textbook-perfect intermediate; bumblebee queens start off living like solitary bees, then move on to living like honeybee queens.

You are using biological variation as your premise, but you cannot explain how it came about in the first place. ...

Except that its occurrence has been abundantly observed.

So why is it so hard for us experimentally to induce this process of macro evolution? ...

Why not whine that it's impossible to produce a solar eclipse in a lab? You can produce a small shadow, but that's not a full-scale solar eclipse.

And why do homologies arise from different genes or development pathways? ...

Except that post-Gavin-de-Beer research indicates that homology extends to the molecular level.

NottyImp

October 11, 2003, 03:01 PM

I'm not the one claiming my idea is a scientific theory, much less a fact.

Given that that is the case, do you agree that your "idea" has no explanatory value at all, cannot be verified by any means, and therefore is merely an article of faith for you as an individual with no application beyond the personal psychological value it gives you?

Do you and Ipetrich believe in evolution because I cannot provide you with a scientific explanation of how God made things?

Of course not. We think evolution is the best explanation for the origin of species given the vast body of scientific evidence that supports it. Suprising though you may find it, gods of any kind don't come into it.

If you could provide a convincing explanantion of how "God did it" that explained the facts better than evolution, then I would happily subscribe to it. But you've said you can't, which to me seems to be an entirely useless position to hold.

I would ask you, Charles, why you choose to believe in creation just because the evidence for evolution doesn't meet your exacting requirements? Surely you know that in science the default position in the absence of a working hypothesis is "We don't know", not "God did it".

Why, as an avowed scientist (an astronomer, I believe, with the same training as I have, then) do you not take this position with regard to evolution?

caravelair

October 11, 2003, 03:06 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Of course, engineers and physicists use a flat-earth model for all kinds of applications. What's the point? The flat-earth model is highly successful, across several domains, with no detectable inaccuracy. And it is dead wrong too. The same could be said for a bunch of other theories too.

except that we can easily explain why this approximation is so successful at explaining the data. because the radius of curvature is so large that it makes little difference over small distances. can you explain why evolution is so successful at explaining the data? hmmmmm?

caravelair

October 11, 2003, 03:15 PM

i said:

Originally posted by caravelair
just because it's a reasonable approximation. rifles aren't designed to shoot past the horizon. since the radius of curvature is so large, it doesn't matter. you think any of the 29 lines can be explained away THAT easily?

you said:

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Yes.

i find it amazing that you could make such a claim. preposterous even. you know that it took you more than 3 sentences to argue against any of those lines of evidence. as far as i can tell, you have been unsuccessful at explaining away the vestigial organ line of evidence. but you haven't commented on what i last wrote about them, so perhaps you have something else to say about it.

Charles Darwin

October 11, 2003, 09:51 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Charles Darwin: This may seem unlikely, but remember the track record of all those "useless" functions.

Let's see your vestigial-feature functionality scorecard. A list of features, with when proposed to be vestigial, and when shown to be functional.

See Evol Theory, 5:173-6, for a good starting point.

Charles Darwin

October 11, 2003, 10:20 PM

Originally posted by Wounded King
So it shows that you can induce elements of the early developmental program of the tooth in chick, without the need for any non-chick material. While the expression of BMP and FGF is obviously ectopic or from an exogenous source it is not prone to the same problems of contamination to which the mouse/ chick chimera studies are.

It doesn't need to leave you wondering, even a passing familiarity with developmental biology would give you a wealth of instances of interesting changes to the developmental program caused by ectopic expression, overexpression, knockouts, knockins and a whole host of other techniques. Does your 'So what?' mean that you fail to see the point of the entire field of developmental biology? As with naturally occurring mutants the interference with normal developmental programs is the easiest way to investigate those programs.

You said that mouse tissue was necessary for anything to happen, I was simply directing you to research that shows that material derived solely from the chick, excepting the viral vector used for the transfection, was sufficient to induce certain elements of the early tooth devlopmental pathway, or at least morphological movements and patterns of gene expression almost identical to those seen in early tooth development in the mouse.

Do you think that the induction of supernumerary limbs by growth factor treatments tells us nothing about the initiation of limb development?

You say

This is not the same thing at all. Rather than adding a large number of disparate completely novel elements all that is happening is a few genes, which the chick already expresses in other tissues, are ectopically expressed in the tissue underlying the mandibular epithelium. They didn't fiddle around with every factor under the sun until they got the right ones. The required factors were hypothesised on the basis of studies of tooth development in other models. If the expression of a gene, which is known to be important in inducing teeth in mice, induces tooth like structures in the mandibular tissues of chick why is it such a leap of faith to suggest that their may be a conserved vertebrate pathway of dental development, what better explanation can you provide? That those specific factors just happen to induce morhpholgical and gene expression profiles similar to those seen in mammalian teeth germs? Or is your contention that while large elements of these developmental pathways are conserved they are unable to actually give rise to teeth in chicks as chicks never had teeth? Is there any evidence to support this?

As far as the results being drawn from our ingenuioty go, you seem to be ruling out the entire field of science, most experiments require an element of ingenuity to design them, should we only rely on things which are self obvious or perhaps the result of divine revelation rather than use our ingenuity to investigate?

I agree with much of what you say. Yes, completely novel elements were not added, and growths were obtained without using mouse tissue.

Do I think that the induction of supernumerary limbs by growth factor treatments tells us nothing about the initiation of limb development? Certainly not, but it certainly does not imply that there must be evolutionary ancestors which had such limbs. Likewise, growths in the oral cavity, again induced by growth factor treatments, does not imply that the bird ancestor must have had teeth.

If the expression of a gene, which is known to be important in inducing teeth in mice, induces tooth like structures in the mandibular tissues of chick why is it such a leap of faith to suggest that their may be a conserved vertebrate pathway of dental development, what better explanation can you provide?

"Tooth-like" is probably stretching it. There were growths, and they were induced by growth factors used in many pathways. I'm not saying it such a leap of faith to suggest that their may be a conserved vertebrate pathway of dental development. Sure, that is a reasonable hypothesis for an evolutionist to make. My point is that this is hardly the sort of strong evidence for evolution that it is being touted as.

lpetrich

October 11, 2003, 11:58 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
See Evol Theory, 5:173-6, for a good starting point. Please tell us the full name and publisher of that journal. I could not find any journal called "Evolutionary Theory" at PubMed.

And please post that article's abstract here.

Ken

October 11, 2003, 11:59 PM

Originally posted by Worldtraveler
So I turned to look, and lo and behold, there is a blind fellow about 20 feet back, turning his head from side to side, letting out 203 second whistles, and something I hadn't noticed before, also making a clicking sound with his tongue. Guess what?? He was echolocating!! And from the way he changed direction and headed up the branch that was on the other side of the tunnel (well out of reach of his cane) he seemed to be doing a pretty good job at it.
Fascinating! Thanks for breaking your silence to share this with us.

Ken

October 12, 2003, 12:12 AM

Originally posted by Jobar
(Ken, I think that your contributions to this thread, as a former creationist who came to see the strength of evolution and the nonsensical implications of creationism, are at least as powerful as the voluminous technical information from our resident experts. Bravo!)

Thanks for your vote of confidence, Jobar. I'm glad to share my occasional thoughts, but it certainly is helpful to see the many contributions from those who are better versed in the technical details than I.

Speaking of technical details, I'm hoping to see a response (by those more knowledgeable than I) to CD's observations about the on-again, off-again nature of some of the primate pseudogenes that I had earlier believed to correspond perfectly with the standard phylogenetic tree. How many pseudogenes do correspond perfectly compared to those that do not?

Also, for what it's worth, I ran across this interesting satirical piece (http://www.church.freethought.org/9801.babelism.html) on creationism and historical linguistics. It's directed against strict creationists, so this doesn't necessarily pertain to CD, but it's good reading nonetheless.

Ken

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 12:35 AM

NottyImp wrote: Why do you insist that science must know the answers now? One hundred years ago we had no clear idea how the sun generated its energy, but now we do. Genetic research is still a relatively new field, and there is a huge amount of research still to be done. Thus the "God of the Gaps" will continue to recede.

This is a statement of faith. Yes, indeed, the future may hold all kinds of confirmations of evolution. But that is not the case today, yet evolution is claimed to be a fact. The real facts of the matter are that the evidence we have in hand argues against evolution, not for it.

CD wrote: I'm not the one claiming my idea is a scientific theory, much less a fact.

NottyImp wrote: Given that that is the case, do you agree that your "idea" has no explanatory value at all, cannot be verified by any means, and therefore is merely an article of faith for you as an individual with no application beyond the personal psychological value it gives you?

No explanatory value? Well, maybe in a different sense. Have you ever wondered about consciousness? Where it came from, what it is? Why are you you, and not me? What does it mean to say you are you, and not me? Are you satisfied with the materialistic explanation that consciousness isn't all it is cooked up to be; that it is nothing more than a series of Hobbesian phantasms? Do you really believe there is no such thing as you; that you is really just a very complicated and immense set of neurons in action? Something that just arose all by itself? And now you are deceived into thinking that there really is a you, when in fact there is no such thing as you.

No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.

NottyImp wrote: Of course not. We think evolution is the best explanation for the origin of species given the vast body of scientific evidence that supports it. Suprising though you may find it, gods of any kind don't come into it.

If you could provide a convincing explanantion of how "God did it" that explained the facts better than evolution, then I would happily subscribe to it. But you've said you can't, which to me seems to be an entirely useless position to hold.

So for you, the only origin theories worth considering are those which explain how it happened, even if God did it. Your god is a machine. You have defined creationism out of the picture.

NottyImp wrote: I would ask you, Charles, why you choose to believe in creation just because the evidence for evolution doesn't meet your exacting requirements? Surely you know that in science the default position in the absence of a working hypothesis is "We don't know", not "God did it".

Why, as an avowed scientist (an astronomer, I believe, with the same training as I have, then) do you not take this position with regard to evolution?

By this logic we should be neutral about geocentrism. The problem is not a lack of understanding of evolution. We have plenty of evidence in hand; the theory fails.

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 12:49 AM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Please tell us the full name and publisher of that journal. I could not find any journal called "Evolutionary Theory" at PubMed.

And please post that article's abstract here.

Sorry, it is long since discontinued I believe. The citation is:

Scadding, S., "Do Vestigial Organs Provide Evidence for Evolution," Evolutionary Theory, 5:173-6, 1981.

He discusses a list of almost 100 'vestigial' organs claimed by Wiedersheim about a century ago. It has been awhile since I read the paper and I don't have the abstract, but the bottom line is he disparages the vestigial organ argument. Oh also, if memory serves, the referee was one "S. Gould".

lpetrich

October 12, 2003, 02:08 AM

Maybe I'll be able to dig up the full text at a university library some time -- I'd have to get a university library card, and right now, I'm in an employment-contract gap. When my new employment contract gets going, I'll be able to get access to a major university library for free, so I'll be able to look for the full text.

As far as I can tell from the references to that paper in an Internet search, Scadding had proposed that (1) truly-functionless vestigial features are rare and (2) vestigiality is simply a special case of homology. Neither conclusion causes trouble for evolutionary biology.

Consider the case of the vestigial gametophytes of seed plants. The plant life cycle is:

Sporophyte (diploid-phase plant)
Meiosis
Spores
Gametophyte (haploid-phase plant)
Gametes
Fusion
Sporophyte

In the more primitive land plants like mosses and ferns, both sporophytes and gametophytes are easily identifiable, but in seed plants, nearly all the plant is sporophyte and the gametophytes are microscopic. Female ones inhabit their parent plants, and male ones inhabit pollen grains.

Strictly speaking, seed-plant gametophytes are still functional, but their functionality is very limited, and there is no reason why that stage could not be skipped, with meiosis directly producing gametes. That is a very common state of affairs - nearly all of the animal kingdom is like that.

For some nice illustrations, see Plant Life Cycles and Angiosperm Development (http://zygote.swarthmore.edu/phyto1.html).

Gracchus

October 12, 2003, 02:51 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
This is a statement of faith. Yes, indeed, the future may hold all kinds of confirmations of evolution. But that is not the case today, yet evolution is claimed to be a fact. The real facts of the matter are that the evidence we have in hand argues against evolution, not for it.

Which facts?

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
No explanatory value? Well, maybe in a different sense. Have you ever wondered about consciousness? Where it came from, what it is? Why are you you, and not me? What does it mean to say you are you, and not me? Are you satisfied with the materialistic explanation that consciousness isn't all it is cooked up to be; that it is nothing more than a series of Hobbesian phantasms? Do you really believe there is no such thing as you; that you is really just a very complicated and immense set of neurons in action? Something that just arose all by itself? And now you are deceived into thinking that there really is a you, when in fact there is no such thing as you.

I am not atoms, for the atoms that composed my body once have long since been replaced. An eddy in the river is not a separate thing from the river, and an eddy of atoms in the universe is not a separate thing from the universe.

I am not who I was, I am not who I will be, I am what I am, an interface of matter-energy patterns in space-time, eternally suspended between past and future. Reality is not a dualism of the physical and the spiritual. Spirit is the phlostigon of philosophy, a non-existant premise in a false model. I am a part of the whole, and, fractally, the whole is in me. Separate persons are parts of the entire pattern and each instant part defines not only what it is but what it is not; but the part is separate from the whole only as a sometimes convenient fiction. The universe is one thing.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.

Creationism was falsified over two hundred years ago. Get over it.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
So for you, the only origin theories worth considering are those which explain how it happened, even if God did it. Your god is a machine.

My God is not anything. My God is not nothing. My God is.

Even your holy book got it right sometimes, but glossed over it, and misunderstood it, because the truth would provide the theocrats who aspire to rule in the name of God, no wealth, and the truth would not support their bloated self-importance.

Exodus 3:14 And God said unto Moses, I AM THAT I AM: and he said, Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, I AM hath sent me unto you.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
You have defined creationism out of the picture.

Creationism is falsified by science. Science is theology.

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
By this logic we should be neutral about geocentrism. The problem is not a lack of understanding of evolution. We have plenty of evidence in hand; the theory fails.

The evidence in hand falsifies creationism as thoroughly as geocentrism and the flat earth.

Charles Darwin has left his self-portrait in his life and work. You are NOT Charles Darwin. You have falsified even yourself.

Micah 6:8 He hath shewed thee, O man, what is good; and what doth the LORD require of thee, but to do justly, and to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?

Maybe you should pluck the beam out of your eye. I would recommend a dragline and a couple of bulldozers.

:D

lpetrich

October 12, 2003, 05:08 AM

NottyImp:
Why do you insist that science must know the answers now? One hundred years ago we had no clear idea how the sun generated its energy, but now we do. Genetic research is still a relatively new field, and there is a huge amount of research still to be done. Thus the "God of the Gaps" will continue to recede.

"Charles Darwin":
This is a statement of faith. Yes, indeed, the future may hold all kinds of confirmations of evolution.

That's no more "faith" than most other sorts of induction. Consider the case of physiological processes. A common theory in past centuries was vitalism, that some "vital force" or life-stuff causes living things to live. Aristotle had even identified three kinds of this force: the vegetable soul, the animal soul, and the rational soul. However, vitalism nowadays mainly survives as the "theoretical justification" for certain alternative medical therapes; in the mainstream scientific community, it is totally dead. There are still plenty of poorly-understood life processes, like how genes get translated into shapes and how brains work, but a "vital force of the gaps" is never thought worth considering. Mechanistic explanations have been enormously successful, and there is absolutely zero positive evidence for a "vital force". Let's check the historical record:

Living things are made of the same chemical elements that nonliving things are
Living things obey the same laws of physics that nonliving things do
"Organic compounds" do not need living things to make them
Metabolic processes are chemical reactions mediated by enzymes
Heredity is due to coded nucleic-acid molecules
Gene copying and gene-to-protein translation are well-understood as chemical processes
Etc.

I note in passing that there is the curious question of why vitalists do not push for including vitalism in school curricula in the fashion that creationists do with creationism. For starters, they could make many closely-parallel arguments.

But that is not the case today, yet evolution is claimed to be a fact. The real facts of the matter are that the evidence we have in hand argues against evolution, not for it.

Like you have videotape of the first members of some new species being poofed into existence?

CD, your arguments of unevolvability could "prove" that extraterrestrial visitors or time travelers or elves or demons or whatever had genetically engineered bats' echolocation and everything else you consider unevolvable. In fact, the "design inference" applied to the Earth's biota yields multiple, finite, and fallible designers, or at least a good facsimile thereof -- inferences routinely made about human designers.

(NottyImp claiming that creationism has no explanatory value)

No explanatory value? Well, maybe in a different sense. Have you ever wondered about consciousness? ...

I don't pretend to know what consciousness is, but I don't think that there is any special consciousness-stuff, if that's what you are asking about.

Oolon Colluphid

October 12, 2003, 09:13 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Sorry, it is long since discontinued I believe. The citation is:

Scadding, S., "Do Vestigial Organs Provide Evidence for Evolution," Evolutionary Theory, 5:173-6, 1981.

He discusses a list of almost 100 'vestigial' organs claimed by Wiedersheim about a century ago. It has been awhile since I read the paper and I don't have the abstract, but the bottom line is he disparages the vestigial organ argument. Oh also, if memory serves, the referee was one "S. Gould".
You sound like you've read it? Any chance of posting at least the abstract please?

Because the only 'Scadding' PubMed has heard of is an SR Scadding, who�s done a lot of work on amphibian limb regeneration. Nor can I find any reference in general via Google for a journal called �Evolutionary Theory�. Yet, unsurprisingly, this article is found mentioned ubiquitously on creationist sites, from ICR to Pathlights, ARN, TrueOrigin, EvolutionDeceit, and good ol� Harun Yahya.

The only non-creationist reference to it is this one:

www.asa3.org/archive/evolution/199611/0052.html (and even they�re a Christian lot)

(Finding a non-creationist source implies that it might actually be a real journal and article, not some utter fabrication.)

But this being the case, till someone can put the whole thing in context � and show that this Scadding isn�t a creationist anyway � this reference is as near to useless as makes no odds.

And anyway, even if this 'Scadding' did write what is alleged of him, it is still an argument from authority. Give me this idiot's details, and I'll fuckin have a word with him about the matter.

TTFN, Oolon

WinAce

October 12, 2003, 09:29 AM

Aww, now I have to post my essay on vestigial organs to clear up Charles Darwin's misconceptions again.

A common misconception among the lay public and media is that "vestigial" is equivalent to useless. Depending on the definition of "useful", this can be true or false, and varies on a case by case basis. However, the biological term, at least as it pertains to evolution, has always meant "reduced or rudimentary structure when compared with the same structure in another organism".

I think this confusion comes from the way biological "function" is quite specific and differs from the way we use it in common language, e.g. "usefulness". I'll expand on this below.

It could be argued that an inner tube in an aeroplane wing designed by modifying a car tire via evolutionary computer simulation has some "function", i.e. ties it together instead of nuts and bolts; but the fact that it's lacking its "proper purpose", as Darwin put it, in favor of some marginal application many other structures are more suited to or no application at all, makes it a bona-fide vestige.

Similarly, a broken radio in a car may prevent the dashboard above from collapsing; nevertheless, no one in their right mind would claim that made the radio any less broken.

For another example, fused wings might make a beetle's back harder and subsequently less prone to smushing; yet they're still vestigial wings that no longer serve what they're clearly best suited for. Finally, eyes on blind cave fish might be described as "functional" in that they keep their brains from leaking out their eye sockets; but they're still vestigial EYES.

TalkOrigins, as always, subtly rips creationists a few new belly holes in this well-researched article (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#morphological_vestiges), including pointing out that Scadding, whom anti-evolutionists love to quote as a supporter of the "vestigial = useless" concept, was quite wrong about the definition of "vestiges", which hasn't been significantly revised in more than a century.

Nevertheless, vestigial organs are now only an accessory line of evidence, not the main ones supporting evolution. They simply don't have the whiz-bang factor of stuff like fossils and ancient retroviral infection fragments shared in genomes of related species.

Vestiges just can't compete here, but they can be an independent test on common descent nevertheless. The standard phylogenetic tree makes a great number of predictions on which ones can be found and which are barred. Mammals, for example, will never have vestigial feathers in this scenario, as they diverged from the reptiles before birds. Neither will a new species of tropical amphibian be discovered that nurses its young. Sharks will never have vestigial reptilian teeth. And so on, on, and on...

So, where does that leave us? Simply put, there are a great many vestiges in the biosphere. Dandelions, which reproduce without fertilization, nevertheless produce vestigial flowers and pollen. Humans have vestigial wisdom teeth that don't even sprout in much of the population, much less help in any significant way, and that often create problems by using too much jaw space.

http://www.albanyoms.com/media/animations/3dwis.gif

Twenty-eight teeth are fully sufficient for the human jaw, with the extra four causing many a problem in dental history by erupting incorrectly due to our smaller jaws. But just for posterity, how many teeth did ancient fossil hominids possess? ;)

http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/jaws.gif

You may count them (http://www.talkorigins.org/faqs/homs/jaws.html). That's 32, with the last ones being similarly oversized as our own wisdom teeth but nicely-fitting in such a massive jaw. Compare the Australopithecus africanus and Homo sapiens jaws in the lower part of the illustration, and take note that the first preceded the other in the fossil record.

Another example; snakes and whales can independently be assigned as descendants of leg-possessing animals based on independent evidence, such as anatomical analysis of their skulls and rib cages. In some species of both, a vestigial pelvis can be found. As has been discussed before, whales occasionally resurface with the actual digit-possessing hindlimbs (http://talkorigins.org/faqs/comdesc/section2.html#atavisms_ex1). Embryonic comparison confirms this as well (http://imiloa.wcc.hawaii.edu/krupp/BIOL101/present/lcture15/sld034.htm), as whales develop temporary hind limb buds.

Finally, (http://www.talkorigins.org/features/whales/) early fossil whales had real, bona-fide legs, latter ones used them progressively less, and the last ones had almost undetectible vestiges.

Is the independent confirmation of four fundamentally different lines of evidence yet another "coincidence" that common descent would predict but common descent-denial needs to explain away? ;)

lpetrich

October 12, 2003, 01:01 PM

A discovery about that Scadding paper: some university libraries do have a journal called Evolutionary Theory. It had been published from 1972 to 1990, when it was renamed to Evolutionary Theory and Review, starting under that name in 1991. It was published by the University of Chicago Dept. of Ecology and Evolution.

I use "was" because that journal is absent from that university's lists of currently-published journals:
http://www.uchicago.edu/uchi/resteach/scholarlypublications.html
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/pub-alpha.html
And from the department that had published it:
http://pondside.uchicago.edu/ecol-evol

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 06:43 PM

This post deleted by CD.

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 06:48 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
"Charles Darwin":
I'm afraid you missed my point. Convergent mutations are observed in the same species, or in highly related species. They are not observed otherwise.

Convergent mutations? What are those supposed to be???

That mutation happening in some ancestor and being faithfully preserved by descendants is a MUCH more reasonable hypothesis.

You are still missing the point. Perhaps you should try reading the posts. It seems you cannot get unstuck from common descent, but it is not 'a MUCH more reasonable hypothesis' for convergent mutations that are experimentally observed. Nor for historical cases in which it would be highly unlikely (e.g., the Buchnera case discussed below).

Originally posted by lpetrich
"Charles Darwin":
There are similar pseudogenes in an endosymbiotic bacteria (Buchnera, as discussed in a recent post) from different hosts, which, even if one is an evolutionist, look independent. ...

However, the hosts could easily have diversified with ancestral Buchnera bacteria living inside of them. Aphids could well have had these bacteria for as long as their ancestors had been sucking plant sap, which is around 200 million years according to some estimates.

You still missed the point; which is, that with evolution the Buchnera genome must have incurred massive reductions (that in itself is rather strange) yet the pseudogene in question (cmk) must have strangely avoided such a fate, being wholly preserved. This is making no sense, but it is suggested (under evolution) because in the two different species the pseudogene has an identical 16 bp deletion. It seems that a better explanation, under evolution, is that the inactivation event and the 16 bp deletion were more recent, and independent, events in each lineage.

Originally posted by lpetrich
"Charles Darwin":
There are HERVs that conflict with, and are not easily explained by, common descent.

Yawn. HERV's can become lost.

You are not making much sense. One of the important things about HERVs is that cannot become lost. You are obviously not reading the posts, we've gone over this a couple times already. This is why the HERV evidence is intriguing. The human site is a clean pre insertion segment; there never was an HERV there. But under common descent there must have been. The only way around this is to make up a just-so story about how it could have gotten into the lower species but somehow never into the human line.

Originally posted by lpetrich
"Charles Darwin":
There are a great many cases of convergent evolution. Similar designs which must have arisen separately. This conflicts with common descent.

Except that convergent evolution can often be recognized by differences in detail. Consider all these examples: ... In many cases, the convergent feature's details are different enough to clearly indicate convergence.

Common descent predicts similarities to be inherited. What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental? If this is true, then common descent is not a contingent process, governed by the quirks of history. Rather, it is driven to predictable designs. Replay the tape of history, and you get the same results. But if this is true, then the homology arguments go out the window. They are not the results of a contingent process, but of a necessary design. You are talking out of both sides of your mouth, but in reality you have a conflict. Either the process is contingent, in which case the convergences create a great problem; or the process is predictable and driven by necessity, in which case homologies are explained as necessities.

RufusAtticus

October 12, 2003, 06:54 PM

Originally posted by lpetrich
A discovery about that Scadding paper: some university libraries do have a journal called Evolutionary Theory. It had been published from 1972 to 1990, when it was renamed to Evolutionary Theory and Review, starting under that name in 1991. It was published by the University of Chicago Dept. of Ecology and Evolution.

I use "was" because that journal is absent from that university's lists of currently-published journals:
http://www.uchicago.edu/uchi/resteach/scholarlypublications.html
http://www.journals.uchicago.edu/pub-alpha.html
And from the department that had published it:
http://pondside.uchicago.edu/ecol-evol

My library has it, and I've been meaning to go get it. Perhaps I'll make it over there this week.

For people who think that vestigal means "useless," I have one simple question: "If 'vestigal' means 'useless' why is it based from the Latin for 'footprint,' vestigium, and not the Latin for 'useless,' irritus?"

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 09:17 PM

Originally posted by pangloss
I had not heard that 'convergent mutation = synapomorphy' line before.

Nor had I; where'd that come from?

Originally posted by pangloss
That is a classic - a keeper - and a prime exmample of the cognitive dissonance that runs rampant in creationists....

lpetrich

October 12, 2003, 09:44 PM

Charles Darwin:
... It seems you cannot get unstuck from common descent, but it is not 'a MUCH more reasonable hypothesis' for convergent mutations that are experimentally observed. ...

I think that you ought to work out the statistics of these supposed "convergent mutations" -- are they statistically likely if mutations are essentially random?

... that with evolution the Buchnera genome must have incurred massive reductions (that in itself is rather strange)

"Charles Darwin" shows a profound ignorance of the relevant literature, which he seems to see as a source of quotes to mine, rather than something possibly interesting in itself. The Buchnera genome tends to lack genes for features useful for free-living organisms, like flagella. Also, its metabolic capabilities are complementary to those of its hosts; it supplies its hosts with various "essential" amino acids and vitamins.

yet the pseudogene in question (cmk) must have strangely avoided such a fate, being wholly preserved. This is making no sense, but it is suggested (under evolution) because in the two different species the pseudogene has an identical 16 bp deletion. It seems that a better explanation, under evolution, is that the inactivation event and the 16 bp deletion were more recent, and independent, events in each lineage.

So what? Some pseudogenes need not be deleted -- and some can acquire different functions.

One of the important things about HERVs is that cannot become lost.

Why is that supposed to be the case?

Common descent predicts similarities to be inherited. What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental? ...

There are sometimes only a few ways to do something.

Birds, bats, and insects all fly with a thin surface made to move by trunk muscles.
Fish and cetaceans use body fins for stabilization and control, and move themselves by moving their finned tails.
Vertebrates and squid/octopuses have lens-camera eyes.
Rabbits, kangaroos, jerboas and kangaroo rats, frogs, and orthopterans all hop with their hind legs.
Two-legged dinosaurs, birds, and hominins walk on their hindlimbs.
Specializing for anteating evolved four times among mammals, and each case it has involved growing a long, narrow snout and tongue.
Worker ants and termites do not grow wings, and ground beetles' hind wings are often sealed inside their forewings.
Basking sharks, whale sharks, and baleen whales are all filter feeders.
Grasping limbs are usually forward limbs, except for most primates, which can grasp with both fore and hindlimbs, and perching birds, which grasp with their hindlimbs. The latter two are arboreal, living in an environment where grasping rearward limbs are useful; that is not the case in most environments. Grasping forward limbs, however, are useful for catching and handling food, which is a universal necessity.
Walking legs and fins are much more common than wheels and propellers, because walking legs and fins are much easier to nourish than wheels or propellers. The major exceptions are microscopic (bacterial flagella, which can be nourished by diffusion), or corpses (tumbleweeds get around the nutrition problem by dying).

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 10:00 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Everything we know from breeding and mutation experiments is that change doesn't take you very far
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by NottyImp
But doesn't going not very far over several billion years get you quite a long way? That's the point, isn't it?

Just to be clear though, Charles, how old do you think the earth is?

You can have all the time you want. 4.5 Byr, 45 Byr, whatever. The problem is not that we need more time for the experiments; the problem is that they seem to hit some sort of limits. Is it possible that random mutations with natural selection can work the necessary miracles given enough time? Sure, anything's possible.

Furthermore, the age of earth isn't terribly relevant because the radiations typically occur rapidly (they show up in the fossil record fully-formed). Even by evolution's reckoning they must occur over no more than a few millions of years.

Charles Darwin

October 12, 2003, 11:54 PM

Originally posted by monkenstick
charles, for a tree with ten species, there are 125000 possible topologies - the fact that this tree matches extremely closely with two minor differences in terminal branches isn't supportive of your claims that convergent mutations are the explanation for the relationships of the UOX pseudogenes. Gorilla, human and chimp genes sometimes group differently than the currently accepted species tree because of the problem of lineage sorting

the question is which scenario is more likely - that broken genes in hominidae are the result of convergent mutations, or common ancestry

common ancestry is quite clearly a more likely explanation - this is supported by the fact that the phylogeny of the members of hominidae surveyed form a monophyletic group, distinct from hylobatids

Correction. My claim is not that convergent mutations are the explanation for the relationships of the UOX pseudogenes. My claim is that, under evolution, it is a fact that convergent mutations are required by the UOX pseudogene sequences. Read the paper:

For instance: "The nonsense mutation (TGA) at codon 107 is, however, more complicated than others. It occurs in the gorilla, the orangutan, and the gibbon, and therefore requires multiple origins of this nonsense mutation."

And then there is this apparent multiple event: "One exceptional change is a duplicated segment of GGGATGCC in intron 4 which is shared by the gorilla and the orangutan. However, because this change is phylogenetically incompatible with any of the three possible sister-relationships among the closely related trio of the human, the chimpanzee, and the gorilla, it might result from two independent duplications. Alternatively, though less likely, ...".

Next there is this "coincidence": "it is interesting to note that the exon 2 nonsense mutation (CGATGA) is the same as that found in psi-Uox in the human and the great apes. One possibility for such coincidence may be attributed to a high transition rate from C to T in a CGA codon." But the authors then discuss why this is not likely."

And here is a conflicting phylogeny within the Gibbons: "The splice donor site mutation at intron 3 is shared by gibbons, except H. syndactylus (data not shown). This and other substitutions in the gibbon Uox gene support that H. syndactylus is the most distantly related species in the family (fig. 3 ). This conclusion is different from that of Roos and Geissman (2001) , who studied the mitochondrial control region and Phe-tRNA."

Even the authors admit that the standard common-descent explanation that a single ancestral inactivation event doesn't cut it.

Finally, things became so confused that they resort to admitting that even the two independent events that are supposed to have caused the inactivation, probably, in fact, did not really do the job all by themselves. Rather, it must have been a progressive process of degradation: "Although dysfunctioning of the Uox gene in the human and great ape clade stems from a nonsense mutation in exon 2 or in the gibbon clade stems from a nonsense mutation in exon 2 or one-base indels, the promoter might have already been deteriorated by harmful mutations before Catarrhini and Platyrrhini diverged from each other. It therefore appears that the stepwise loss of Uox activity is more reasonable than the single step loss during primate evolution."

Then there is theh remarkable multiple CGA-TGA conversions: "Overall, it is remarkable that, except one CGA codon in exon 6, all the other four CGA codons are converted to the TGA termination codon in all or some of the hominoids."

Now, given that convergent mutations are an empirical fact, as well as a necessity under evolution, your argument that the best-fit psi-UOX gene phylogeny requires common descent because it converges reasonably well with the consensus phylogeny is simply wrong. Convergent mutations would also produce a convergent phylogeny.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 12:38 AM

Originally posted by lpetrich

First, evolution is NOT a "poof" theory of origins. Many creationists seem to think that, perhaps because they already believe in a "poof" theory of origins.

One reasonable scenario is origin from a RNA world; the first proteins had been short coenzymes assembled with RNA enzymes, and once this mechanism got going, the "coenzymes" became big enough to become the primary parts, with the RNA becoming reduced to coenzyme status or dropping out altogether.

Notice the absence of a "*POOF!*" step.

No, I didn't notice that. More below.

"Charles Darwin" has indicated elsewhere that he considers only a fully-worked-out scenario acceptable. I think that he'd have a great career as a defense lawyer -- he'd demand similar fully-worked-out scenarios from the prosecution, with even the tiniest gaps construed as absolute proof that his client is 100% innocent.

Tiniest gap? You've got to be kidding; this is evolutionary mythology. No POOFs? Sorry, your RNA-world scenario is loaded with them:

*POOF!* the first proteins had been short coenzymes assembled with RNA enzymes, and *POOF!* once this mechanism got going, the "coenzymes" *POOF!* became big enough to become the primary parts, with the RNA *POOF!* becoming reduced to coenzyme status or dropping out altogether.

The family trees produced by comparison of the alpha and beta chains agree closely with those derived by traditional means -- and also with each other.

What did you expect? You can get convergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).

CD: Adaptation is driven by a complex machine which evolution doesn't explain yet relies on, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

Ipetrich: What "complex machine"? I have no idea what CD has in mind.

Aside from the obvious fact that the cellular machinery behind adaptation is phenomenally complex, it is now being understood that the adaptation function itself is quite clever, with mutational hotspots, hypermutators, etc. (already discussed in this thread).

The Burgess Shale fossils look like they were planted there, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

How do they look "planted there"?

And let's see how much CD knows about the Chengjiang fossils.

I'm surprised you would bring up the Chengjiang fossils as they certainly are not supporting evolution. In fact they have left Chinese scientists questioning evolution.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 01:02 AM

Originally posted by caravelair

i don't have to ascribe to every idea of every evolutionist ever. huxley lived before the mechanism of inheritance and variation was understood. now that we know a little bit more about genetics, we know that the vast majority of mutations cause small differences, not big ones. we also know that most major mutations are detrimental. in fact, in order for such a structure to be removed in this way, it would already have to have become functionless before this occured, otherwise removing this structure would be detrimental, and this would have to have occurred by gradual change. if a mutation did remove such a structure, this change would only spread through the gene pool if it was beneficial. and since most vestigial organs are not detrimental, there is no reason this would happen by natural selection. in fact, since natural selection deals with what is available, we would expect it to co-opt the function of an organ that is not useful anymore, and thus removing the organ completely would be detrimental in these cases, and would be prevented by natural selection. the flaw in your thinking is that you assume an organ becomes functionless (or changes function) BY mutation. in reality, the organ would become functionless (or change function) gradually, as the species gradually changes between ecological niches. this does not necessarily require the structure of the organ to change much. since species would only change niches gradually, we would expect sudden changes like this not to occur, or at the very least to occur incredibly rarely. you also assume that evoltion predicts that all vestigial structures are on their way to non-existance, which is not necessarily the case. so therefore, vestigial structures ARE a falsifiable prediction of evolutionary theory. even if rapid changes occured occasionally, we would still expect them to occur gradually the vast majority of the time. if we found no vestigial structures at all, this would indeed be damaging to evolution.

I think your points are all reasonable. My objection remains, however, that we are dealing with a theory capable of indulging in practically any story. Remember, protein synthesis is supposed to have arisen all by itself.

Here's an example. The histone IV proteins show high conservation across a spectrum of species. Evolutionists assumed this meant they were highly constrained in their amino acid sequence. They could not tolerate very many mutations. But this raises the question of how they arose in the first place. If they cannot tolerate many substitutions, how are you going to construct one gradually with a sequence of functional intermediates?

The answer given was that, once upon a time, the histones underwent high rates of mutation that got them over this barrier. Laying aside the obvious problem that the design space is astronomical, the point here is that evolutionists are willing to engage in all manner of explanations to preserve their theory. Do you seriously doubt that this sort of explanation would not be available to the evolutionist if no 'vestigial' structures were to be found?

but it's not a metaphysical argument at all to say that a structure is more specified for one function than for another. for example, some feathers are asymmetrical, which makes them more useful for flight, but does not make them more useful for insulation at all. feathers would insulate precisely as well if they were symmetrical. therefore, if we have asymmetrical feathers, we can say that they have characteristics which make them more specified for flight than for insulation. i see no metaphysics involved in this argument. and we can combine this with the fact that such feathers ARE used for flight in other organisms. as a second example, let's consider blind eyes. these eyes have lenses. this characteristic is useful for seeing, but wouldn't benefit any other possible function of the eye. combine this with the fact that we see eyes used for seeing in other species, and we know that lenses are beneficial for the eyes that do see, and we can say that these eye-structures are more specified for seeing than for any other possible function they might have. no metaphysics involved there, as far as i can see. similarly, i COULD use my nose to ingest spaghetti, but clearly noses are more specified for breathing than for eating. my mouth can be used for breathing, but clearly my teeth don't help me with that at all. but teeth are useful for mechanical digestion. therefore it is clear that while my mouth can be used for breathing, the structures in my mouth are clearly specified for eating. furthermore, we know that mouths ARE used for eating. this is no different than determining what functions structures are speficied for in vestigial organs. i don't see any metaphysics invovled here. i made no assumptions about what a designer would or would not do.

Agreed. But now having stripped your argument of metaphysics, it loses its high power.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 01:13 AM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Closed my mind? Think about what you are saying. You believe that the most complex things known arose all by themselves. You cannot explain how it happened. And you claim it to be a fact. And you are asking me about my judgement?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by caravelair
i'm sorry, but how does any of that imply that i have a closed mind? my mind is open. show me some structure that couldn't possibly have evolved, and i will concede that it is a big problem for evolution to deal with.

It implies you have closed your mind because you are saying that an unsupported and unlikely hypothesis is a fact. And furthermore, your requirement to change this conclusion is for me to disprove the hypothesis. The facts that (a) echolocation and protein synthesis are highly complex, and (b) that you have no explanation beyond speculation, are not sufficient for you. You want me to provide an example that couldn't possibly have evolved. I'm supposed to falsify your theory, and you think this is being open minded.

Sorry, but I cannot falsify your theory. I also cannot falsify astrology. You are claiming your idea is a scientific theory, and that it is a fact. That means you need to have some pretty strong evidence; not that you have managed to elude falsification.

Indeed, it would be impossible to provide what you are asking for. You are asking me to provide a universal negative. Here, look at this structure; it is impossible that is could have evolved. How would I possibly go about supporting such a claim? This shows how bankrupt is evolutionary theory.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 02:16 AM

Originally posted by Ken
Charles, my primary purpose in bringing up the language analogy was to point out the inherent messiness of historical sciences like evolution and historical linguistics, which, despite their messiness, are in no danger of being discredited by their detractors. I am quite well aware that there are significant differences between biological and linguistic evolution, but they are both historical, contingent sciences that propose descent with modification. I am reassured to know you accept linguistic evolution; not every anti-evolutionist does, nor was the idea widely accepted before modem times, particularly among the devout. After all, we already had a good explanation for the diversity of languages in Genesis, and it was difficult to discern enough linguistic change from one generation to the next to account for the unbridgeable differences between, say Navajo and Swahili. Microevolution or dialect adaptation within closely allied languages was conceivable, but major language groups had no ancestors in common. But now linguists have found clues linking all 6000 present languages back to a handful of ancestors. The farther they go back, the more difficult it is to put the pieces together, but the challenge is not whether they ultimately fit together but how they fit together.

Why are linguists so confident in linguistic common descent? Because they have an interest in debunking Genesis? Because they refuse to entertain supernatural causes? Because their theology does not allow them to associate God with the imperfections of human languages? So what if geographically proximate languages are in many cares also morphologically proximate? So what if fossil manuscripts appear to represent intermediate forms? So what if languages can be arranged in a tree demonstrating synapomorphies and nested hierarchies? This does not prove common descent or give it factual status. What about all the problems, all the out-of place morphemes in the manuscript record, all the missing pieces, all the languages like Japanese that have no close relatives, all the coincidental convergences of certain features among unrelated groups? (Do you get the point, or do I need to dig up my historical linguistics textbook to multiply examples?) Critics of linguistic common descent could identify thousands of puzzles and think they've discredited the whole enterprise, but they would be lacking all sense of proportion as to what constitutes sufficient evidence to establish or discredit a theory. There is evidence, then there is evidence. Linguistic evolution is just too obvious for us to get hung up over an array of impressive-looking arguments against it. I see your criticisms of common descent in the same light. If you choose to respond to this, I would ask you to stick to the notion of common descent itself, not the mechanism, because there's not any point in discussing the mechanism until we can agree on bare common descent.

I understand and appreciate your points. You are saying that the bulk of the evidence supports common descent, and that the unresolved problems come from only a minority of the evidence. My problem is I can't quite imagine why you see the evidential breakdown this way.

Perhaps you are thinking that all the many similarities between species, and the way they can be arranged in phylogenies, make for the bulk of positive evidence. But there is much more to it. First, there are substantial deviations from this pattern. The bacterial example, and it is one of many, discussed earlier is worth quoting:

"These results bolster the idea that the evolution of photosynthetic genes has been disconnected from divergence and speciation in these organisms, confirming the extensive role that horizontal gene flow has played in prokaryote evolution."

and,

"The most unexpected result from this analysis is the distinct lack of unanimous support for a single topology. Plurality support is seen for the three trees (5, 10, and 15) that group together Synechocystis sp., C. aurantiacus, and H. mobilis separate from a distinct R. capsulatus and C. tepidum cluster. The data suggest that even strongly supported phylogenies and highly conserved genes from these organisms often show very different evolutionary histories." Science, 298:1538

Also, there are the many convergences. I will repeat from an earlier post; common descent predicts similarities to be inherited. What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental? If this is true, then common descent is not a contingent process, governed by the quirks of history. Rather, it is driven to predictable designs. Replay the tape of history, and you get the same results. But if this is true, then the homology arguments go out the window. They are not the results of a contingent process, but of a necessary design. You have a conflict. Either the process is contingent, in which case the convergences create a great problem; or the process is predictable and driven by necessity, in which case homologies are explained as necessities.

Third, as Per Alberch put it, homologies with different development paths are common: Alberch, Systematic Zoology, 34:46-58, 1985. These similarities of yours do not look like they are the consequences of common descent.

Fourth, similarities between species is explainable as a consequence of design, just as man-made objects share similarities.

Fifth, there are fossils that appear planted there and have no obvious precursor.

And we haven't even gotten to problems, such as pseudogenes that require independent yet identical mutations and HERVs that also require independent insertion events, or some such story.

I really don't think the evidence stacks up as you describe.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 02:22 AM

Originally posted by caravelair
as far as i can tell, you have been unsuccessful at explaining away the vestigial organ line of evidence. but you haven't commented on what i last wrote about them, so perhaps you have something else to say about it.

Just to be clear, I'm not claiming vestigial structures offer no evidence for evolution. I'm saying the evidence is really no different from any other similarity. In other words, the evidence does not come by virtue of their 'vestigial-ness' but merely by virtue of the similarity.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 02:27 AM

Originally posted by lpetrich
Maybe I'll be able to dig up the full text at a university library some time -- I'd have to get a university library card, and right now, I'm in an employment-contract gap. When my new employment contract gets going, I'll be able to get access to a major university library for free, so I'll be able to look for the full text.

As far as I can tell from the references to that paper in an Internet search, Scadding had proposed that (1) truly-functionless vestigial features are rare and (2) vestigiality is simply a special case of homology. Neither conclusion causes trouble for evolutionary biology.

Nor did I claim them to. You asked for a scorecard of failed claims of vestigial-ness, and I suggested this paper as a starting point. My point is merely that vestigial structures do not provide evidence in the way that evolutionists claim they do.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 02:45 AM

Originally posted by Gracchus

Which facts?

The facts which I've been posting in this thread. For example, the fact that protein synthesis and echolocation are complicated. That evolution relies on biological variation yet it does not explain how it arose. That adaptation does not seem to be unbounded. That the fossil record looks like a backward evolutionary tree. That homologies commonly arise from different development patterns and genes. The pseudogenes and HERVs require independent yet identical events. That there are a great many cases of convergent evolution and phylogenetic mismatches. You might want to read some of the posts here.

Reality is not a dualism of the physical and the spiritual. Spirit is the phlostigon of philosophy, a non-existant premise in a false model.

This is a religious claim.

Creationism was falsified over two hundred years ago. Get over it.

I didn't know that. Do you have a reference for that?

monkenstick

October 13, 2003, 03:11 AM

Fourth, similarities between species is explainable as a consequence of design, just as man-made objects share similarities.apart from the broken genes - unless you invoke convergent mutation miracles

Albion

October 13, 2003, 04:45 AM

The *evolution* position, as hard as it is to swallow, is that the species "just arose."This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces (ie, spontaneously). It doesn't matter what process you want to contrive for it; it doesn't matter what time period you want to make up. But isn't it interesting how evolutionists react when their theory is described as it really is.

How is this different from saying that galaxies "just arose" or mountain ranges "just arose" because the current explanations involve nothing more than the play of natural forces? This objection to evolution - that species "just arose" spontaneously via natural forces - can surely be applied throughout the sciences. Do we then say that theories within the disciplines of cosmology, astrophysics, geology, and mineralogy are equally unscientific and bizarre and hard to swallow? Or what's so special about evolution?

(apologies if this has already been asked - I've only read about half the thread)

lpetrich

October 13, 2003, 05:00 AM

"Charles Darwin":
You can have all the time you want. 4.5 Byr, 45 Byr, whatever. ...

Tell that to the young-earthers.

Furthermore, the age of earth isn't terribly relevant because the radiations typically occur rapidly (they show up in the fossil record fully-formed).

Point to some examples, especially relatively recent ones like Cenozoic ones. Did modern equines (horse, donkey, zebra) originate in one big jump from Hyracotherium?

(urate-oxidase difficulties...)

I'm not familiar enough with this question to make reasonable comments, but how do such difficulties indicate the origin of individual species by poofing?

me:
"Charles Darwin" has indicated elsewhere that he considers only a fully-worked-out scenario acceptable. I think that he'd have a great career as a defense lawyer -- he'd demand similar fully-worked-out scenarios from the prosecution, with even the tiniest gaps construed as absolute proof that his client is 100% innocent.

Tiniest gap?

Yes, the tiniest gap. If not, then indicate to us what you'd consider an acceptable case for guilt.

You've got to be kidding; this is evolutionary mythology. No POOFs? Sorry, your RNA-world scenario is loaded with them:

*POOF!* the first proteins had been short coenzymes assembled with RNA enzymes, and *POOF!* once this mechanism got going, the "coenzymes" *POOF!* became big enough to become the primary parts, with the RNA *POOF!* becoming reduced to coenzyme status or dropping out altogether.

This is, of course, my text with "*POOF!*" inserted. Extra molecules getting accidentally attached and genes becoming accidentally lengthened are hardly "*POOF!*" steps, especially when compared to the creationist scenario of the whole system popping into existence out of thin air.

The family trees produced by comparison of the alpha and beta chains agree closely with those derived by traditional means -- and also with each other.

What did you expect? You can get convergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).

One gets the best approximations to biological phylogenies when one considers the work of multiple designers that work from each others' work, like manuscript copyists. In fact, manuscript copyists are a good analogy with genome replication. Is that what you believe about the Earth's biota, O CD? That it was produced by a large community of designers over the last 3.5+ billion years?

Aside from the obvious fact that the cellular machinery behind adaptation is phenomenally complex.

Like how?

it is now being understood that the adaptation function itself is quite clever, with mutational hotspots, hypermutators, etc. (already discussed in this thread).

I don't see any great complexity in mutational hotspots and the like.

The Burgess Shale fossils look like they were planted there, but there isn't any evidence to the contrary.

How do they look "planted there"?

CD has yet to explain why he thinks they look "planted there".

I'm surprised you would bring up the Chengjiang fossils as they certainly are not supporting evolution. In fact they have left Chinese scientists questioning evolution.

Seems that CD has spent much time in creationist quote mines; I don't know of any such thing.

The Chengjiang fossils closely resemble Burgess Shale ones, though the Sirius Passet fossils resemble these ones less. These locales are "Lagerst�tten", exceptional regions that preserve soft body parts, which is why these fossils look as if they had come from nowhere.

I think your points are all reasonable. My objection remains, however, that we are dealing with a theory capable of indulging in practically any story.

CD has not explained to us what would falsify his pet "*POOF!*" theory of origins.

Remember, protein synthesis is supposed to have arisen all by itself.

Again, a belief in poofing.

Here's an example. The histone IV proteins show high conservation across a spectrum of species. Evolutionists assumed this meant they were highly constrained in their amino acid sequence. They could not tolerate very many mutations. But this raises the question of how they arose in the first place. If they cannot tolerate many substitutions, how are you going to construct one gradually with a sequence of functional intermediates?

It started off with an ancestor that was not as dependent on the precise structure of histone IV as its descendants clearly are. It's like the evolution of honeybees from solitary bees -- they had had a bumblebee-like intermediate state.

The facts that (a) echolocation and protein synthesis are highly complex,

Well-developed echolocation, yes, but it's possible to perform relatively crude echolocation without being specially adapted for it.

and (b) that you have no explanation beyond speculation, are not sufficient for you.

CD has not indicated what he considers acceptable short of going back in a time machine and following the generations.

(CD quotes on how photosynthesis evolution seems to have involved much lateral gene transfer...)

Also, there are the many convergences. I will repeat from an earlier post; common descent predicts similarities to be inherited. What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. ...

Convergent evolution is well-known and can often by recognized by looking at details.

Third, as Per Alberch put it, homologies with different development paths are common: Alberch, Systematic Zoology, 34:46-58, 1985.

Have you read that paper? Can you give us its abstract?

Wounded King

October 13, 2003, 06:19 AM

Presumably Charles you are familiar with the concept of heterochrony, this explains a number of examples of homologous structures with different developmental pathways.

Or for an even more extreme example there is the direct developing frog species Eleutherodactylus coqui which lacks the free swimming larval stage of related frogs but of which the adult stages are morphologically and genetically highly similar. If the frog can lose an entire stage of development and still produce all the same morphological features why is it hard to believe that certain elements of a much simpler developmental program could be lost and still produce a highly homologous organ?

markfiend

October 13, 2003, 06:26 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
You can get convergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).
I'm getting pretty sick of consistently trying to debunk this notion of yours, Charles. The point is that you can get multiple, massively divergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).

The point is that the convergent phylogenies observed in living and fossil species agree with the predictions of the hypothesis of common descent to within one part in 10^47.

Are you ignoring this inconvenient fact because it contradicts your religious dogma?

NottyImp

October 13, 2003, 06:32 AM

CD said:

Do you really believe there is no such thing as you; that you is really just a very complicated and immense set of neurons in action? Something that just arose all by itself? And now you are deceived into thinking that there really is a you, when in fact there is no such thing as you.

This is really not a topic for this thread, but briefly, yes I am satisfied that a materialist explanation of all aspects of human existence is possible. Were there any evidence to the contrary that bore consideration (for example, evidence that "the soul" exists as a separate entity from ther body), then I might reconsider that position.

The implication of what you write, CD, is that you feel diminished by this; I do not.

CD said:

No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.

But any old load of hokum could do that, not just a Christian load of hokum. How is it any use if it is just an unverifiable story?

CD said:

So for you, the only origin theories worth considering are those which explain how it happened, even if God did it. Your god is a machine. You have defined creationism out of the picture.

Yes, I want to know how God did it. What is wrong with that? And how is "god a machine" and "creationism defined away" by my wanting to understand that methodology?

CD said:

By this logic we should be neutral about geocentrism. The problem is not a lack of understanding of evolution. We have plenty of evidence in hand; the theory fails.

No we shouldn't as there is plenty of evidence against geocentrism and a better theory exists. You're missing my point. Why do you choose creationism as a default position in the absence of what you consider a satisfactory naturalistic explanation?

NottyImp

October 13, 2003, 06:46 AM

The *evolution* position, as hard as it is to swallow, is that the species "just arose."This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces (ie, spontaneously). It doesn't matter what process you want to contrive for it; it doesn't matter what time period you want to make up. But isn't it interesting how evolutionists react when their theory is described as it really is.

The problem that evolutionists have is with the deliberately tendentious use of terms like "spontaneous" and "just arose", not with the notion itself. I (and I'm willing to bet every evolutionist on here) has no problem at all with the statement:

"This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces."

That, to me, is describing evolution as it really is, and I am entirely happy with it.

CD, surely you're aware of the uses of rhetorical techniques to try to influence a debate? What you are doing here (and what many other creationsist do with even less of a scruple) is precisely that. Do you really think that evolutionary biologists are somehow unaware of the consequences of their theory?

NottyImp

October 13, 2003, 06:50 AM

CD said:

That adaptation does not seem to be unbounded.

Forgive me if I'm asking you to repeat yourself (refer me to the post if I am), but what evidence do you have for this?

Outblaze

October 13, 2003, 07:59 AM

CD: The *evolution* position, as hard as it is to swallow, is that the species "just arose."This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces (ie, spontaneously). It doesn't matter what process you want to contrive for it; it doesn't matter what time period you want to make up. But isn't it interesting how evolutionists react when their theory is described as it really is.

Originally posted by Albion
How is this different from saying that galaxies "just arose" or mountain ranges "just arose" because the current explanations involve nothing more than the play of natural forces? This objection to evolution - that species "just arose" spontaneously via natural forces - can surely be applied throughout the sciences. Do we then say that theories within the disciplines of cosmology, astrophysics, geology, and mineralogy are equally unscientific and bizarre and hard to swallow? Or what's so special about evolution?

(apologies if this has already been asked - I've only read about half the thread)

A likely response is that evolution deals with living things, whereas the others do not. Regardless, there is every reason to accept that evolution similarly bolsters naturalism in all disciplines and to endeavor to construct a fundamental difference between them I think, is misleading. Such impersonal "naturalism" is never completely at home in the monotheist universe and possibly a reason for CD's *I can't believe the species just arose* personal incredulity plea.

Outblaze

October 13, 2003, 09:29 AM

Charles Darwin
No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.

No, creationism really doesn't hold any explanatory value. But I understand your protestation given your personal belief in it. Your attempt to incorporate creationism into science's methodology robs legitimate scientific theories of their distinction and places them in the same category as any other story of origins. All answers to questions of where we came from then have equal scientific standing---which is to say, no scientific standing at all.

RufusAtticus

October 13, 2003, 03:13 PM

I have the Scadding paper and the two follow up papers to it, which CD missed.

I will start a new thread on them latter tonight.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 03:14 PM

Originally posted by Albion
How is this different from saying that galaxies "just arose" or mountain ranges "just arose" because the current explanations involve nothing more than the play of natural forces? This objection to evolution - that species "just arose" spontaneously via natural forces - can surely be applied throughout the sciences. Do we then say that theories within the disciplines of cosmology, astrophysics, geology, and mineralogy are equally unscientific and bizarre and hard to swallow? Or what's so special about evolution?

I suspect you are misreading the intent of my post. First, one can imagine different levels of hypothesis. Just to make up a purely theoretical example, imagine that after a volcano one observes the creation of certain geological formations. Then one finds other similar formations elsewhere in the world. Surely it is reasonable to hypothesize that a volcano was the cause.

Now imagine one finds a unique geological formations. But what if, using everything we know of natural laws, one can faithfully simulate the creation of this formation. In other words, the unique formation is, in fact, 'produced' by the simulation which is an accurate and faithful model of natural laws. Surely it is reasonable to hypothesize that a process not unlike what the simulation models was the cause.

Evolution is a very different case. The intent of my post was not to suggest that there is something wrong with positing natural explanations for observed phenomena. The intent was to describe accurately the theory of evolution.

lpetrich

October 13, 2003, 03:49 PM

Wounded King:
Presumably Charles you are familiar with the concept of heterochrony, this explains a number of examples of homologous structures with different developmental pathways.

That's different timing of development, like:

Or for an even more extreme example there is the direct developing frog species Eleutherodactylus coqui which lacks the free swimming larval stage of related frogs but of which the adult stages are morphologically and genetically highly similar. ...

Does that frog's embryos have some tadpolelike features? It's hard for me to find anything on that, but it seems to me that this species does tadpole-to-adult while still in the egg. And this and other direct-developing frogs are often considered possible sources of clues as to how amniotes emerged from early amphibians.

Charles Darwin

October 13, 2003, 04:34 PM

Originally posted by Wounded King
Or for an even more extreme example there is the direct developing frog species Eleutherodactylus coqui which lacks the free swimming larval stage of related frogs but of which the adult stages are morphologically and genetically highly similar. If the frog can lose an entire stage of development and still produce all the same morphological features why is it hard to believe that certain elements of a much simpler developmental program could be lost and still produce a highly homologous organ?

We're not talking about losing development stages, but different kinds of stages, or different genes. Here's why this is important. Homology is cited as a key evidence for evolution. Yet, we are to believe that evolution, while preserving the end product, went through all kinds of genetic and developmental changes. You see, the evidence is not so simple and straightforward, and not so unequivocally behind evolution. You claim evolution is a fact, and you cite homologies as an important reason. But this evidence raises a raft of questions, for many reasons; this question of development being just one of the reasons.

lpetrich

October 13, 2003, 04:46 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
We're not talking about losing development stages, but different kinds of stages, or different genes ... I notice that CD has not presented even a shred of evidence for that viewpoint. Does he deserve to be taken seriously if he fails to deliver on such a fundamental level?

Jack the Bodiless

October 13, 2003, 05:18 PM

Charles:
And just how is it that these fantastic biological machines arose on their own? Well, we've got this biological variation you see. Right, random variation hit upon the designs. No, no, no; natural selection did the designing; it guided things by selecting the successful random designs. I see, so it isn't really a random process? Not at all. But the variation is random? Definitely. Is the variation biased towards designs that work? Of course not, there is no teleology man, your centuries behind. In the design space, how many failures are there compared to successful designs? Oh there's bound to be an astronomical number of unworkable designs. There are billions of nucleotides and the workings are intricate. Yet random variation found the right designs? With the help of natural selection. But I thought the variation was not biased? Well, yes, natural selection picks the design after it is tested. How long does that take? Well each experiment is a life time, and of course even successful designs may or may not be selected for due to the randomness of each individual's life. And even then it may not become fixed in the population. But you are sure this all could happen? It is a fact.
The fallacy of your probability argument should have been obvious simply from considering how living organisms are coping now.

Is is your position that, because there are "so many things that can go wrong", modern organisms do not successfully reproduce? All species are wiped out by lethal mutations in one generation?

Most of the mutations which actually occur are not harmful: they are neutral. There are biochemical constraints on the types of mutation that are likely to occur.

As I have already pointed out, harmful mutations are irrelevant unless they are so numerous that they swamp the organism's reproductive rate. Given that this is observably not happening, the accumulation of beneficial mutations (and hence evolution) is inevitable.

And you also seem to have an ongoing hangup with evolution being a "fact". The PROCESS of evolution IS a fact. COMMON DESCENT is also so well-supported that it is considered "fact" by paleontologists and biologists. The THEORY is that evolution is solely responsible for common descent.

Why are you still trying to pretend that you don't understand this? I'm curious. Do you think that making yourself look stupid is a worthwhile debating tactic? If so, then why?
This is a statement of faith. Yes, indeed, the future may hold all kinds of confirmations of evolution. But that is not the case today, yet evolution is claimed to be a fact. The real facts of the matter are that the evidence we have in hand argues against evolution, not for it.
Um, yes, it is the case that a truly overwhelming body of evidence exists today for common descent (which is what you usually mean when you say "evolution", though sometimes you use the word to imply "metaphysical naturalism" instead: I suspect this obfuscation is deliberate). The fossil record alone is sufficient: millions of fossils miraculously shuffled into the right order.
No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.
Is this an about-turn?

Earlier, you were quite insistent that all the evidence for common descent could be explained by "I choose to believe that God made everything so that it would look that way". All attempts to make you acknowledge the futility of that position were met with variations of "you are making a religious statement, who are you to decide what God should do?".

...But now creationism can be falsified?

How, pray tell?
You are not making much sense. One of the important things about HERVs is that cannot become lost. You are obviously not reading the posts, we've gone over this a couple times already. This is why the HERV evidence is intriguing. The human site is a clean pre insertion segment; there never was an HERV there. But under common descent there must have been. The only way around this is to make up a just-so story about how it could have gotten into the lower species but somehow never into the human line.
Um, no, it's YOU who isn't reading the thread. It was explained many pages ago how an HERV can become lost, leaving an apparently pristine pre-insertion site.
Furthermore, the age of earth isn't terribly relevant because the radiations typically occur rapidly (they show up in the fossil record fully-formed). Even by evolution's reckoning they must occur over no more than a few millions of years.
...Where?

This certainly isn't true of the radiation of the mammals after the demise of the dinosaurs. There was rapid radiation from a handful of somewhat rodentlike critters, but the fossil record shows this. All of them were initially small, and big birds were the top carnivores on land for a while.

You have repeatedly tried to make a case for the fossil record "contradicting" common descent. But where's the beef?

Albion

October 13, 2003, 10:43 PM

No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.

How does it explain why evolution fares poorly? To what extent are creationism and evolution related such that the existence of one can explain a problem with the other? Surely problems with theories are the outcome of disagreements with data, rather than being anything to do with other theories.

As far as the source of consciousness is concerned, creationism is the notion that a deity is responsible for everything. As long as consciousness is part of everything, it follows that creationism would include it. But how is saying "Goddidit" any sort of explanation? It's a theological statement, and once you've said it, are you really any clearer about consciousness from the scientific viewpoint?

How can creationism be falsified?

monkenstick

October 14, 2003, 02:14 AM

Correction. My claim is not that convergent mutations are the explanation for the relationships of the UOX pseudogenes. My claim is that, under evolution, it is a fact that convergent mutations are required by the UOX pseudogene sequences. Read the paper:

Some instances of homoplasy are better explained by convergent mutation - the number is quite small compared to the 900 odd nucleotides that make up the exons of the gene

Even the authors admit that the standard common-descent explanation that a single ancestral inactivation event doesn't cut it.

Thats obvious, of course if the nonsense mutations that are ubiquitous in each monopyletic family are different between the families, then the most parsimonious explanation is that its transcription was likely already compromised.

Then there is theh remarkable multiple CGA-TGA conversions: "Overall, it is remarkable that, except one CGA codon in exon 6, all the other four CGA codons are converted to the TGA termination codon in all or some of the hominoids."

please look up CpG hotspots, and consider that a negative selection on a gene most likely favoured methylation of its coding sequence

Now, given that convergent mutations are an empirical fact, as well as a necessity under evolution, your argument that the best-fit psi-UOX gene phylogeny requires common descent because it converges reasonably well with the consensus phylogeny is simply wrong. Convergent mutations would also produce a convergent phylogeny.

No, it isn't. You obviously need a course in cladistics - each monophyletic family all have exactly the same stop codon, and the phylogeny (the most likely tree considering all 900 odd positions, and not just the examples of convergence the authors highlighted) coincidently also supports the monophyly of both groups

You would have to show that convergent mutations occured at enough positions in the sequence to bias the phylogeny to putting all members of hominidae in one monophyletic group, and all members of hylobatidae in another monophyletic group.

Yes convergent mutations happen - but they don't happen at the level you require to claim that the errors in the urate oxidase gene are the result of convergent mutations in all members of hominidae

pangloss

October 14, 2003, 06:46 AM

Charles Darwin

October 15, 2003, 12:00 AM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Charles Darwin
You can get convergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by markfiend
I'm getting pretty sick of consistently trying to debunk this notion of yours, Charles. The point is that you can get multiple, massively divergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread). [/i]

In support of this, awhile back you wrote:

OK you can make a tree of "vehicles driven with an internal combustion engine". But just to take two traits, vehicle type (motorcycle, sports car, SUV, saloon car, truck, etc.) and engine type (2-cylinder, 4-cylinder, 6-cylinder, V-8, V-12) I could decide that engine type was more important than vehicle type so I have:

2-cylinder contains some motorbikes, lawnmowers
4-cylinder contains other motorbikes, some sports cars, most saloon cars, some trucks, most SUVs
6-cylinder contains some saloon cars, some sports cars, some SUVs, some trucks
V-8 contains some sports cars, a few saloon cars, some trucks
V-12 contains some sports cars, some trucks.

An alternative and equally valid heirarchy is this:

motorcycles some 2-cylinder, some 4-cylinder
sports cars some 4-cylinder, some 6-cylinder, some V-8, some V-12
SUVs some 4-cylinder, some 6-cylinder
saloon cars some 4-cylinder, some 6-cylinder, a few V-8
etc.

There are two points two understand. First, evolution does not predict the species to form a nested hierarchy, as discussed a few posts back: Anomalies and difficulties are routinely explained by evolutionists using such devices as extraordinarily and temporarily high rates of mutation. Such events would erase the hierarchical pattern. And if you are willing to swallow the origin of life once, why not twice? And thrice? Who knows, life may have been popping up like corn. With life originating so often, you could get many species, but no hierarchy.

Second, a nested hierarchy makes perfect sense for man-made objects. Look at your engine type list above. The V-12 trait, for example, contains only sports cars and trucks. Likewise, the lawnmowers appear only in the 2-cylinder trait category. You do not have uniform representation across the board. Now imagine we had similar lists for a number of other traits, such as tire material and tread design; transmission type and gearing ratios; horsepower to vehicle weight ratio; coolant system; steering system; seat design; and so forth. There would be some overlaps just as there are in your engine list, but there would be a general agreement. If I gave you the all the trait data for a truck without telling you the vehicle type, you would have no difficulty inferring it was for a truck. Of course, there would be some features that appear independently in different groups, but the species have these same sorts of convergences. And there would be some traits that all the vehicle types share (eg, internal combustion engine) and many others that are shared only by subgroups.

Originally posted by markfiend
The point is that the convergent phylogenies observed in living and fossil species agree with the predictions of the hypothesis of common descent to within one part in 10^47.[/i]

No, they agree with man-made objects. Furthermore, there are massive convergences required under evolution. Evolution predicts similarities to be inherited. What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental?

monkenstick

October 15, 2003, 02:27 AM

What we find are a great many similarities that could not have been via inheritance. Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental?

phenotype isn't inherited charley, genotype is

Charles Darwin

October 15, 2003, 02:56 AM

Originally posted by NottyImp

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD said:
Do you really believe there is no such thing as you; that you is really just a very complicated and immense set of neurons in action? Something that just arose all by itself? And now you are deceived into thinking that there really is a you, when in fact there is no such thing as you.
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This is really not a topic for this thread, but briefly, yes I am satisfied that a materialist explanation of all aspects of human existence is possible. Were there any evidence to the contrary that bore consideration (for example, evidence that "the soul" exists as a separate entity from ther body), then I might reconsider that position. The implication of what you write, CD, is that you feel diminished by this; I do not.

No, I do not find materialism diminishing. I find it unlikely. Is there any evidence that materialism is not sufficient? Well I would start with evolution. What we know of the natural world does not suggest that the most complex things arose by themselves. Given how unlikely the theory is; that is pretty good evidence against materialism. You see, what I'm pointing out is how poorly materialism accords with our experience and knowledge. Our sense of good and evil; consciousness; our sense of free will; and so forth. Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves. Somehow our brains have contrived these things, but they are actually nothing more than illusions. There is no good or evil, just our opinions. There is no consciousness, just matter and energy in our heads. There is no free will, just neurons in action. I'm not going to try to talk you out of evolution or materialism, but I hope you are not under the impression that they have all the answers and people who doubt them must have ulterior motives.

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CD said:
No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.
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But any old load of hokum could do that, not just a Christian load of hokum. How is it any use if it is just an unverifiable story?

Well please let me know when you discover origin stories that can be verified.

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CD said:
So for you, the only origin theories worth considering are those which explain how it happened, even if God did it. Your god is a machine. You have defined creationism out of the picture.
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Yes, I want to know how God did it. What is wrong with that? And how is "god a machine" and "creationism defined away" by my wanting to understand that methodology?

Earlier you wrote:

Perhaps you'd like to defend your outrageous claim that the species have just been "poofed" into existence with some "substance" then, Charles?

No, I thought not.

And,

If you could provide a convincing explanantion of how "God did it" that explained the facts better than evolution, then I would happily subscribe to it. But you've said you can't, which to me seems to be an entirely useless position to hold.

You are not merely asking to know how God did it; you are demanding to know how God did it. If I am unable to provide an explanation to you, that you can comprehend and that you find acceptable, then you declare creationism out of bounds � a useless position. You see, inherent in your thinking is the premise that God, if creationism is true, must create in a way that I can understand and will find acceptable. I may as well try to explain to you how God created matter, or how He created gravity. Do you see the absurdity of your question? Who am I to explain how God acts? Yet you require this before you will accept creationism. Hence, what you are really doing is rejecting creationism a priori. And you must opt for the absurdity of evolution because, after all, it provides a mechanistic explanation.

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CD said:
By this logic we should be neutral about geocentrism. The problem is not a lack of understanding of evolution. We have plenty of evidence in hand; the theory fails.
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No we shouldn't as there is plenty of evidence against geocentrism and a better theory exists. You're missing my point. Why do you choose creationism as a default position in the absence of what you consider a satisfactory naturalistic explanation?

Oh, OK, I see what you are saying. The reason I opt for creationism is because the scientific evidence points that way. Is it a naturalistic explanation? No. Do you require all explanations to be naturalistic? Apparently so. Again, you seem to be rejecting creationism a priori, regardless of the science.

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CD said:
The *evolution* position, as hard as it is to swallow, is that the species "just arose."This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces (ie, spontaneously). It doesn't matter what process you want to contrive for it; it doesn't matter what time period you want to make up. But isn't it interesting how evolutionists react when their theory is described as it really is.
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The problem that evolutionists have is with the deliberately tendentious use of terms like "spontaneous" and "just arose", not with the notion itself. I (and I'm willing to bet every evolutionist on here) has no problem at all with the statement:

"This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces."

That, to me, is describing evolution as it really is, and I am entirely happy with it.

CD, surely you're aware of the uses of rhetorical techniques to try to influence a debate? What you are doing here (and what many other creationsist do with even less of a scruple) is precisely that. Do you really think that evolutionary biologists are somehow unaware of the consequences of their theory?

Actually, I'm not using rhetorical techniques. Spontaneous change, as I'm sure you know, is the scientific term for the changes that a system undergoes without outside interference. All by itself, to a lower free energy level. If you were to read evolutionists you'd see a tendency to pour a greater creative power into evolution than the theory actually gives to it. We start talking about evolution 'creating' by this or that means. And oh how they protest when the reality of their theory is laid out before them. Go take a look at a good biology book, and then ask yourself if you believe those things spontaneously (over as many eons as you like) arose? And it is not as though evolutionists have some explanation to show how our intuition is so fallible. When asked, they protest that you are being too picky; pointing out the tiniest of gaps in their theory. What a laugh.

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CD said:
That adaptation does not seem to be unbounded.
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Forgive me if I'm asking you to repeat yourself (refer me to the post if I am), but what evidence do you have for this?

I'm simply pointing out that years of mutation experiments, as well as the centuries of breeding experience accrued indicate species are not like a piece of putty in one's hands. The evidence that we do have indicates that change is not unbounded. Hence, evolutionists have to resort to stories such as neutral mutations accumulating over long periods and then being exploited in a short time when abrupt environmental changes occur to make them suddently advantageous (rather than neutral). How convenient. All kinds of neutral mutations, which later would be critical in speciating and introducing dramatic changes, just happened to silently occur for eons and become fixed. Nature sure is smart.

markfiend

October 15, 2003, 05:28 AM

I've snipped some of what CD has posted.Originally posted by Charles Darwin
First, evolution does not predict the species to form a nested hierarchy, as discussed a few posts back: Anomalies and difficulties are routinely explained by evolutionists using such devices as extraordinarily and temporarily high rates of mutation.Common descent predicts a nested heirarchy. That you refuse to accept this is puzzling unless it is a result of your religious dogma.And if you are willing to swallow the origin of life once, why not twice? And thrice? Who knows, life may have been popping up like corn. With life originating so often, you could get many species, but no hierarchy.I would imagine that once one line of (probably chemotrophic) life got going, it and its descendants "ate" the precursor molecules necessary for any further abiogenesis. Before you point it out, I am aware that this is speculative, but it does give reason to believe that more than a small number of abiogenesis events is unlikely.Of course, there would be some features that appear independently in different groups, but the species have these same sorts of convergences.Aye and here's the rub, Charles. Where are the feathered bats? Where are the placental birds? Where are the photosynthesising vertebrates? Where are the insect wings on flying squirrels?

If I was to design a boat, I could power it with an internal combustion engine from a car, put a chair in it from my living room, make the hull from oil drums, have a monitoring system based on a PC, etc. The different parts would come from unrelated sources. I do not need to redesign the internal combustion engine, because it has already been designed. But in life, these convergences you're so fond of are different designs for the same purpose. Compare and contrast vertebrate eye and squid eye. Same function, similar "design" and shape, different "wiring". And there would be some traits that all the vehicle types share (eg, internal combustion engine) and many others that are shared only by subgroups.And traits that are distributed over many/all subgroups. My car is green, has a 998cc engine, five forward gears and one reverse (manual shift), 93 inch wheelbase (I think), two doors and a hatchback. Charles, what make, model and year is it?Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals,Well, no, because rodents are a subgroup of placental mammals. and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental? Why not? I don't see why some convergence need be a problem. If you're an arboreal species jumping from branch to branch, then you're going to die if you can't quite jump far enough. Gliding will aid in distance-jumping, so any gliding ability will be selected for. There isn't much on a squirrel (or whatever marsupial you're talking about) that can evolve into a surface to support gliding, other than loose skin between front and back legs. Similar lifestyles will tend to produce evolution in similar directions. Look at a shark and a dolphin, Charles. Esentially the same body shape but when you look more closely there are gross anatomical differences. As there are gross anatomical differences between placental and marsupial mammals. I wonder why you think this is controversial?

Edit to add more "taxonomic information" on my car.

Jack the Bodiless

October 15, 2003, 05:35 AM

First, evolution does not predict the species to form a nested hierarchy, as discussed a few posts back: Anomalies and difficulties are routinely explained by evolutionists using such devices as extraordinarily and temporarily high rates of mutation. Such events would erase the hierarchical pattern. And if you are willing to swallow the origin of life once, why not twice? And thrice? Who knows, life may have been popping up like corn. With life originating so often, you could get many species, but no hierarchy.
This is a form of fallacious reasoning similar to your position on vestigial organs. Yes, a particular organ MIGHT have been eventually eliminated entirely: for instance, ostriches MIGHT have lost their wings. And evolution would have accommodated that: it wouldn't be conclusive evidence AGAINST common descent. But the fact remains that ostriches DID NOT lose their wings, therefore the wings remain as evidence FOR common descent.

Similarly, while it's POSSIBLE (though extremely unlikely) that evidence of a nested hirearchy MIGHT have been erased, the fact is that it was NOT erased.
Do you believe that a little rodent speciated, created marsupials and placentals, and then each lineage independently created all kinds of replicates? Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental?
Yes.

...Why are you implying that we would have a problem with this?

Now, if you can show that placental and marsupial gliding mammals are genetically too alike, then I'm all ears.

But I'm betting you can't.
Is there any evidence that materialism is not sufficient? Well I would start with evolution. What we know of the natural world does not suggest that the most complex things arose by themselves. Given how unlikely the theory is; that is pretty good evidence against materialism.
Baloney. What we know of the natural world DOES suggest this: that it CAN happen, and that it DID happen.
You see, what I'm pointing out is how poorly materialism accords with our experience and knowledge. Our sense of good and evil; consciousness; our sense of free will; and so forth. Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves.
I honestly don't see what the problem is. Why can't you spell it out?
You are not merely asking to know how God did it; you are demanding to know how God did it. If I am unable to provide an explanation to you, that you can comprehend and that you find acceptable, then you declare creationism out of bounds - a useless position. You see, inherent in your thinking is the premise that God, if creationism is true, must create in a way that I can understand and will find acceptable. I may as well try to explain to you how God created matter, or how He created gravity. Do you see the absurdity of your question? Who am I to explain how God acts? Yet you require this before you will accept creationism. Hence, what you are really doing is rejecting creationism a priori. And you must opt for the absurdity of evolution because, after all, it provides a mechanistic explanation.
IF God exists, then he created species by some mechanism involving common descent. That is abundantly clear.

It is YOU who is arbitrarily decreeing, despite all evidence to the contrary, that God did NOT do this.
Oh, OK, I see what you are saying. The reason I opt for creationism is because the scientific evidence points that way. Is it a naturalistic explanation? No. Do you require all explanations to be naturalistic? Apparently so. Again, you seem to be rejecting creationism a priori, regardless of the science.
No, the scientific evidence does NOT point that way. No amount of repetition of this baloney will ever make it true.
Go take a look at a good biology book, and then ask yourself if you believe those things spontaneously (over as many eons as you like) arose?
Yes.

Why do you believe otherwise?

More importantly: why do you assume that WE will simply blink and say "Gosh, I never thought about this before"?

You seem to have the attitude that Biblical creationism is obvious.
That adaptation does not seem to be unbounded.

Forgive me if I'm asking you to repeat yourself (refer me to the post if I am), but what evidence do you have for this?

I'm simply pointing out that years of mutation experiments, as well as the centuries of breeding experience accrued indicate species are not like a piece of putty in one's hands. The evidence that we do have indicates that change is not unbounded.
No, it doesn't. Again, no amount of repetition will ever make this true.

Why don't you talk to people who actually breed plants and animals? They'll tell you that selective breeding is bounded only by the size of the available gene pool, which is continually being enlarged by mutations: a new variety, formerly impossible, suddenly becomes possible when a mutation occurs. Many breeds derive from a specific mutated individual.

Jack the Bodiless

October 15, 2003, 06:04 AM

I think some of this odd behavior comes from the theistic mindset, and the habits it encourages. Charles, you're accustomed to praying. Repetitive, self-hypnotic chanting which reinforces your beliefs.

Now, your point about HERV's wasn't like that: it's the closest you've yet come to a scientific argument. But you've padded this out with prayer. You are praying that "echolocation is a problem for evolution", for instance, or that "rapid diversification after mass extinction is a problem for common descent", or that "scientific evidence supports creationism and stands against evolution".

You make these statements as if they're uncontroversial. And, apparently, you think that repeating them without providing support is a worthwhile strategy.

You seem surprised that we do not join you in your prayer.

NottyImp

October 15, 2003, 06:15 AM

CD: Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves.

In what sense are they non-material? They are a consequence of the material organisation of your brain. You can even see in the animal kingdom a clear gradation of consciousness, self-consciousness, social and moral behaviour that you describe.

CD: Somehow our brains have contrived these things, but they are actually nothing more than illusions.

They are not illusions - I experience them and act upon them as part of my material existence. Some of it is hard-wired, some learnt. Wherein lies the mystery?

CD: I'm not going to try to talk you out of evolution or materialism, but I hope you are not under the impression that they have all the answers and people who doubt them must have ulterior motives.

Well, not on this thread, anyway. As to ulterior motives, the history of religion provides me with enough evidence of ulterior motives to furnish a good sized National Library.

CD: Well please let me know when you discover origin stories that can be verified.

Which is rather the point. Why should I believe your stories rather than, say, a Buddhist's?

CD: I may as well try to explain to you how God created matter, or how He created gravity. Do you see the absurdity of your question? Who am I to explain how God acts?

Ah yes, the old "You cannot know the mind of God" cop-out. What I find absurd is that you are prepared to worship a being whose acts you admit you cannot understand.

But lets run with this for a moment. Accepting that the act of "poofing" species into existence is beyond my comprehension (should god ever deign to try to explain it to me), the consequence of his actions is not.

Clearly, if creationism is correct, then at some point in time and space, a population of a new species must appear on Earth. If one were videoing this event, perhaps it would quite literally just appear out of thin air.

Have you any evidence, Charles, that a new species has ever appeared on earth in this way? Do we have recordas of it from the last 300 years or so of natural philosophy? It would surely be a knock-out vindication of your position if you had.

CD: And oh how they protest when the reality of their theory is laid out before them.

I'm sorry, but who protests? Can you cite me references? I think this is precisely the rhetorical technique I was accusing you of using, charles.

lpetrich

October 15, 2003, 07:33 AM

Charles Darwin:
You can get convergent phylogenies on man-made categories of objects too (already discussed in this thread).

Actually, one often finds non-hierarchical arrangements in most cases, with hierarchies appearing only in certain special cases, like copyists' errors in medieval manuscripts. Such circumstances are multiple designers working from their predecessors' work -- which suggests that if features of our planet's biota are designed, then they were designed by multiple designers over geological time, each of whom works from pre-existing designs.

And CD shows a remarkable unwillingness to make the multi-design inference, as it may be called. If one infers design out of analogy with human designers, then one may reasonably infer multiple designers.

There are two points two understand. First, evolution does not predict the species to form a nested hierarchy, as discussed a few posts back:

It does -- CD has clearly not done much studying of the only diagram in Origin of Species.

And if you are willing to swallow the origin of life once, why not twice? And thrice? Who knows, life may have been popping up like corn. With life originating so often, you could get many species, but no hierarchy.

There is, however, no reason to believe that to be the case; All surviving life on Earth has had a single ultimate ancestor, and no counterexamples have ever been discovered. And counterexamples could be recognized if they exist.

(claims of hierarchy for vehicle and engine types...)

It's more like a "Great Chain of Being" than a true family tree.

... Did the flying squirrel, just to name one example of a great many, arise twice on different continents and over millions of years? Essentially the same design; one marsupial and one placental?

Except that growing a flap of skin on one's sides is not a terribly-complicated convergence.

Do you really believe there is no such thing as you; that you is really just a very complicated and immense set of neurons in action? Something that just arose all by itself? And now you are deceived into thinking that there really is a you, when in fact there is no such thing as you.

What does that mean, that I am what I am because of some special personality-stuff or whatever?

What we know of the natural world does not suggest that the most complex things arose by themselves.

And CD is absolutely sure of this for what reason?

You are not merely asking to know how God did it; you are demanding to know how God did it.

Which is a confession of how little explanatory value "goddidit" has.

Oh, OK, I see what you are saying. The reason I opt for creationism is because the scientific evidence points that way.

And can CD prove that elves or fairies or ghosts or leprechauns or goblins or demons or jinn had not been responsibile?

Actually, I'm not using rhetorical techniques. Spontaneous change, as I'm sure you know, is the scientific term for the changes that a system undergoes without outside interference. All by itself, to a lower free energy level.

Except that this can drive parts to higher free-energy levels. Look inside your freezer some time. If you have ever had frost in it, you will have seen order emerging from disorder.

If you were to read evolutionists you'd see a tendency to pour a greater creative power into evolution than the theory actually gives to it. We start talking about evolution 'creating' by this or that means. And oh how they protest when the reality of their theory is laid out before them.

Whining is NOT an argument.

And there are easy mechanisms for "creativity", like gene duplication and divergence.

Wounded King

October 15, 2003, 07:58 AM

Popeye said
I am what I am, and thats all that I am.

Words we should all take to heart.

Albion

October 15, 2003, 12:48 PM

No, I do not find materialism diminishing. I find it unlikely. Is there any evidence that materialism is not sufficient? Well I would start with evolution. What we know of the natural world does not suggest that the most complex things arose by themselves. Given how unlikely the theory is; that is pretty good evidence against materialism.

Why would it be evidence against materialism rather than against the particular theory? Do you mean to say that if the current theory of evolution is ever invalidated in the eyes of the scientific commnuity in general, there's no point looking for an alternative theory because the entire concept of an explanation based on purely natural processes has been invalidated along with evolution by variation and selection? And if the explanation based on natural processes is invalidated, and the scientific method is grounded in explanations based on natural processes, then what does this do for the scientific method in general?

You see, what I'm pointing out is how poorly materialism accords with our experience and knowledge. Our sense of good and evil; consciousness; our sense of free will; and so forth. Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves. Somehow our brains have contrived these things, but they are actually nothing more than illusions. There is no good or evil, just our opinions. There is no consciousness, just matter and energy in our heads. There is no free will, just neurons in action.

Why would these things be illusions just because they have a basis in the natural world? Come to that, why are you so sure they're non-material - is the study of neurology really sufficiently advanced that we can draw this conclusion with so much confidence? If free will or conscience is just one of many mental processes, rather than being a function of a deity, why would it not be just as real as anything else our brains come up with?

You see, inherent in your thinking is the premise that God, if creationism is true, must create in a way that I can understand and will find acceptable. I may as well try to explain to you how God created matter, or how He created gravity. Do you see the absurdity of your question? Who am I to explain how God acts? Yet you require this before you will accept creationism. Hence, what you are really doing is rejecting creationism a priori.

Well, if accepting creationism means accepting that God may have created in ways that we don't or can't understand, then what are we actually all doing? Why bother to even try and understand anything? And why rely on saying that evolution is invalid in order to advance creationism as the most likely explanation? If we don't or can't know how God did it, then creationism is just as likely to have occurred even if the theory of evolution provides a watertight explanation.

And you must opt for the absurdity of evolution because, after all, it provides a mechanistic explanation.

Absurd explanations have been abandoned before now, even though they wre mechanistic. When explanations progressively fail to explain, what is the advantage of holding onto them?

The reason I opt for creationism is because the scientific evidence points that way. Is it a naturalistic explanation? No. Do you require all explanations to be naturalistic? Apparently so. Again, you seem to be rejecting creationism a priori, regardless of the science.

So far, for the last several hundred years, the scientific method has required explanations to be naturalistic. That makes them testable. Can the scientific method test your creationism-based non-naturalistic explanation without having to be changed in some fundamental way? You've already got through saying that we can't expect God to work in ways we understand simply because that makes things convenient for us. Assuming that God is involved in creationism, and assuming that God is working in ways that make sense to God but may or may not make sense to us, where does that leave the scientific method?

Actually, I'm not using rhetorical techniques. Spontaneous change, as I'm sure you know, is the scientific term for the changes that a system undergoes without outside interference. All by itself, to a lower free energy level.

What do you mean by "outside influence" here? If a process requires catalysis or energy input to reach its lower energy level, is it still spontaneous?

I'm simply pointing out that years of mutation experiments, as well as the centuries of breeding experience accrued indicate species are not like a piece of putty in one's hands. The evidence that we do have indicates that change is not unbounded.

What is the nature of the constraint that you claim exists? I assume this might be the focus of a certain amount of creationist research, since it's one prediction of the creationist model that ought to be testable.

judge

October 15, 2003, 06:24 PM

Hi all...

In a thread post here (which I can't find again, though I did cut and paste part of it) CD posted the following reference.

Also, convergent mutations are observed in SIV. See, for example:

Buckley, et al, " Convergent evolution of SIV env after independent inoculation of rhesus macaques with infectious proviral DNA," Virology, 312:470-80, 2003.

where they write: "The env gene of three simian immunodeficiency virus (SIV) variants developed convergent mutations during disease progression in six rhesus macaques. progression. ... three regions consistently mutated in all monkeys studied; these similar mutations developed independently even though the animals had received only a single infectious molecular clone rather than standard viral inocula that contain viral quasispecies. Together, these data indicate that the env genes of SIVmac239, SIVdelta3, and SIVdelta3+, in the context of different proviral backbones, evolve similarly in different hosts during disease progression."

Another poster followed up with this reply.

A more recent paper posits the explanation that the pseudogene took two hits - a reduction in promoter function in the common ancestor of gibbons and hominidae followed by different nonsense mutations in those lineages

The conclusion isn't strange at all, if there is selective advantage in turning off a gene, then inactivating mutations in it will be favoured. The hypothesis is that urate, having antioxidant properties, may contribute to longer lifespans and a reduction in cancer rate.

Did we get a reference for this more recent paper, and could we have some further explanation?

Thanks in advance.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 01:52 AM

Originally posted by markfiend
Common descent predicts a nested heirarchy. That you refuse to accept this is puzzling unless it is a result of your religious dogma.

I would imagine that once one line of (probably chemotrophic) life got going, it and its descendants "ate" the precursor molecules necessary for any further abiogenesis. Before you point it out, I am aware that this is speculative, but it does give reason to believe that more than a small number of abiogenesis events is unlikely.

and,

Originally posted by Ipetrich
CD wrote: There are two points two understand. First, evolution does not predict the species to form a nested hierarchy, as discussed a few posts back:

It does -- CD has clearly not done much studying of the only diagram in Origin of Species.

C'mon guys, this is not complicated. You claimed that evolution predicts a nested hierarchy. I gave two ways that evolution can explain the species if there were no such hierarchy: multiple abiogenesis events and high rates of evolution. Both of these mechanisms are used by evolutionists today. So their use for the absence a of hierarchy would be perfectly reasonable. And either mechanism does the job.

markfiend you argue that one might expect only a few abiogenesis events. Sure, you can make that argument. But if there were no nested hierarchy you would have the option of reversing that argument too. Ipetrich, you say the only figure in Origin of Species makes this prediction. No it doesn't. That was an attempt to explain a known fact. It was known a hundred years before.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 02:16 AM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
...But now creationism can be falsified?

How, pray tell?

For about the 13th time, by showing the evolution is compelling.

quote:
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You are not making much sense. One of the important things about HERVs is that cannot become lost. You are obviously not reading the posts, we've gone over this a couple times already. This is why the HERV evidence is intriguing. The human site is a clean pre insertion segment; there never was an HERV there. But under common descent there must have been. The only way around this is to make up a just-so story about how it could have gotten into the lower species but somehow never into the human line.
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Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Um, no, it's YOU who isn't reading the thread. It was explained many pages ago how an HERV can become lost, leaving an apparently pristine pre-insertion site.

No. The argument given in the paper is that the gorilla split now must be viewed as coming just prior to the chimp-human split (in spite of data to the contrary); and that the provirus infects the common ancestor, but it coexists with an clean, preinsertion site allele. It successfully becomes fixed in the gorilla, but that occurs only after the gorilla had split off. Meanwhile, on the chimp-human branch it is not fixed yet. Then you have the chimp-human split, and it subsequently becomes fixed in the chimp, but not human. The HERV does not become lost, this story has it never becoming fixed. So let's not forget, evolution is now committed to the position that the gorilla cannot have split off so long before the chimp-human split.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 02:22 AM

quote:
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No explanatory value for creationism? Well it explains why evolution fares so poorly; and it explains the source of consciousness. Furthermore, as with scientific theories creationism cannot be proved true, but it can be falsified.
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Originally posted by Albion
How does it explain why evolution fares poorly? To what extent are creationism and evolution related such that the existence of one can explain a problem with the other? Surely problems with theories are the outcome of disagreements with data, rather than being anything to do with other theories.

As far as the source of consciousness is concerned, creationism is the notion that a deity is responsible for everything. As long as consciousness is part of everything, it follows that creationism would include it. But how is saying "Goddidit" any sort of explanation? It's a theological statement, and once you've said it, are you really any clearer about consciousness from the scientific viewpoint?

How can creationism be falsified?

Good points. Creationism doesn't explain why evolution fares poorly; my mistake. Same for consciousness. My point should be that consciousness is a problem for materialism, but not for creationism.

Creationism can be falsified by formulating a compelling theory of evolution.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 02:47 AM

quote:
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You see, what I'm pointing out is how poorly materialism accords with our experience and knowledge. Our sense of good and evil; consciousness; our sense of free will; and so forth. Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves.
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Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
I honestly don't see what the problem is. Why can't you spell it out?

Can you show me where the laws of logic are? Of course not, they are not material. A ~= ~A. Do you believe that is a law of logic?

Have you ever felt that something/one is evil? You know it is evil. Or likewise, that something is right and good? But that is a non material attribute.

With materialism there is no such thing as good or evil; merely matter and energy interacting in our heads, forming phantasms of such notions, but they are really nothing more than molecules interacting. Therefore, with materialism, we must deny what is so plainly obvious to us. What is plainly evil or good to us; we must deny and say there is no such thing.

The same for things such as truth, free will, etc. These are plainly obvious to us, but we must deny them. I call the laws of logic, evil, good, free will, etc. non material things. Do you disagree? Then we must be deluded. And then why do you argue you are right and I am wrong? How can we establish that evolution is true, or anything else for that matter? You have no basis for truth, yet you argue for it.

Albion

October 16, 2003, 03:06 AM

Creationism can be falsified by formulating a compelling theory of evolution.

Yes, I know you keep saying that; it's just that it seems awfully subjective. To the vast majority of researchers in the field, the current theory of evolution IS compelling. That's why it's the current theory, not the former theory. I think we're all aware that there are some varieties of creationists (not including yourself, I gather) for whom a theory that contradicts their version of the Genesis story in the Bible is never going to be compelling, regardless of the scientific evidence. They need it not to be true for reasons totally unrelated to science, so they grasp the "scientific" refutations available at the creationist ministry websites and insist that they have scientific objections. No amount of data or anything else scientific will make any difference to them; the current theory of evolution will never be compelling (nor will any other theories unless they accord with the Genesis story), and thye'll swear blind (and probably even believe) that their objections are scientific. There's no way anybody could formulate a theory that would be compelling to them. There are people in the ID field who have tied methodological naturalism so tightly to philosophical naturalism, and have tied the latter rather tightly to all the ills of society, that a theory of human origins that doesn't involve God is unacceptable for reasons that don't necessarily have a lot to do with science but are more important to them than science. A naturalistic theory is never going to be compelling to those people because it has too much societal and cultural baggage attached as far as they're concerned - but again, in order to get their version of evolution accepted, they'll insist that their objections are purely scientific. There's no way that the current theory or any other theory that's naturalistic is going to compel these groups, because it's the naturalism that they object to. So are we going to have to say that creationism wins by default because the faithful will never be compelled? Or where do we draw the line in terms of who "compelling" refers to?

Again, as I said earlier, I thought that theories were supposed to be supported or falsified on the basis of their ability to explain the available data, not by direct competition with another theory. Creationism can't really compete directly with the current theory of evolution anyway, because they have different points of origin - methodological naturalism and "God created but we can't necessarily understand how he did so" don't come close to comparing like with like.

markfiend

October 16, 2003, 03:16 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
C'mon guys, this is not complicated. You claimed that evolution predicts a nested hierarchy.
Fer &^$&*% sake Charles, NO! I claimed that common descent predicts a nested heirarchy. You even put the $&^@�ing quote up on your post!

This is only one example of your deliberate twisting of what I and others on this thread say. I will withdraw from this thread (for now; I may be back) until I can regain my temper. I do not wish to give moderators cause to censure me.

monkenstick

October 16, 2003, 03:18 AM

Creationism can be falsified by formulating a compelling theory of evolution.

compelling to whom?
compelling to you?

how about compelling to the vast majority of biologists around the world?

lpetrich

October 16, 2003, 03:53 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
For about the 13th time, by showing the evolution is compelling. ... While raising the bar of compellingness much higher for evolution than for creationism.

lpetrich

October 16, 2003, 03:59 AM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
With materialism there is no such thing as good or evil; ...

The same for things such as truth, free will, etc. These are plainly obvious to us, but we must deny them. I call the laws of logic, evil, good, free will, etc. non material things. ...So there is some special stuff that these things are composed of?

Except that there are lots of "nonmaterial" things, like waves, that nobody considers composed of some special stuff. Are waves composed of wave-stuff?

Jack the Bodiless

October 16, 2003, 05:09 AM

C'mon guys, this is not complicated. You claimed that evolution predicts a nested hierarchy. I gave two ways that evolution can explain the species if there were no such hierarchy: multiple abiogenesis events and high rates of evolution. Both of these mechanisms are used by evolutionists today. So their use for the absence a of hierarchy would be perfectly reasonable. And either mechanism does the job.
This is the same fallacy I described earlier. You are failing to address the FACT that these factors DID NOT erase the hirearchy.

It's certainly a very curious fallacy: one I've not seen before. I doubt that it has a formal name. "Yes, your honour, I am aware that my client dropped his gun while fleeing from the murder scene, and that the gun was registered in his name and bore his fingerprints. But, you see, he might not have dropped it: and, if he'd held on to it instead, the prosecution would have no case against my client. Therefore the evidence is inadmissible, because it might not have existed".

Of course, it's also extremely unlikely that these factors could erase the hirearchy anyhow. Multiple abiogenesis events would result in different strains of unrelated microbes. And even if we assume that multiple strains evolved multicellular organisms, we would merely have a few distinct nested hirearchies rather than one: it would be rather obvious which hirearchy each organism belonged to, just as we have no problem recognising the difference between a bird and an insect today.

Nor can "a high rate of evolution" be invoked. Whenever this occurs (e.g. after a mass extinction), it is from pre-existing organisms. This has certainly been true of every such event since the Cambrian Explosion: new phyla don't suddenly appear after mass-extinctions, and indeed they cannot. Complex organisms don't "poof" into existence.
...But now creationism can be falsified?

How, pray tell?

For about the 13th time, by showing the evolution is compelling.
Again, you have no understanding of how the scientific method operates. "Falsification" is a scientific term: if you're attempting to discuss science with us, then you need to learn scientific terminology and methods.

In science, a theory cannot be "falsified" merely by presenting a rival theory. "Falsification" refers to the process of testing a theory "to destruction" and coming up with evidence incompatible with the theory. Scientists must then modify or discard the theory.

You have failed to describe any hypothetical test of creationism: a test which could potentially prove that it is false.

...Whereas common descent would have to be discarded if organisms didn't fit into a nested hirearchy (or perhaps two or three, assuming your highly implausible "multicellular organisms from multiple abiogenesis events" scenario had actually occurred), or if the order of their appearance in the fossil record didn't correlate at all with the hirearchy derived from their physical characteristics, or if DNA analysis didn't show the same pattern. It is the close correlation of these hirearchies which makes common descent just about the surest bet in science.
Um, no, it's YOU who isn't reading the thread. It was explained many pages ago how an HERV can become lost, leaving an apparently pristine pre-insertion site.

No. The argument given in the paper is that the gorilla split now must be viewed as coming just prior to the chimp-human split (in spite of data to the contrary); and that the provirus infects the common ancestor, but it coexists with an clean, preinsertion site allele. It successfully becomes fixed in the gorilla, but that occurs only after the gorilla had split off. Meanwhile, on the chimp-human branch it is not fixed yet. Then you have the chimp-human split, and it subsequently becomes fixed in the chimp, but not human. The HERV does not become lost, this story has it never becoming fixed. So let's not forget, evolution is now committed to the position that the gorilla cannot have split off so long before the chimp-human split.
How is "it became lost because it wasn't fixed" incompatible with what I said?

Evidence that this scenario won't work?
Good points. Creationism doesn't explain why evolution fares poorly; my mistake. Same for consciousness. My point should be that consciousness is a problem for materialism, but not for creationism.
Nope, we don't yet know exactly how consciousness works, regardless of how we choose to believe that it originated. There is, however, no known reason to assume that consciousness did not evolve.
Creationism can be falsified by formulating a compelling theory of evolution.
This has been done, yet creationists still exist.
You see, what I'm pointing out is how poorly materialism accords with our experience and knowledge. Our sense of good and evil; consciousness; our sense of free will; and so forth. Materialism is left with, as with evolution, the explanation that these non material things just arose by themselves.

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
I honestly don't see what the problem is. Why can't you spell it out?

Can you show me where the laws of logic are? Of course not, they are not material. A ~= ~A. Do you believe that is a law of logic?

Have you ever felt that something/one is evil? You know it is evil. Or likewise, that something is right and good? But that is a non material attribute.

With materialism there is no such thing as good or evil; merely matter and energy interacting in our heads, forming phantasms of such notions, but they are really nothing more than molecules interacting. Therefore, with materialism, we must deny what is so plainly obvious to us. What is plainly evil or good to us; we must deny and say there is no such thing.
Good and evil can readily be explained in a materialistic context, using a combination of evolution and social convention. But why do you call these "non-material", as if they cannot be composed of "matter and energy interacting in our heads"? Where is your evidence that they are not?
The same for things such as truth, free will, etc. These are plainly obvious to us, but we must deny them.
I don't deny them, and I suspect you don't either. So who is this "we"?
I call the laws of logic, evil, good, free will, etc. non material things. Do you disagree? Then we must be deluded.
Yes, I disagree. Again, who is "we"?
And then why do you argue you are right and I am wrong? How can we establish that evolution is true, or anything else for that matter? You have no basis for truth, yet you argue for it.
Yes, I do. Why do you assume that I do not?

Evolution provides a basis for truth. I am descended from an unbroken chain of millions of ancestors whose survival has depended largely on being able to perceive their surroundings and deduce "truths" from those perceptions. All MY ancestors got this right, on every occasion where it really mattered. So did yours, though you won't give them the credit they deserve. Many did not, and died without progeny.

RufusAtticus

October 16, 2003, 07:54 AM

Charkes Darwin,

In case you haven't noticed, I've addressed Scadding's paper here (http://www.iidb.org/vbb/showthread.php?s=&threadid=65302).

Prince Vegita

October 16, 2003, 08:10 AM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
It's certainly a very curious fallacy: one I've not seen before. I doubt that it has a formal name. "Yes, your honour, I am aware that my client dropped his gun while fleeing from the murder scene, and that the gun was registered in his name and bore his fingerprints. But, you see, he might not have dropped it: and, if he'd held on to it instead, the prosecution would have no case against my client. Therefore the evidence is inadmissible, because it might not have existed".

Its probably called the Fallacy of the Precluded Possibility, or more likely the Argument from "Your Honor, I Got Nothing".

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 06:28 PM

Originally posted by monkenstick
Some instances of homoplasy are better explained by convergent mutation - the number is quite small compared to the 900 odd nucleotides that make up the exons of the gene

...

No, it isn't. You obviously need a course in cladistics - each monophyletic family all have exactly the same stop codon, and the phylogeny (the most likely tree considering all 900 odd positions, and not just the examples of convergence the authors highlighted) coincidently also supports the monophyly of both groups

You would have to show that convergent mutations occured at enough positions in the sequence to bias the phylogeny to putting all members of hominidae in one monophyletic group, and all members of hylobatidae in another monophyletic group.

Yes convergent mutations happen - but they don't happen at the level you require to claim that the errors in the urate oxidase gene are the result of convergent mutations in all members of hominidae

Oh, c'mon. You claimed that the "existence of pseudogenes like GLO is both confirmation of evolution and a huge problem for ID/YEC" and that "urate oxidase pseudogene is an even better example." I pointed out that there are several inconsistencies, including the fact that the inactivating events do not align with the phylogeny. Identical yet independent mutations to a pseudogene in different lineages must have occurred.

Now, you respond by saying, "yes, but look at the sequence on the whole, and how it aligns with the phylogeny." OF COURSE it does; no one doubts that. We can also say this about functioning genes as well. Hemoglobin aligns well. So what? You were claiming that pseudogenes provided compelling evidence. And now, instead of admitting that this pseudogene actually has nothing of the sort (and in fact reveals convergent mutations), you jump to a different claim altogether; that this pseudogene provides evidence that is no different than the evidence provided by any other gene.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 06:43 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
CD: Well please let me know when you discover origin stories that can be verified.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by NottyImp
Which is rather the point. Why should I believe your stories rather than, say, a Buddhist's?

Or science's?

Originally posted by NottyImp
Ah yes, the old "You cannot know the mind of God" cop-out. What I find absurd is that you are prepared to worship a being whose acts you admit you cannot understand.

But lets run with this for a moment. Accepting that the act of "poofing" species into existence is beyond my comprehension (should god ever deign to try to explain it to me), the consequence of his actions is not.

Clearly, if creationism is correct, then at some point in time and space, a population of a new species must appear on Earth. If one were videoing this event, perhaps it would quite literally just appear out of thin air.

Have you any evidence, Charles, that a new species has ever appeared on earth in this way? Do we have recordas of it from the last 300 years or so of natural philosophy? It would surely be a knock-out vindication of your position if you had.

What I said a few posts back still applies. You are defining creationism out of the picture. If I cannot show you how God creates, then you will not accept it. Despite the fact fossil species appear planted there; that they then remain unchanged until another species comes along. The horse sequence is a good example. Once touted as a stellar example of gradualism, evolutionists finally reckoned with its reality; it got repackaged as the prime example of punctuated equilibrium. Each species appears, remains unchanged, and goes extinct.

But since I cannot demonstrate to you how God creates, you reject it. You even find it absurd to hypothesize and believe in such a thing. Let us consider, for a moment, the possibility that evolution is wrong, and creationism is right. In that case, you would rule out the truth a priori.

Originally posted by NottyImp
I'm sorry, but who protests? Can you cite me references? I think this is precisely the rhetorical technique I was accusing you of using, charles.

Well I'm sorry, but it was not a rhetorical technique. Just look at the responses in this thread.

JonF

October 16, 2003, 06:59 PM

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Creationism can be falsified by formulating a compelling theory of evolution. [/B]

Nope. Simple logical error.

1. A and B cannot both be true.
2. I am convinced that A is true.
3. Therefore, B is false.

Statement 3 does not follow from 1 and 2. It would if statement 2 were "A has been proven to be true". However, since science does not deal with absolute proof, that will never happen, and creationism cannot be proven false in that manner.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 07:16 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Originally posted by Charles Darwin
C'mon guys, this is not complicated. You claimed that evolution predicts a nested hierarchy.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by markfiend
Fer &^$&*% sake Charles, NO! I claimed that common descent predicts a nested heirarchy. You even put the $&^@�ing quote up on your post!

This is only one example of your deliberate twisting of what I and others on this thread say. I will withdraw from this thread (for now; I may be back) until I can regain my temper. I do not wish to give moderators cause to censure me.

What? So markfiend does not claim that evolution predicts a nested heirarchy, but the common descent does? OK, whatever, but this doesn't change the fact that high rates of change would erase such a hierarchy; rates of change that are not only not ruled out by evolutionists but are in fact used by evolutionists to explain things. Such rates are certainly not ruled out by common descent so I don't see what the beef is.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 10:46 PM

Originally posted by Albion
Yes, I know you keep saying that; it's just that it seems awfully subjective. To the vast majority of researchers in the field, the current theory of evolution IS compelling. That's why it's the current theory, not the former theory. I think we're all aware that there are some varieties of creationists (not including yourself, I gather) for whom a theory that contradicts their version of the Genesis story in the Bible is never going to be compelling, regardless of the scientific evidence. They need it not to be true for reasons totally unrelated to science, so they grasp the "scientific" refutations available at the creationist ministry websites and insist that they have scientific objections. No amount of data or anything else scientific will make any difference to them; the current theory of evolution will never be compelling (nor will any other theories unless they accord with the Genesis story), and thye'll swear blind (and probably even believe) that their objections are scientific. There's no way anybody could formulate a theory that would be compelling to them. There are people in the ID field who have tied methodological naturalism so tightly to philosophical naturalism, and have tied the latter rather tightly to all the ills of society, that a theory of human origins that doesn't involve God is unacceptable for reasons that don't necessarily have a lot to do with science but are more important to them than science. A naturalistic theory is never going to be compelling to those people because it has too much societal and cultural baggage attached as far as they're concerned - but again, in order to get their version of evolution accepted, they'll insist that their objections are purely scientific. There's no way that the current theory or any other theory that's naturalistic is going to compel these groups, because it's the naturalism that they object to. So are we going to have to say that creationism wins by default because the faithful will never be compelled? Or where do we draw the line in terms of who "compelling" refers to?

Again, as I said earlier, I thought that theories were supposed to be supported or falsified on the basis of their ability to explain the available data, not by direct competition with another theory. Creationism can't really compete directly with the current theory of evolution anyway, because they have different points of origin - methodological naturalism and "God created but we can't necessarily understand how he did so" don't come close to comparing like with like.

Yes, it is awfully subjective. However, there is a big gap. It is not as though we are quibbling over some minor details, and we're right in the gray area between good theory / bad theory. Instead, evolutionists say their theory is a fact, and there is no evidence against it; whereas it seems quite clear to me that we are nowhere close to this situation. Evolution is not close to be a good theory, much less a fact.

I can't speak for those creationists and ID people you refer to.

Are evolution and creation in competition? You probably missed some earlier posts about the definition of evolution. I have been using evolution as "the theory that the species arose via naturalistic means" which is really the complement of creationism. If evolution is a fact, creationism is superfluous (and wrong to my way of thinking).

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 10:59 PM

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
This is the same fallacy I described earlier. You are failing to address the FACT that these factors DID NOT erase the hirearchy.

It's certainly a very curious fallacy: one I've not seen before. I doubt that it has a formal name. "Yes, your honour, I am aware that my client dropped his gun while fleeing from the murder scene, and that the gun was registered in his name and bore his fingerprints. But, you see, he might not have dropped it: and, if he'd held on to it instead, the prosecution would have no case against my client. Therefore the evidence is inadmissible, because it might not have existed".

and,

Originally posted by Wynand
Its probably called the Fallacy of the Precluded Possibility, or more likely the Argument from "Your Honor, I Got Nothing".

The common name for this fallacy is 'strawman' argument. You are mischaracterizing my point in order to defeat it. Let me condense the discussion for you:

Evo: Here is an example of why evolution is such a good theory. It predicts the species to fall into a nested hierarchy. If that weren't so the theory would be all wrong, and we'd drop it.

Cr: Oh really?

Evo: Yes indeed.

Cr: But if the species were not in a nested hierarchy your theory could explain that too.

Evo: No it couldn't.

Cr: Yes it could. You have two mechanisms that could explain this: multiple abiogenesis events and rapid rates of change that occurred in the past. Both these mechanisms are accepted within evolution.

Evo: That's meaningless. You have failed to falsify evolution.

Cr: That wasn't the point. You claimed to have a prediction. I showed that it is not a prediction.

Evo: Oh.

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Of course, it's also extremely unlikely that these factors could erase the hirearchy anyhow. Multiple abiogenesis events would result in different strains of unrelated microbes. And even if we assume that multiple strains evolved multicellular organisms, we would merely have a few distinct nested hirearchies rather than one: it would be rather obvious which hirearchy each organism belonged to, just as we have no problem recognising the difference between a bird and an insect today.

Why would multiple unrelated microbes, evolving into multicellular organisms, have to form nested hierarchies? Why couldn't they lead to a single species via anagenesis?

EDIT- Add this:

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Whereas common descent would have to be discarded if organisms didn't fit into a nested hirearchy (or perhaps two or three, assuming your highly implausible "multicellular organisms from multiple abiogenesis events" scenario had actually occurred),

Highly implausible? Are you saying abiogenesis is highly implausible?

Albion

October 16, 2003, 11:17 PM

Instead, evolutionists say their theory is a fact, and there is no evidence against it; whereas it seems quite clear to me that we are nowhere close to this situation. Evolution is not close to be a good theory, much less a fact.

I don't see anybody here claiming that the theory of evolution is a fact or even that it's the last word in scientific explanation. Most of the posters here have some post-high-school science education, several are science professionals, and they know that theories are only as good as the latest lot of data. People have said so a number of times during this thread. The argument seems to be that the posters here, along with just about the entire scientific community that works on relevant subjects, see the theory of evolution as being a very strongly supported theory without any serious evidence against it, and that the only people who are claiming that there's a lot of evidence against it also just happen to be theists trying to push a supernatural explanation, not trying to replace the current naturalistic theory with another naturalistic theory, which would be the normal way to proceed if a theory was showing a greater and greater accumulation of problems in explaining the data. This suggests (to me at any rate) that there's an ulterior motive in play, which means that the people trying to push the supernatural origin are never going to be satisfied that any regular theory will explain the data.

Are evolution and creation in competition? You probably missed some earlier posts about the definition of evolution. I have been using evolution as "the theory that the species arose via naturalistic means" which is really the complement of creationism. If evolution is a fact, creationism is superfluous (and wrong to my way of thinking).

No, I didn't miss them, cos I'm the one who asked what you meant by naturalistic means, remember? You know, since all scientific theories that explain bodies of data will do so on the basis that naturalistic means were involved, and I was wondering why you were singling out evolution. Your definition of the theory of evolution seems to be a lot broader than the one used in the scientific community. Rather than restricting it to genetic variation and various forms of selection, which is (more or less) the current theory, you're saying (if I'm reading you right) that any theory of evolution that's restricted to natural processes is going to come up short because the evidence can't be explained without recourse to supernatural intervention. However, since the form of that intervention is apparently not necessarily susceptible to investigation or understanding by mere humans, you seem to be putting forward a process that can explain anything you care to throw at it, along with its stellar opposite, and that starts to be less than useful for practical purposes.

Charles Darwin

October 16, 2003, 11:36 PM

quote:
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
I call the laws of logic, evil, good, free will, etc. non material things. Do you disagree?
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Yes, I disagree.

OK, so where are the laws of logic?

Charles Darwin

October 17, 2003, 12:12 AM

Originally posted by Albion
(1) Why would it be evidence against materialism rather than against the particular theory? Do you mean to say that if the current theory of evolution is ever invalidated in the eyes of the scientific commnuity in general, there's no point looking for an alternative theory because the entire concept of an explanation based on purely natural processes has been invalidated along with evolution by variation and selection? And if the explanation based on natural processes is invalidated, and the scientific method is grounded in explanations based on natural processes, then what does this do for the scientific method in general?

(2) Why would these things be illusions just because they have a basis in the natural world? Come to that, why are you so sure they're non-material - is the study of neurology really sufficiently advanced that we can draw this conclusion with so much confidence? If free will or conscience is just one of many mental processes, rather than being a function of a deity, why would it not be just as real as anything else our brains come up with?

(3) Well, if accepting creationism means accepting that God may have created in ways that we don't or can't understand, then what are we actually all doing? Why bother to even try and understand anything? And why rely on saying that evolution is invalid in order to advance creationism as the most likely explanation? If we don't or can't know how God did it, then creationism is just as likely to have occurred even if the theory of evolution provides a watertight explanation.

(4) Absurd explanations have been abandoned before now, even though they wre mechanistic. When explanations progressively fail to explain, what is the advantage of holding onto them?

(5) So far, for the last several hundred years, the scientific method has required explanations to be naturalistic. That makes them testable. Can the scientific method test your creationism-based non-naturalistic explanation without having to be changed in some fundamental way? You've already got through saying that we can't expect God to work in ways we understand simply because that makes things convenient for us. Assuming that God is involved in creationism, and assuming that God is working in ways that make sense to God but may or may not make sense to us, where does that leave the scientific method?

(6) What do you mean by "outside influence" here? If a process requires catalysis or energy input to reach its lower energy level, is it still spontaneous?

(7) What is the nature of the constraint that you claim exists? I assume this might be the focus of a certain amount of creationist research, since it's one prediction of the creationist model that ought to be testable.

(1) No, I'm not saying that. Sure look for another naturalistic theory. What will they call it? Evolution. You see, evolution is not based on natural selection; that is a subhypothesis. We can take it or leave it. The essence of the theory is naturalistic processes. It is not as though there are other alternatives out there that someday might rise up and conquer evolution. No, they will become evolution. Even some for of Lamarckianism could do this if it looked plausible. So you think that the scientific method must be grounded in explanations based on natural processes. Than what happens if creationism is true?

(2) Are you saying the laws of logic are not non-material?

(3) You are mischaracterizing creationism. The understanding that God created things is a science starter, not stopper. And if evolution were compelling, then it would be fair to conclude creationism is false since God does not deceive.

(5) Where does that leave the scientific method? Imagine asking Isaac Newton this question.

(6) No, you'd have to enlarge the control volume to include the energy source. There is no big mystery here. The free energy of a system includes both the enthalpic and entropic contributions. Systems don't merely decrease the former or increase the latter, they decrease the free energy, and they do so spontaneously. Any other response will require external interference.

(7) The nature of the constraint? Good question. I don't know. We did discuss this a bit a few pages back though. I pointed out it could be kinetic (i.e., the pathway is highly unlikely), or the pathway may include fitness barriers, or the pathway may have function barriers.

Charles Darwin

October 17, 2003, 01:00 AM

Originally posted by Albion
I don't see anybody here claiming that the theory of evolution is a fact ...

Then you must not be reading the posts here very carefully or the evolution literature. It is a standard claim. It has been made repeatedly here, and to no suprise, it is the accepted wisdom amongst evolutionists.

lpetrich

October 17, 2003, 01:17 AM

"Charles Darwin":
Sure look for another naturalistic theory. ...

Or even another non-naturalistic theory like invisible elves performing genetic engineering over the eons.

(3) You are mischaracterizing creationism. The understanding that God created things is a science starter, not stopper. ...

Male-bovine excrement. Because "goddidit" can explain anything, especially when coupled with the claim that we cannot really know why god did this or that.

Simply consider the response you had made earlier to my asking about predator-prey and parasite-host relationships. Consider:

Grass
Deer
Wolves
Fleas
Wolbachia bacteria
Bacteriophages

This looks like more than one designer to me -- IF it was designed.

Systems don't merely decrease the former or increase the latter, they decrease the free energy, and they do so spontaneously. Any other response will require external interference.

Meaning that it's impossible for growth to happen, since it requires an increase in free energy.

The Lone Ranger

October 17, 2003, 01:38 AM

Originally posted by Albion
I don't see anybody here claiming that the theory of evolution is a fact ...

Originally posted by Charles Darwin
Then you must not be reading the posts here very carefully or the evolution literature. It is a standard claim. It has been made repeatedly here, and to no suprise, it is the accepted wisdom amongst evolutionists.

I'm finding it more and more difficult to believe that "Charles Darwin" is for real.

By this point in this long conversation, he cannot possibly be unaware of the simple yet critically important distinction between the facts of evolution [that populations of organisms can and do evolve (it's not as if we don't observe this happening in real time, after all), and that the overwhelming consensus of the scientific community is that common descent has been demonstrated beyond any reasonable doubt], and the theories of evolution [which explain those facts].

Cheers,

Michael

monkenstick

October 17, 2003, 01:56 AM

Oh, c'mon. You claimed that the "existence of pseudogenes like GLO is both confirmation of evolution and a huge problem for ID/YEC" and that "urate oxidase pseudogene is an even better example." I pointed out that there are several inconsistencies, including the fact that the inactivating events do not align with the phylogeny. Identical yet independent mutations to a pseudogene in different lineages must have occurred.

the inactivating events do align with the phylogeny, that was my whole point!

Each monophyletic group has a shared derived STOP codon in its sequence.

Now, you respond by saying, "yes, but look at the sequence on the whole, and how it aligns with the phylogeny." OF COURSE it does; no one doubts that. We can also say this about functioning genes as well. Hemoglobin aligns well. So what? You were claiming that pseudogenes provided compelling evidence. And now, instead of admitting that this pseudogene actually has nothing of the sort (and in fact reveals convergent mutations), you jump to a different claim altogether; that this pseudogene provides evidence that is no different than the evidence provided by any other gene.

if a broken gene aligns well with the phylogeny, then ID has big problems, because homology and phylogeny are claimed to be due to common design, which requires that the characters used to derive the phylogeny actually have a function (which pseudogenes don't)

So unless you invoke ridiculous amounts of convergence (which aren't supported by the few papers you dredged up) to explain away the evidence, what we have here is the common descent of a broken gene - and a big problem for ID and YEC

Jack the Bodiless

October 17, 2003, 03:42 AM

The common name for this fallacy is 'strawman' argument. You are mischaracterizing my point in order to defeat it. Let me condense the discussion for you:

Evo: Here is an example of why evolution is such a good theory. It predicts the species to fall into a nested hierarchy. If that weren't so the theory would be all wrong, and we'd drop it.

Cr: Oh really?

Evo: Yes indeed.

Cr: But if the species were not in a nested hierarchy your theory could explain that too.

Evo: No it couldn't.

Cr: Yes it could. You have two mechanisms that could explain this: multiple abiogenesis events and rapid rates of change that occurred in the past. Both these mechanisms are accepted within evolution.

Evo: That's meaningless. You have failed to falsify evolution.

Cr: That wasn't the point. You claimed to have a prediction. I showed that it is not a prediction.

Evo: Oh.
Charles, the lack of a nested hirearchy COULD NOT be explained by "multiple abiogenesis events and rapid rates of change that occurred in the past". It is ludicrous to suggest that these could completely erase any trace of a nested hirearchy.

Therefore the prediction stands.

Furthermore, even if it were true that this MIGHT have happened (which it is NOT), the FACT is that the nested hirearchy DOES exist, and DOES confirm common descent.

No amount of prayer will make the evidence go away, Charles.
Why would multiple unrelated microbes, evolving into multicellular organisms, have to form nested hierarchies? Why couldn't they lead to a single species via anagenesis?
NOW who is using a "strawman", Charles?

Evolution is a theory created to explain the FACT of common descent, as indicated by the EVIDENCE for common descent. But now you're suggesting that evolution would still be considered a good theory even if all species had emerged from thousands upon thousands of independent abiogenesis events?

There is no need for me to address this absurdity.
Whereas common descent would have to be discarded if organisms didn't fit into a nested hirearchy (or perhaps two or three, assuming your highly implausible "multicellular organisms from multiple abiogenesis events" scenario had actually occurred)...

Highly implausible? Are you saying abiogenesis is highly implausible?
What part of that sentence did you not understand? Again, why do you consider that making yourself look stupid is a worthwhile debating tactic?
I call the laws of logic, evil, good, free will, etc. non material things. Do you disagree?

Originally posted by Jack the Bodiless
Yes, I disagree.

OK, so where are the laws of logic?
You already know the answer to this question. It is the answer YOU provided: "merely matter and energy interacting in our heads".

Evolution explains why matter and energy would interact in this fashion: to produce a model which resembles how the outside world appears to operate.

NottyImp

October 17, 2003, 04:59 AM

CD: What I said a few posts back still applies. You are defining creationism out of the picture.

I'm sorry, Charles, but I don't know what this means. Perhaps you could explain it to me in more detail?

CD:The horse sequence is a good example. Once touted as a stellar example of gradualism, evolutionists finally reckoned with its reality; it got repackaged as the prime example of punctuated equilibrium. Each species appears, remains unchanged, and goes extinct.

So your primary evidence for creationism is the fossil record? But you don't have any from the period of human history that encompasses the time that we have studied the natural world using the scientific method?

But since I cannot demonstrate to you how God creates, you reject it.

Actually, I think I conceded the point in this part of the debate (for the sake of argument, at least) that we cannot "know the mind of god" and asked you instead for evidence of creation. You seem to have given me some in citing the fossil record. Hence my question above.

You even find it absurd to hypothesize and believe in such a thing. Let us consider, for a moment, the possibility that evolution is wrong, and creationism is right. In that case, you would rule out the truth a priori.

If we are hypothesising beyond the material, Charles, then anything is possible, and all equally useless as an explanation of the natural world. It is you that aserts that a Christian god created the world as we see it. Perhaps instead I should ask you how you know that?

Well I'm sorry, but it was not a rhetorical technique. Just look at the responses in this thread.

OK, let me put it this way. Has anyone on this thread disagreed with this statement about evolution, made by yourself?

"This means that the species arose via the play of natural forces."

If they have, please point me to it. Everyone on here who is an evolutionist knows that what they are proposing initially is abiogenesis from inanimate matter, followed by evolution regulated by natural selection. It is you that has the personal credulity problem with this, not us.

Or science's?

You didn't answer the question I posed with this response.

But anyway. Are you saying that what science does is equivalent to myths?

Jack the Bodiless

October 17, 2003, 05:30 AM

...Waaait a minute...
C'mon guys, this is not complicated. You claimed that evolution predicts a nested hierarchy. I gave two ways that evolution can explain the species if there were no such hierarchy: multiple abiogenesis events and high rates of evolution. Both of these mechanisms are used by evolutionists today. So their use for the absence a of hierarchy would be perfectly reasonable. And either mechanism does the job.
Since when have multiple abiogenesis events been "a mechanism used by evolutionists today"?

Sure, multiple abiogenesis events may have occurred. Given the speed with which life appeared on Earth, it's likely that abiogenesis occurs quite readily (and also likely that it appeared several times during the planet's "heavy bombardment" period, only to be wiped out). But that's not the same as claiming that multiple abiogenesis events are a "mechanism" that are actually used to explain a difficulty within evolutionary theory!

Furthermore, the length of the "Age of Microbes" and the late appearance of multicellular life are indications that THIS step is difficult and improbable. And every single true multicellular life-form that we know about is a eukaryote: genetically, they all stem from just one branch of the microbial "Tree of Life" (hence the claim that we share 50% of our DNA with bananas: we are, relatively, closely related to bananas).

No scientist is using "multiple abiogenesis events" to explain any aspect of the "tree" of common descent among multicellular lifeforms, or even among bacteria (as far as I know). While it's remotely possible that some obscure virus is so alien that somebody has suggested that it might stem from a separate abiogenesis event, I have never heard of this (and it would be BIG news).
(1) No, I'm not saying that. Sure look for another naturalistic theory. What will they call it? Evolution. You see, evolution is not based on natural selection; that is a subhypothesis. We can take it or leave it. The essence of the theory is naturalistic processes. It is not as though there are other alternatives out there that someday might rise up and conquer evolution. No, they will become evolution. Even some for of Lamarckianism could do this if it looked plausible. So you think that the scientific method must be grounded in explanations based on natural processes. Than what happens if creationism is true?
This is obviously another strawman argument. Yes, it's possible that if Lamarckinaism was true, the word "evolution" would be used for it. But the modern, accepted theory of evolution IS based on natural selection (along with mutation, genetic drift etc), and natural selection IS at the very core of the theory.

When biologists use the word "evolution", they do NOT mean "naturalistic processes".
(3) You are mischaracterizing creationism. The understanding that God created things is a science starter, not stopper. And if evolution were compelling, then it would be fair to conclude creationism is false since God does not deceive.
No, YOU are mischaracterizing creationism. It is NOT "the understanding that God created things". It specifically rejects COMMON DESCENT. It makes a statement about HOW "God created things": a statement that is incompatible with the evidence, and profoundly anti-scientific.

You just can't keep your strawmen in line, can you?

...And how can you possibly know that "God does not deceive"?

You admit that creationism is "falsifiable". According to you, this is achievable by a "compelling" theory of evolution. Therefore, if I'm navigating correctly through the fog of misapplied terms, what you're actually saying is that you admit that a naturalistic, materialistic, godless Universe is possible, and that evidence for it might yet be presented that would "compel" even YOU.

Is this correct? And what evidence for this would be "compelling"?